Facebook Timeline

Facebook has just announced a new version of its profile called the Timeline at the F8 developer conference. Facebook Timeline is a new layout for your facebook profile.

The new layout is meant to be a central location for your stories, apps, and for you to express who you are, utilizing a chronological timeline to highlight the most important content you share on Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg explained it as a way to “share the story of your life on a single page.”

Watch the following video to know more about Facebook Timeline:

The Timeline will allow you to post about “stories,” rather than relying completely on chronology for all shared content and Facebook activity. Stories can be starred or hidden, and there are inline privacy controls to control exactly who sees what.

Apps will be able to hook into the Timeline as well, sharing things that you like to do on your personal page.

Timeline is meant to be completely customizable and mobile-friendly as well.

It’s available now for Facebook developers, but will be rolling out to users in the next few weeks.

Test&Target - How it works

Test&Target information flow

The following diagram shows the flow of information when you use Test&Target to determine which targeted offers to display to your site visitors:

1. A customer requests a page from your server and it displays in the browser.
2. A first party cookie is set in the customer's browser to store customer behavior.
3. The mbox on the page calls Test&Target.
4. Test&Target displays offers based on the rules of your campaign.

Mboxes

Omniture Test&Target technology is based on "mboxes". Mboxes are wrappers that go around the content to be tested.

Mboxes are the area on your Web page where content is displayed.

One key to understanding Test&Target and what it can do for you is understanding mboxes. An mbox is a "marketing box," a portion of your Web page that can be configured to show different content in different situations. An mbox can also log the behavior of visitors to your site.

Mboxes are defined in the code for each Web page and are controlled with the Test&Target admin interface.

Mboxes are essential to campaigns and tests. You decide whether any mbox can do one, both, or none of the following:

• Display and swap content for visitors.
• Log visitor behavior in real-time.

Test&Target architecture

With mboxes in place, pages that are rendered allow Test and Target to apply new content to be shown in that wrapper and displays it to the user when appropriate. Every T&T request on the page will trigger a call to Omniture, which will look for the content variations tied to that specific wrapper ID and then serve the content by dynamically inserting it into the wrapper, overwriting the default content.

The following diagram shows the different elements of the Test&Target system:

1. A call to mbox.js is added to the page after the body tag.
2. Mbox wrappers are added around the content you are targeting along with a javascript call: mboxCreate.
3. When the page is rendered, the javascript call fires. This javascript call sends a request to Omniture’s servers.
4. Omniture’s servers look up the mbox that initiated the call. They find the content associated with that mbox, then return it to the user.
   
5. The new content renders in the mbox wrapper, overwriting the default content.
6. Test and Target drops a cookie on the user’s computer to track the test they saw and their later behavior reporting the findings back to T&T.

Brief explanatory video on Test&Target:

Test&Target Geo-Targeting

Geo-targeting is the ability to target marketing, advertising or testing campaigns at a limited set of visitors based on their physical location. This capability allows to control where your content is displayed based on users location parameters like country, state, city, or even geographical position parameters like longitude or latitude.

Test&Target allows to target users based on their geographical location using Geo-location targeting feature.

Geo-location parameters allow you to target campaigns and experiences based on visitors' geography.

• You can include or exclude visitors in campaigns based on their location.
• You can show specific variants to users based on their location.
• You can make segmentation of your campaign results based on users geographical location

You can target based on one or more of the following geographical units:

• Country
• City
• State
• Longitude
• Latitude

This data is sent to Test&Target and is based on the visitor's IP address. Select these parameters just like any targeting values.

The following table shows the accuracy of IP-based geographical information in Test&Target.

SiteCatalyst 15

SiteCatalyst 15 is a major upgrade of the tool.

Platform & Productivity Enhancements

• New Segmentation Capabilities: SiteCatalyst users can apply segmentation right from the newly redesigned interface and – with as little as two clicks – apply segments to any report in real-time. For instance, if you want to segment your social media visitors in real-time – say purchasers from Facebook vs. purchasers from Twitter – you can quickly and easily see how these segments are performing and interacting with your site.
• Suite Level Segmentation: Because the new platform facilitates improved integration and data sharing across the Online Marketing Suite, segment sharing is now available between SiteCatalyst, Discover, and Adobe Test&Target.
• Redesigned User Interface: SiteCatalyst 15 introduces an enhanced user interface and intuitive design that displays customizable, interactive overview dashboard reports immediately upon logging in. Additionally, new search functionality enables SiteCatalyst users to quickly find a specific report by name or type without sorting through the menu system.
• Reporting Improvements: The new platform makes it possible for SiteCatalyst, Discover, and Adobe DataWarehouse to now have consistent metrics and breakdowns. Additionally, Visits, Visitors, and Page Views are now available on all reports and full sub-relations are now enabled by default.
• Adobe DigitalPulse Updated for SiteCatalyst 15: The latest version of DigitalPulse has been updated to validate all new SiteCatalyst 15 features, furthering its role as the leading implementation auditing solution.

Analytics:

• New, interactive iPad Application: This app takes advantage of the unique capabilities of the iPad, such as data manipulation with the touch screen interface. Users can scroll, swipe, and zoom into a specific time period, as well as add new metrics with a simple touch. Users can even email reports that they create, directly from the app. If you’re a mobile SiteCatalyst user, this app is a must-have.

Improved Data Collection & Processing:

• Processing Rules: Control numerous aspects of your implementation such as populating reports and setting success events based on a wide range of customizable criteria without the need to involve IT.
• List Variables: With list variables, you can capture any data dimension that can occur multiple times on a page, such as ad impressions or criteria in a guided search. Conversion can then be tied back to those variables to give a more complete picture of how individual elements drive success on a site.

In the following video you will get additional information on the new features coming with SiteCatalyst 15.

Test&Target in iPhone

I really like to have Test&Target application in my iPhone.

Test&Target for iPhone gives you on-the-go access to your Test&Target account.

I can watch the active campaigns and how are going the results. With one simple click I can see the CR (Conversion Rate) and number of visitors that every variant is getting, and which is the current winner CR lift compared to the control.

With the Test&Target iPhone application you can:

-Approve and deactivate campaigns right on your phone
-View real-time campaign reports with lift and confidence calculations
-See campaign setup details

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later

Please Note: You must be an existing Adobe Test&Target customer with valid login privileges to use this application.

VWO Asynchronous

Wingify, the company producing Visual Website Optimizer (VWO) tool, has recently developed a new "Asynchronous" tagging code to be used in websites that are tested using VWO.

An asynhronous tagging code snippet is just like the regular Visual Website OPtimizer tracking code. However it has some benefits over the old one.

• Faster tracking code load times for your web pages
• Enhanced data collection & accuracy
• Elimination of tracking errors from dependencies when the JavaScript hasn't fully loaded

This also means that if you are using asynchronous code then your website will not be having loading issue due to the Visual Website Optimizer tracking code. The new asynchronous version of Visual Website Optimizer code reduces page load time as the VWO code is downloaded in parallel to site code.

It also ensures that your site is never slowed down even if VWO servers are inaccessible.

Wingify have extensively tested the asynchronous code across variety of browsers (including IE7) and it works perfectly. Though they are keeping this code currently in beta until they get feedback from users that it is indeed a significant improvement over existing Synchronous code.