LessThanHumble.com

While developing one of our internal websites I decided to develop a system to track user browsing and input habits to enable us to further develop the website. This is really in a effort to improve usability, and not to mention our return on investment on advertising and bringing traffic to the website.

I will try include the base of the code later, but basically the system tracks each unique visitor (based upon IP address), initiates a session for the user, creates a log entry for every page view, and tracks data posted to each page(ie: the input from all forms). We can then generate statistics based upon these habits to determine how visitors are navigating the website and what they are using. Further more, we then use these statistics to determine the average/common habits of our users/visitors and then decide what we think is a positive/negative outcome of such habits.

So basically we track every page view, then for each user we determine whether or not they did a positive or negative action for us. An example of a positive action might be a product purchase, or an example of a negative action might be an account cancellation. We then take these statistics and determine what are the common habits for users who complete both positive actions (to improve the number of these) and those that complete negative actions in effort to discourage and such actions.

It is really a basic concept and I’m sure over the next few weeks we will modify things appropriately to improve the system. At that time I will try to make an effort to post it on here.

None the less, I found a great article containing a overview of the principle behind monitoring user activity that may be worth skimming:
http://www2006.org/programme/files/xhtml/17/xhtml/fp17-atterer.html

I should caution that you really need to consider such racking measures and notify your visitors through a privacy policy because their are definitely some legal considerations to worry about.

What do you guys think?

As of the 5th of this month, I am finally finished my work at my former employer, DakotaCom.Net. Sadly enough it took nearly three weeks for the effect, the relief, to kick in. I am happy to announce that this effect has finally kicked in and I am back to the prior motivation that I had before I started working for this company. Though, I am thankful that through this past year I have really come to realize that I’m may not necessarily be the best candidate to work for a company other than my own. This is primarily attributed to the fact that I feel I am an entrepreneur at heart and as such, already have way-too-much on my plate, and my own businesses to favor. I will say that I appreciated this recent job for the most part because I learned a lot, most importantly, the nit and grit of the technology world and running a successful business in such a cut-throat market.

In terms of exciting news, I am looking at getting a new vehicle of some sort. Fortunately DakotaCom.Net provided me with a company car that I was able to use for personal use, but now that I no longer work for them, I have to resort back to the old ride (1996 Buick Regal Baby!) which because of it’s 200,000+ miles on it, it is becoming less and less reliable. Money is not an issue nor is the need of financing. I am looking at either a 2005+ GMC Yukon, 2005+ Ford F150, or a new Honda Accord. Totally random, and non of them really compare to each other, I just need to decide what I’ll need for transportation and buy the vehicle that most closely matches that. Hopefully I can make a viable decision on it this week, until then I’m crippling around in the Buick, and riding my bicycle most places - how humbling.

On a brighter light, we’re finally ordering new PCs this week for SophMedia, which I’m really excited about. Basically we’re building 2 Pentium D 2.66Ghz machines with dual 20″ on each machine, plus all the rest of the good stuff. The best thing about it is that out the door we are only dropping $2,747 (thanks Newegg!) on them, including shipping. Hopefully this helps increase productivity and maybe even my excitement to put more effort into posting here.

Speaking of the businesses, we are in the process of reorganizing RuckusWorks (AZEntertained.com, Rated*.com, etc), and reorganizing the partnership arrangements. Although it is best not to release all of the details, I am happy to mention that the outcome will be really positive for the business. SophMedia on the other hand is doing great, we have been overwhelmed with local and internet-based projects, nearly too many, and are in the process of launching another project/website this week (I’ll announce that later this week) and finishing up the final touches on XStreamHost.com / APanel.

None the less, I have got to get cranking on my huge list of things to catch up on, until next time - Take it easy!

“My son is now an “entrepreneur.” That’s what you’re called when you don’t have a job.” - Ted Turner

Well, first off, it has been a while since I’ve posted an article. I’ve been busy completing a three-month long project that has unfortunately been extended several times. Initially I started it in April and was planning on rebuilding the web hosting platform that I support my customers with. Thankfully I’m finally getting towards the end. Of course though, the last 5% is the most painful portion.

But none the less, I wanted to drop a post regarding the heated ‘Overselling’ delimma. For starters, I am a comfortable fan of overselling my services to my customers (to an extent) and I don’t find any company who follows this same ideal, within reason, at fault - even if I’m their customer.

Why are people so afraid of it?

I’m not really sure why soap box’n people are so afraid of it, but this is especially noticed around the web hosting industry. A market that has been trashed by price wars, yet continually you hear people on their soap box’s complaining about company X or company Y who is clearly overselling their services. Now I must admit, the occurence of overselling in web hosting does continually pose a problem because many of these companies, aren’t companies. They are simply websites setup in haste to sell web hosting services by people who do not know the first thing about providing services to customers let alone maintaining and supporting those services. But there are plenty of honest companies - my self included - who oversell our services to a reasonable extent. Why? Why not let your customers take the cost benefit of a the fact that 90% of customers will never use anywhere near 50% of their alloted services. 

When is too much - too much?

As my example, the web hosting industry is a great example of where people are overselling way too far. It is obvious that Joe Blow’s Hosting cannot support nor facilitate 300 15Gb (all paying $1.95/mo - what a joke) web hosting accounts on a single server (with say 60Gbs of storage), nor can a “Dedicated Server” company provide a customer with 2000Gbs of bandwidth on a cap’d 5Mb connection (for those of you who are not aware that 5Mb x 320Gbs = 1600Gbs). All of which occurs all so frequently. However a reasonable web hosting company could easily support 200 200Mb web hosting accounts on a 60Gb drive (please note these figures aren’t exactly literal).

Who else oversells?

Besides the web hosting industry, numerous other markets are covered with legitimate companies overselling their services. A perfect example is cellular providers, I do not need literal figures to show that if every customer used their 1500 monthly minutes (or whatever they are allowed) it would be obvious that the cellular provider would not be able to support it. These companies bank on the fact that they know their customers aren’t going to use anywhere near 100% of their services. But if course if they do, there’s a huge chance that the customer will have overages to which the provider will make up for the use.

We’ve all heard it, but not enough can be said for this mantra. In reality, it means focusing on the quality of your deliverables, rather than the quantity (or price) of said services.

What does it mean?
Take the web hosting “industry” for example, there’s been a huge price war going on in past years. This is apparent by the fact that Web Hosting Companies, for example, pop up and dissolve on a near daily basis due to a juvenile price war. That companies that stick around for the long term, are generally cost-competitive, yet striving for quality, not a constant attempt to undercut their competitors. Price really goes hand in hand with quantity; because a customer striving for quantity is striving to get the most for their money doubly a person striving for striving for price is striving to get X amount for the lowest price.

The principle really means that consumers, and producers for that fact, value quality over quantity (or price in this case) in the long run. Sure there are customers who float around constantly looking for the best deal, but most of the time these people are smart enough to figure out how things work after getting burned a few times.

But if I don’t keep my prices the lowest around I’ll lose customers?
That may be the case, but generally you’ll lose the bottom dwelling customers. The customers who are too cheap to pay for better services, yet are trying to get the most out of you. I notice something about Web Hosting customers, the cheapest customers are generally the biggest pains for support, billing, and usage. In my experience, most customers paying a fair amount will use adequate amounts of expendables, but never do it in an attempt to cost the service provider (you) money - they pay fairly for what they receive.

In the end, the Internet is really a global market, someone is always going to be able to undercut your prices, but it takes a decent company to undercut you in quality (support, service, product quality, etc) and this is where any company, in my opinion, can pull ahead of their competitors.

For many of us, including myself, who are in business relationships with “previous friends” (meaning you were more than an associate of the person previous to the business) and business relationships with family, there is a great need for seperation between the personal side and the business side of things.

This could not be more evident for myself considering the fact that I am in the middle of a business relationship that has the potential to go bust in the very near future because of the fact the other party does not share the same value for our business as I do and he previously did. In this day and age you need to stay mobile and always give yourself an out as I do. Not that I do not trust people, but people change and most of the time you cannot force someone into changing into how you would like them be. Instead if the relationship is to the point where it is no longer productive to the business or to one or both of the parties there comes a point to which you need to figure out if it is worth it anymore. On the same note, a partnership split can sometimes be a great opprotunity to rebound and take your business to the next level.

Conflicting Goals

A genuine, true busienss relationship should have different goals than a personal relationship. Not that the two will not work well togethor but more so that they should be held seperately from eachotheras not to harm the business relationship.

For myself, I value the effort and enthusiasm a person has for something, in most cases, above their personal knowledge. Because afterall, it does not matter how much you know, it really matters what attitude you have towards getting something done.

To The Point…

This is really where you have to remember that in a business relationship, whether it include personal implications also, business should be business - for the good of the business. You cannot let a person drag yourself down to the breaking point, and just like my previous article, you need to know what that breaking point is.

So I leave you with this tid-bit of advice, remember to always seperate your personal relations from your business relations from someone as they both have very conflicting goals.