Sara and Max introduce SEMPO at an event I had a hand at creating  tonight at GooglePlex East NYC; and Sara Holoubek gave me a good deal of credit for it at the gathering tonight.

First, we have a Google Analytics Update from Ari Paparo who is a group product manager at Doubleclick, but the presentation was confidential, but secondary dimensions and Pivot tables are upcoming, in beta, now.

AdPlanner is also got some changes, allowing publishers to opt on their own cookie and Google Analytics data. Website Optimizer and the Analytics IQ program, to Get certified in Google Analytics.

Someone suggested, as a question, a desire to move more of Google’s data, like Google Insights, into Google Analytics, and some of that is beginning to happen with Flash and Google Analytics.

My sense is that Google Analytics is becoming enterprise and yet, common, in some ways. The main event started, Dani Horowitz, how created DaniWeb.com, pretty much, on her own, on a shoestring, is speaking – and here’s the video a friend of Dani’s , Ryan Hoffman,  took tonight.

I’ve been a member of DaniWeb.com since 2005 and I want to point out that Dani does most of the programming for her site by herself.



Dani Horowitz wants to get conversion rates up and she has a lot of traffic but they don’t stay long, and only view 1.3 pages per visit, having opened up her Analytics to the audience, live, which was my idea, I’m told, the Data Story.

Dani has a bounce rate which is too high, ESP in Forums, which she feels should be ~40% for a forum page (not sure where she gets that number).

Someone in the audience suggests Stackoverflow.com as a site That might have solved the issue of registration issue with a crowdsourced reward system.

Dani used VBulletin to power Daniweb and a suggestion to cut down the number of replies to a thread to increase pageviews.

Also, a recommendation engine to help combat Google, which is doing most of the leg work (like a stick) where it should be Dani’s site that does a lot of the additional work.

A bunch of us are going to dinner, after, and if I get some more insight for Dani Horowitz and DaniWeb

Here’s some testimonials that were left by attendees of tonight’s first, a major site that opened it’s analytics to an audience

Paul Baranda

“ Dani is awesome for letting us have a peek at her data. We can all learn from each other and this was great to be able to see what troubles other websites are encountering. More please! ”

Mary C.

“ Cons:Too many power point stills. WIll be good to have some more live interaction. i.e. log into analytics and show some things (not screen grabs). I was discourage to meet to many Newbies. Will like to mingle with professionals, but i guess that in part one of the main porpuse of SEMPO, educate for newbies. Good: I liked the speaker guy–a pro. Also, I liked all the new info about Google upgrades to analytics. Although, I could had gotten the same info online–eventually. I it was guess is good for networking and meeting new people. which i didn’t do  ”

Josh Fleischmann

“ This event rocked- great presentations from Googler Ari and from Dani of Daniweb. Q&A section could have been better structured but was pretty cool considering the number of people competing for the mikes and limited time to talk. The only glaring problem was with the double-whammy long lines, first to get into the building at the security desk (one person per entrance is not enough to efficiently distribute passed and allow access), and then to sign Google’s NDA. It tool me over a half hour to get past both lines. Once I got in I was a very happy guy. ”

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  William Alvarez

  “ I would love that next sessions would keep the same content structure, very educational. I really liked Google Analytics presentation, and would suggest that in a future opportunity they showed a case where they teach how to use each and every feature of it with a real client. ”
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  Ophir

  “ Interesting to see Dani’s data, but I think it might have made more sense for some additional background info and data to be sent to people in advance.
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  Paxton

  “ As always a great mix of disciplines, friendly people and great content. ”