Those of you who use Google’s Chrome web browser can now add Ducksboard by visiting the Chrome Web Store and clicking the Add To Chrome button.

Already a Ducksboard fan? If so, we’d appreciate it if you could leave a review.

If you haven’t tried Ducksboard yet, why not visit our homepage and try it out? The sign-up process is short and we’ll give you a 30-day free trial to get you started. Or just get in touch if you have any questions, we’d love to help you out!

The post Find us in the Google Chrome Web Store! appeared first on Blog.

Early in the design phase for Ducksboard, we decided to make our KPI dashboard as real-time as possible. The ingress API is push-based, so there are no delays between new data becoming available and our system processing them. Clients maintain a persistent WebSocket connection to the application, so they get fresh data as soon as our backend receives it. It required some fun technology choices and some path blazing; the real-time stack for the Web was not as mature when we started as it is now.

All that is fine and dandy, but the big question is: who cares?

Becoming actionable

Instead of treating real-time as a feature to be ticked in a checklist, we’re trying to think of it as an enabler. We get just-in-time notifications about our client’s metrics changing, how can we use that to their benefit? The newly introduced alerts feature is an attempt to do that. We like to think that it’s a step towards making the data we aggregate actionable.

Just the important stuff

Let’s say you have a New Relic widget to keep track of your Apdex. As long as it’s over 0.9, you don’t really care. But as soon as it falls below 0.9, you need to blow the horn and ride into your code with a gleaming sword, ready to cut down some of the fat that’s making your application slow. Here’s where Ducksboard alerts step in, just configure an alert to be sent when the Apdex value becomes too low and you’ll get an email as soon as we find out.

Another use case, which is rather close to our hearts, is getting an email every time a new customer signs up. Create a Recurly widget and have it send email whenever the value changes. In fact, should you sign up for Ducksboard and then make the wise decision of becoming a subscriber, I’ll get an email!

There’s even an alert defined to send an email to wildparty@ducksboard.com when the value in the widget reaches 1,000,000. Can’t wait

It’s only the beginning

What you’re getting is Alerts v1.0. We’ll be improving and extending the functionality as we go along. Want an SMS when the number of unassigned support tickets reaches 10? No problem. Interested in getting notified when you get mentioned on Twitter, but only if the mentiond includes the #FF hashtag? We’ve got you.

The list goes on and your feedback will be crucial to shaping this feature the way you’d like to see it. For now, go ahead, try creating some alerts and be sure that you won’t miss the important stuff!

The post Introducing alerts appeared first on Blog.

It’s time, however, to set them free.

We’re happy to announce that any Ducksboard widget can now be embedded on any external site. It’s dead simple, too: open the widget’s Advanced Preferences, enable embedding and paste the generated HTML on your site. The widget will instantly become visible to anyone visiting your site and of course it will continue to update in real time.

Hear the sound of marching feet

Traditionally, the concept of dashboards was limited to a panel with widgets glued to it. That’s how traditional dashboards work and what we’re all used to. But the Web gives us the possibility to rip widgets free from the dashboard’s surface.

Want a widget here, another there and a smattering of widgets over on that side? Nothing simpler, it’s all a HTML snippet away. How about a Github Issues timeline on the sidebar of your blog? Maybe a Mailchimp subscribers counter if newsletters are your thing? Hey, why not add a Zendesk issues stream on that internal Jira wiki page of yours?

The widgets are closing in from all directions, you can hear their tiny feet clicking. Widgetification of the Web is coming and we’re at the forefront!

Sleep sound

We wouldn’t let our little fellows out in the wild without some security precautions, too. If you decide you’d like to stop sharing the widget, disable embedding and it will stop loading immediately. A secret key is created every time you enable embedding, so as long as you don’t share the generated HTML with anyone, you can rest assured that no one can embed your precious widget.

Gotta embed’em all!

By this point I’m sure all you’re thinking of is how to get a snuggly little widget on your page. Turns out it’s dead simple, just sign up for Ducksboard (any plan will do!) and create a widget. Enable embedding, copy and paste the HTML and you’re set.

And if you don’t want to take our word for it, observe the Twitter followers counter above and, if you’re so inclined, start following Ducksboard. The little guy will duly raise the number.

And that’s how the tale ends, please give our newly set free widgets a warm welcome to the world wide web!

The post In which the widgets are set free appeared first on Blog.

Okay, so this is cool.

If you are a Ducksboard user, you already know that we are constantly adding services and integrations to the widget directory. Yes, we actually do listen to your suggestions, and over the last few months, we have expanded or added a ton of widgets (we weighed them) to the selection.

Well, we are extra jazzed about the latest batch.

Twilio!

Twilio (as if we needed to tell you) makes it super easy for developers to build seamless and reliable telecoms into their applications. No hardware. No headaches. Just an API. Whether you are building a call center or just Callin’ Oates, Twilio bridges that once-daunting gap between digital and analog communications.

Sixteen new Twilio widgets are available right now in the widget directory!

Monitor SMS messages, calls and costs with these readymade widgets and create in a few seconds a powerful Twilio report that you can share with your team or display in a big screen.

By this time next week, you’ll also be able to set alerts and trigger emails when numbers spike or dip below your defined values.

But there’s more…

Adding a bunch of Twilio widgets to Ducksboard would normally be cause enough for a post like this, but we got a little carried away (hey, we’re fans). We’ve been working hand in hand with Twilio and the new usage API, and we’ve also built an entire custom dashboard for Twilio users.

Introducing… Twilioboard!

Twilio users can now add widgets to their Ducksboard dash or create an entire customized Twilioboard dash. Preconfigured with all of the new widgets, this dash is designed to integrate beautifully with the Twilio platform and branding.

Twilio customers simply log in and let their data populate or configure it to their exact needs. Cool, right?

Check out Twilio for yourself and see how you too, can build scalable cloud communications into your project.

The post We love Twilio appeared first on Blog.

We all know that determining which traffic sources to target is the root of all PPC marketing strategies. Everyone tries hard to identify the top, high volume, well-targeted traffic sources for their business. Traffic sources optimization is a never-ending story when it comes to advertising, but you definitely need to start somewhere!

That’s where MixRank comes in, a powerful but simple tool that reveals your competitors’ campaigns, showing exactly what’s working for them. You can shortcut the entire lengthy process of finding the best set of ads copy, landing pages and traffic sources, and jumpstart your marketing efforts.

And it gets better: MixRank is now integrated in Ducksboard, allowing you to track any campaign across 93,000 sites. You can rapidly discover which traffic sources work best and who’s betting on the ones you have in mind.

Our widgets can also track new and active text ads and banners, so you’ll always know what they’re up to. Spying on your competition has never been so easy! Couple that with real-time display brought to you by Ducksboard and you can be sure that nothing will surprise you.

In business, like in war, information is king. Knowing which traffic sources your competitors bet on, detecting when they ramp up campaigns in preparation for a launch or noticing a new landing page can prove invaluable when you’re striving for the upper hand on the market.

And now for the best part. If you use our partner link, you can upgrade to MixRank Professional for only $1. Go ahead and start exploring traffic sources now!

The post Boost your marketing efforts with the new Mixrank widgets appeared first on Blog.

As much as you work on your online profile to achieve more followers, investors will more than likely become involved with your startup company outside AngelList. This is why it is essential to build relationships through personal encounters. This way, you can list advisors and references on your profile to attract investors´ interest in the future. Keeping your profile regularly updated and building relationships with strategic people will help boost your company’s social proof.

It’s pretty much like Facebook, in the sense that entrepreneurs and investors can connect. Your aim is to raise capital, and it’s highly recommended to open a profile successfully with the endorsement of an influential person. You should count on advisors or commitments from investors you already have to ask them to endorse your company and share your profile. This will give investors a good reason to take a good luck at your startup.

As you gradually work on your profile, more and more investors will be interested in following you or even requesting for an introduction. It’s important to keep track of your followers and be prepared to follow up on their interest, because it’s a great opportunity to pitch your company. As soon as an investor follows you, they are showing interest in your startup, and you have the chance of contacting them directly. Make sure your initial communications to your followers are prepared in advance before the number of followers -hopefully-, becomes overwhelming.

It’s also important to rate all your investor contacts. Some investors may be more or less interested in your company, as well as you’ll consider investors to fit our criteria better than others. Monitoring your followers, keeping track of investor contacts and rating them will help you manage your actions to finally get a yes from the investors you want on board.

If you’re ready to open a profile up on AngelList, we wish you luck on your startup venture and hope to see your followers´counter rise!

[ducks_button text="Track your potential investors with our free trial!" size="little"]

The post Monitoring potential investors for your startup #mondaymetrics appeared first on Blog.

Although optimal application performance may seem somewhat ambiguous and variable, there are different metrics we can be keeping track of. Adpex is an open standard which helps you track how well your application is doing. The formula behind Apdex gives you a clear insight into how satisfied or frustrated your users are. Depending on your application’s responsiveness you will find three different types of users:

Satisfied: The user is fully productive. This represents the time value below which users are not impeded by application response time.

Frustrated: Performance with a response time greater than F seconds is unacceptable, and users may abandon the process.

Source: Apdex.org

However, I think I speak for most when I say that the epitome of web frustration is the hated upon error page. Any request that raises a server-side error, however fast this response is, will make your Apdex value plummet. It´s game over. Start again. Monitoring the numer of errors per minute your application has will guide you in to setting up goals to improve your application’s performance, and avoid possible errors in the future.
But once your user is faced against your error message (and they will be), there’s not much you can do to avoid his or her frustration. This is where your playful and creative ingenious comes into play. Humor is always welcome, and it will put a grin on anybody’s frustrated face. Good example of this are the many creative 404 error pages that sites have created. Having a good 404 error page gives you a second chance of reengaging your user and directing them back to the home page. It’s another way of successfully communicating with your user.

Here are some inspiring examples to cheer your users up, whilst you work hard on fixing all those error codes!

London Daily Photo worked really hard on their error message, and gives it’s users light entertainment with an amusing animation.

British Mac is empathetic with it’s users and puts itself in their shoes, or tropical shirts and sandals…

At Ducksboard, we kid around and kind of put the blame on you. We all know it’s our fault really!

Make sure you keep track of how your performance application is doing and how it’s affecting your users. You can monitor your application performance on one dashboard with our selection of New Relic metrics . Start off by displaying your error rate!

[ducks_button text="Monitor your Web Application Performance with our free trial!" size="little"]

The post Nobody likes to be 404′d #mondaymetrics appeared first on Blog.

So as Google took on social networking, Facebook was in no position to sit on it’s hands and is more than likely well on it’s way of taking on Google in search. Search engines will probably never be replaced by social networks, but search is certainly heading towards something we can call social search. As powerful as Google’s algorithm may be, when looking for answers, friends will always be a good source to turn to. Social interaction was Google’s pending task, and the search giant can now boast 100 million active monthly users on Google+. It still has a long way to go before catching up with Facebook which has more than 900 million active monthly users.

Unlike Facebook’s Like button, Google came up with a +1 button, which doesn’t actually share content to a user’s social stream. The +1 button is a feature which helps people find and share information which is relevant from people they already know. The connection between this +1 feature and search was very predictable. Users can “+1″ (I suppose we can consider this a verb from now on) websites, Google search results, advertisements, blog posts, and any content susceptible of being indexed on Google. Google didn’t stop there, and gave this riveting tale a twist when it launched Search plus Your World. Users can now search through private information which is only shared with them, as well as public information on the Web. Users even have the chance of configuring their profile so that their Inbox occupies a privileged area on Google’s SERP when searching.

Google’s +1 feature is important for any website as far as it’s influence on your site’s performance in social search. Quite simply, any link with more +1′s is a validation that it  is a relevant link. When you’re signed in to your Google account, you are more likely to click on links which friends or acquaintances have recommended. Although +1′s don´t affect your SEO directly, you will find a correlation between the number of times a link has been +1′d and your Click-Through-Rate. Your site will then have a higher chance of being shared on other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. The more a link is shared, the higher it’s search rank.

In conclusion, your +1′s are a metric you want to be keeping a close eye on. Put your Google +1 widget next to your Facebook likes widget to get a good idea of your social interaction and how this is positively affecting your Page Rank!

[ducks_button text="Start your trial now and track your +1s!" size="little"]

The post How important are your +1 metrics? #mondaymetrics appeared first on Blog.

Filling out web forms isn’t an experience web users particularly enjoy. They shudder at the thought of filling out too many fields. And yet, this valuable form is the place where users connect directly with you. It’s worth investing thought and design into improving the user experience of your forms to increase your conversion rate and get people filling them out.

Most converting websites keep forms to only the essentials.

Don’t be greedy with the amount of information you want from your users. Cut down on the number of fields you have on your form. Not convinced? Try eliminating one field and increase your conversion by 50%. Hubspot’s Dan Zarrella found that by reducing a form from 4 fields to 3 fields, the conversion rate improved by almost half! Take a good look at your contact form and ask yourself if you would spare your own precious time to fill it out.

You’ve already gotten the user as far as wanting to sign up, so respect his or her time to avoid users dropping off just before becoming a valuable converted user. Only ask for what you really need, that includes no re-enter password field!

Wufoo is a tool which helps you build your own online forms. Once you’ve prepared your form, keeping things simple, it’s time to calculate your conversion rate. Contrast how many people started filling your Wufoo form and how many people actually completed it. Our widget will help you keep track of how successful your contact forms really are. If you want to improve it’s conversion, reduce the number of fields and see the “Completed” pin rise!

[ducks_button text="Start your trial now and track your contact form conversion!" size="little"]

The post Keeping contact forms nice and simple #mondaymetrics appeared first on Blog.

Social media kicks in, and there’s suddenly a question frenzy about whether or not Social Media is replacing Email. Email and Social Media are two incomparable environments, where users behave in completely different ways. We are spending crazy amounts of time on social networks, interacting with other users and exploring vasts amounts of information. It´s certainly challenging for any Social Media campaign to generate direct response actions because users are not compelled to follow through with actions. You may catch a user’s attention, but they’ll soon be distracted with something else. This is the very nature of social networks. And there´s one more thing, an email is required to join any social networking site.

Email is a different story altogether. Believe it or not, we’re spending plenty of time in our inboxes. A recent Nielsen study revealed that 40% of time spent on mobile devices is dedicated to Email, and this trend is increasing. It’s probably a wise idea to not decrease the amount of email you’re sending. As a matter of fact, Email is the most cost effective medium of reaching your prospects. Unlike social media, when a user opens your email, he or she is exposed to your message without any other distractions in sight. Your users are in a one-to-one interaction with your company. He or she is more likely to click on links and take actions.

However, behind every email marketing campaign, there is a mailing list. One way of growing our email lists is drawing upon the possibilities of Social Media. Social Media can play an important role in increasing our email subscriptions. Why confront Email and Social Media, when you can use them both to your advantage? A crossover between these two marketing channels han help build on a stronger customer relationship. 75% of Social media users actually say that email is the best way for a company to communicate with them.

Any person who took the time to Like our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter is an ideal candidate for receiving our email campaigns. This is your chance to leverage social media to grow your email subscribers.

Question is, how?

On your Facebook page, it’s as easy as adding an email opt-in form. ESPS’s such as Mailchimp provide this technology for you. This way you can have a newsletter signup form on your Facebook page. Free content download is a good incentive to convince your Facebook community to sign up. You could also try giving your Facebook community a little taster of what you’re offering subscribers by re-posting your email content on your Facebook page.

On Twitter, make the most our of your 140 characters to link to your sign-up page from time to time. Among your regular tweets, remind your followers of the benefits of joining your your email list. Give email subscribers exclusive content and offers. You can try linking to content which requires registration, such as a downloadable e-books or whitepaper. Give them reasons to sign up and show them what they’re missing out on if they don’t.

Any content you tweet to drive traffic to your site should feature an easy way for visitors to sign up to your email list. Start by placing an opt-in email box in your blog. The same goes for Linkedin. People on Linkedin are focused on very specific topics. Share good quality content on groups, or even open up a group of your own, to incentivate people tu sign up to your email list.

As far as #mondaymetrics goes, we’re focusing on the number of subscribers a mailing list has. Hopefully you’ll see this number increase by using Social Media, and keep close track of it with our counter widget.

[ducks_button text="Start your trial now and see how your email lists grow!" size="little"]

The post Social Marketing gives Email Marketing a helping hand #mondaymetrics appeared first on Blog.