Robin Good's Latest News

MasterNewMedia Web Traffic Stats, Authority, Audience Metrics: September 2008

Tue, 7 Oct 2008 10:59:00 GMT

The latest MasterNewMedia traffic trends and statistics for the month of September show a slow but steady increase in volume and additional data further defining MasterNewMedia specific audience demographics and technographics (the characteristics and traits of their technical setup: browser, operating system, screen resolution, etc.). MasterNewMedia compared head to head with some of its many competitors: Poynter, Scobleizer, Copyblogger, Shoemoney. Source data: Google Trends The goals of this monthly web traffic publication report are essentially two:

On one hand I like to provide transparent access to MasterNewMedia internal readership demographics as a way to substantiate the reach and content distribution capacity that I and my team have been able to achieve.
On the other I want to showcase and model how the public use of traffic data originated by tools and services normally reserved for internal review only, can actually provide greater credibility, authority and valuable information (especially to potential advertisers) to any site, independently of size.

This is data, that unless you collect and organize systematically, may serve only for providing indications of trends or issues to be addressed but remains otherwise largely untapped. My advice is instead to start considering how valuable this traffic data can be for any site if properly collected, sorted and presented publicly in a meaningful way. What matters today in this new, fast evolving online information space, is not so much the ability to talk to a million people, but the ability to be very credible while building a small, but highly passionate following with strong specific information interests. To this end, publishing your web site traffic and demographics reports can help readers, potential customers, suppliers and advertisers see you and your site, for what they really are. The key thing to understand here is how powerful it can be to share and make visible what most other sites keep under very closed tabs. Making all of the traffic and demographics info visible and accessible to others, can greatly help your future readers, partners and advertising customers to better understand the focus, size, identity and profile of your site audience. N.B.: If you would like to suggest additional stats to be included, or would like to recommend a specific analytics technology to add to this web traffic analysis toolkit, feel free to utilize the comments section at the end of this monthly web traffic report. Next month we are adding Qantacast as a new source of traffic data to this list. MasterNewMedia web traffic stats for September 2008. Here the numbers:

MasterNewMedia Web Traffic and Audience Metrics: September 2008

Unique Visitors and Page Views

Total Visits on MasterNewMedia: 540,822
Total Page Views on MasterNewMedia: 787,930

MasterNewMedia International Editions - Breakdown

MasterNewMedia International - English Version:
- Unique visitors: 259,933
- Page Views: 376,395

MasterNewMedia Italian Version:
- Unique visitors: 121,986
- Page Views: 177,757

MasterNewMedia Latino Version:
- Unique visitors: 130,757
- Page Views: 198,002

MasterNewMedia Brazilian Version:
- Unique visitors: 28,146
- Page Views: 35,776

Source data: Google Analytics
Alexa measures the number of pages viewed by site visitors. Multiple page views of the same page made by the same user on the same day are counted only once. The page views per user numbers are the average numbers of unique pages viewed per user per day by the visitors to the site. Source data: Alexa

Ad Impressions and Clicks

Source data: Google AdSense

Demographics and Technographics

Audience Age

Audience Sex

Audience Education

Audience HouseHold Source data: Google AdPlanner

Audience Languages Source data: Google Analytics

Traffic by Platform Source data: Woopra - data relative to a smaller sample than total audience

Traffic by Browser Source data: Woopra - data relative to a smaller sample than total audience

Traffic Sources

Source data: Google Analytics

Most Viewed Content

Top 10 articles MasterNewMedia.org September 2008:

Source data: Google Analytics

Authority

Google PageRank Here below the MasterNewMedia PageRank calculated with PR Checker: PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. Google figures that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be. If you want learn more about PageRank here are some relevant articles:

Alexa Rank: The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and data obtained from other, diverse traffic data sources, and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). Source data: Alexa
Technorati Authority Source data: Technorati

Link Popularity

Google Inbound Links

MasterNewMedia English: 2.760
MasterNewMedia Italian: 1.310
MasterNewMedia Latino: 344
MasterNewMedia Brazilian: 177

Source data: Google

Yahoo! Inbound Links

MasterNewMedia English: 3,346
MasterNewMedia Italian: 849
MasterNewMedia Latino: 59

Source data: Yahoo!

Social Popularity

Social News And Social Networks

Bookmarks at Delicious: 1.094
Pages posted on Digg: 128
Pages posted on Reddit: 20
References from Yahoo! Answers: 110
Comments on StumbleUpon: 8

Source data: Quarkbase

Twitter Source data: TwitterCounter

Citations, Mentions and Trackbacks

Source data: Technorati Source data: BlogPulse

Master New Media RSS Feed Stats

Source data: FeedAnalysis

Edited and prepared by Max Badolati for MasterNewMedia and first published on October 7th 2008 as "MasterNewMedia Web Traffic and Audience Metrics: September 2008" ...]]>

Screen Share Top 25 - The Best Screen Sharing Tools - Sharewood Guide

Robin Good — Mon, 6 Oct 2008 09:53:00 GMT

Do you need to show to your distant teammates a set of images or a PowerPoint presentation right from your computer desktop? Do you want to train your classroom at a distance by inviting your students to watch what you are doing live on your PC? Photo credit: Craig Jewell Screen sharing tools are a specific category of online collaboration tools that enable you to broadcast a continuous live stream of what is happening on your computer screen to individuals connected via the Internet at distant locations. Screen sharing tools allow multiple attendees to see in real-time whatever you will be showing on your computer screen, as well as the opportunity to even take control of your mouse and keyboard to show their newly learned abilities while operating a new application residing on your machine. Obviously you can do the same with them and, with their permission, access their computer remotely and guide their learning process or troubleshootign session step by step. Screen sharing tools generally work by allowing you, as the presenter, to create a session which is associated to a specific URL and optionally to a password number. You then send / share this URL / password combination to your selected invitees, and as soon as they log into your screen-sharing session they can start seeing in real-time what you are doing. Feature differentiation areas among screen-sharing providers include the addition of VoIP, text chat, remote control, cross-platform support, annotation and markup and recording abilities. Here below is a comprehensive list of all the available screen-sharing tools out there and the set of key basic characteristics that I have utilized to compare these tools among themselves:

Max Participants Number: The number of attendees you can invite into a screen-sharing session
Remote Control: Gives screen-sharing session attendees the ability to take control of your keyboard and mouse
Change Presenter: Lets the current presenter hand out presentation controls to other attendees
Host Platform: PC-Mac-Linux: if you want to be a presenter which one can you use?
Viewer Platform: PC-Mac-Linux - what do you need to have to participate?
Price: Monthly price of the product

To make your analysis and selection task most effective here below is also a comparison table showcasing all of the available screen-sharing tools and a full set of mini-reviews introducing each one of them.

Best Screen Sharing Tools - Comparison Table

go to the table! All data intended for free or basic versions *Requires Flash 9 or higher and Java 1.6 for additional features **Requires Java

Best Screen Sharing Tool List

GoToMeeting GoToMeeting is a breakthrough screen sharing and remote control solution that offers an elegantly designed interface that makes it extremely easy for non-technical users to get up and running. G2M integrates text chat, invitation, scheduling and full encryption. It requires a small plugin download on both the presenter and the attendee side, and works on Windows PCs and Macs. $49/month for 15 concurrent users. http://www.gotomeeting.com/

ConferencingNow ConferencingNow is a GoToMeeting clone, the famous screen sharing software from Citrix, with the only difference that it is completely free. You only have to sign up for a free account, and you can start sharing your desktop, control passing, session recording, annotation tools, and instant messaging, all in a GoToMeeting-like interface. Completely free to download and use. http://www.conferencingnow.com/

Mikogo Mikogo is a free screen sharing and remote control software for Windows. After you download the small setup file, you can register and create as many meetings as you want: you can then invite people by giving them the meeting ID which they\'ll have to paste on the Mikogo homepage in order to join the session. The main features are remote control for any participant, file sharing, presenter switcher, and application selection. Free to download and use, it also available as a Skype extension. http://www.mikogo.com/

Yuuguu Yuuguu is a free downloadable application that allows you to share your screen with anyone. After you download the small client software (available for Windows, Mac and Linux), you can start sharing your desktop with one or more attendees, and let them control it for you or vice versa. You can also chat with the meeting participants. Free to use. http://www.yuuguu.com/

ScreenStream ScreenStream is a free downloadable software that lets others \'watch\' your screen on their computers. After you have downloaded the small application and started the sharing session, you just have to give people a link that they will have to paste into their browser without installing anything. They can continue to watch your screen until turn off screen sharing. Free to use. http://www.nchsoftware.com/screen/index.html

SharedView SharedView is an online collaboration software by Microsoft, that you can use to share single application or your entire screen to up to 15 people. To use it, you just need a Windows Live ID account, install the software, and then you can start inviting people to collaborate with them. Free beta. http://www.connect.microsoft.com/content/content.aspx?ContentID=6415&SiteID=94

Yugma Skype Yugma Skype Edition is a free screen sharing solution that builds upon Skype\'s offering by adding screen sharing. You simply invite a friend or colleague from your existing Skype contact list, which is directly accessible from within Yugma and you are set to go. No installation required for your attendees. The free version allows you to invite up to ten people. Other versions available here. https://www.yugma.com/yugmaskype/

ShowMyPC ShowMyPC is a free, one-to-many desktop sharing and remote control solution. The users need to download the software and can access each other\'s PC with just a password (no IP address needed) which is automatically generated when you start the viewing session and must be provided to remote users by email, phone or other means. No registration is required, just a 900kb download. http://www.showmypc.com/

SkyFex SkyFex is a free browser-based screen sharing and remote control application that anyone can use to give/get assistance with her computer. If you are the expert who is going to give assistance, you just have to sign up for the service for free, and install a small plug-in. You will then be provided with a six-digits code to give to the other person, who will just have to paste it in his browser, and click a button. Your PCs will be then connected for remote assistance, for free (free account offers up to 30 minutes per session and 5 minutes for remote control). http://skyfex.com/

TeamViewer TeamViewer is a free small downloadable application that allows you to share your screen and control anyone else\'s PC. After you download the small program, you just start it without any installation: you can then give a code and password to your friends to see and control your PC, or they can give you their code. You can also chat, transfer files, and use it to remote control your computer from anywhere in the world. Free. http://www.teamviewer.com/

Glance Glance is a great tool for the non-technical user. Easy-to-use, cost-effective, reliable. Glance is based on the VNC engine that powers many of the screen sharing solutions out there. Like the majority of its competitors, Glance allows you to remote control the attendees\' computer as well as change the presenter and let other participants to show you their screen. A pioneering tool in its niche, it is standing the test of time very well. Glance supports hosts on PCs and Macs and attendees on all computer platforms (Mac, PC, Linux, etc.). $49.95/month. http://www.glance.net/

Vyew Vyew is a web-based screen sharing and live annotation tool. Its features include live desktop sharing, whiteboard and the capability to present files to your audience from whatever platform, since you only need a compatible browser. Vyew users are provided a unique teleconferencing bridge number that all presenters and attendees can call into. This is a free teleconferencing service (callers only pay for the toll, if any).The current version is free to use. http://www.vyew.com/

Persony Persony (pronounced: per-so-nee) is a Flash-based, multi-platform web conferencing tool that allows you to screen share (changing presenter if you need to), remote control attendee\'s computer, deliver PowerPoint presentations, work on a shared whiteboard and communicate via VoIP (one-to-many) in a very cost-effective integrated solution. http://www.persony.com/

LiveLook LiveLook is a web-based screensharing solution that lets you share your screen with one click. Just click the Show My Screen button, share the code with other people, and wait for them to arrive. They can also control your PC from wherever they are, or simply watch. Contact the company for pricing info. http://www.livelook.net/
eBLVD eBLVD integrates remote control, text chat, VoIP, annotation, file transfer, 128-bit security encryption, event scheduling, free teleconferencing support and recording into an essential PC-based screen sharing solution that costs only $29.95/month for 5 concurrent users. http://www.eblvd.com/

eZmeeting eZmeeting is good for screen sharing, group collaboration, presentations, reports, information capture and document review. eZdesktop enables live document editing, distance learning, presentations and technical support. You can connect instantly with other team members using eZ\'s integrated corporate instant messaging. $99/month for 4 participants. http://ezmeeting.com/

ShareItNow ShareItNow is a service that allows you to share anything on your desktop to anyone, anywhere, anytime - spontaneously and seamlessly. Use ShareItNow to conduct training sessions, demonstrate a product, collaborate on a document, host a web tour and more. http://www.shareitnow.com/

BeamYourScreen BeamYourScreen is a simple web-based screen-sharing solution that works like Glance, HostPresentation or PCvisit. You provide a standard URL and a code number to your attendees and once they log in at that web page they can immediately see your screen. You can also swap presenters if you need to. BeamYourScreen supports up to 20 guests per session, who need not to install any software or plug-in. BeamYourScreen also uses proprietary encryption to protect all data transfers. Check all the available plans here. http://www.beamyourscreen.com/

GoMeetNow GoMeetNow enables remote desktop sharing and collaborative web-based meetings. In addition to its full set of features, it is very easy to use and works compatibly with the most restrictive firewalls. http://www.gomeetnow.com/

GatherPlace GatherPlace is a cost-effective and simple-to-use screen sharing and remote-control solution that can be used to show your screen to attendees operating on any operating system and without requiring no software downloads. Just use GatherPlace HTML-based viewer "SureView" and your guests are ready to see your screen. GatherPlace features also include full screen display for attendees, manual image-quality control, warning to the presenter when attendees have a lower screen monitor resolution than the presenter, usage reports, web site integration, session recording, multi-monitor support, VoIP and more. http://www.gatherplace.net/

RealVNC RealVNC (Virtual Network Computing) software is cross-platform, allowing remote control between different types of computer. For ultimate simplicity, there is even a Java viewer, so that any desktop can be controlled remotely from within a browser without having to install software. RealVNC is free and is redistributable. http://www.realvnc.com/

GoToAssist GoToAssist is a service that enables remote support with integrated screen sharing capabilities. End users can request support both by phone or simply by posting a help message over the web. File transfer and text chat are integrated. http://www.gotoassist.com/

Spreed Spreed is a service that allows you to perform remote presentations and organize distance seminars and conferences. You can access it both from PC and Mac and it is free to use up to three participants. Spreed integrates whiteboard, chat, video conferencing, screen sharing and file transfer. Free to use, pro versions available. http://www.spreed.com/

Bosco\'s Screen Share Bosco is a screen sharing solution for Mac OS and Windows users. With Bosco\'s you can control manually the screen-sharig refresh rate, the compression level to be applied to images before being sent to your attendees screens. Available for Mac OS9, Mac OSX and Windows XP. Free. http://www.componentx.com/ScreenShare/

To be assigned I haven\'t yet found the screen-sharing tool n.25 to place here, but you are definitely welcome to suggest via the comments area here below, what you think should be added here.

Originally written by Nico Canali De Rossi for Master New Media and first published on October 6th 2008 as "Screen Share Top 25 - The Best Screen Sharing Tools - Sharewood Guide" ...]]>

Online Collaboration Tools - New Technologies And Web Services - Sharewood Guide Oct 5 08

Robin Good — Sun, 5 Oct 2008 10:11:00 GMT

If you are looking for web-based collaboration tools to manage your team projects, share your screen with other people or have web-conferencing sessions, I have picked some really cool new online collaboration apps for this issue of the Sharewood Guide. Photo credit: Erik Reis Here the full set of online collaboration tools for this week:

Scribblar: Engage in web-conferences with your team, featuring audio calls, text-chat and whiteboarding
Mikogo Skype: Select one or more Skype contacts and share your screen, remote control and share files with them
TeamTexting: Send emails and text messages to your group
ShareYourBrain: Submit an idea for your project and see what other people can suggest to you
Convos: Organize your team by assigning tasks, sharing files and more
Kadoo: Create your personal page to share images, videos and documents with 10GB of total storage space
MatchBoxCalendar: Schedule all of your appointments and let people see them
PokeTalk: Call any mobile or landline for free using your phone and Internet

Here all the details:

Scribblar Scribblar is a web-conferencing application that you can use to collaborate with your team. You can have live audio conferences with other members, while engaging in multi-user whiteboarding sessions and text chats. You can also use Scribbler to brainstorm ideas, review works, share images and files, and more. Free to use. http://www.scribblar.com/

Mikogo Skype Mikogo Skype is an extra plug-in for the popular VoIP software that lets you have free screen sharing sessions and free phone calls all in one. Simply by clicking on any Skype contact, you can instantly invite them into a Mikogo session, and you\'ll be able to share your screen in real-time with up to 10 participants simultaneously. While sharing, you can change presenter, remote control, pause the transmission and transfer files. Free. https://extras.skype.com/1672/view

TeamTexting TeamTexting is a free group messaging platform that lets you keep in touch with your team. Just create a group and invite people to join it, and start sending messages to the group: people will receive the message via email and SMS, and wait for them to reply. No matter how many team members you have, you will be charged for just one text-message. Free. http://www.teamtexting.com/

ShareYourBrain ShareYourBrain is an online brainstorming platform that you can use to submit ideas and make other people review them. After you describe the project you are working on and make a detailed request, such as what would be the best name, people will provide their ideas and comments about it, and you will be able to monitor and select the best ideas in real-time. Free. http://www.shareyourbrain.com/

Convos Convos is an online project manager application that allows you to effectively organize your team. You can invite people into your group, and start scheduling appointments with the other members, share files, assign tasks and more. The free version enables you to create two groups with up to 50MB to share your files and documents. Paid versions available. http://www.convos.com/

Kadoo Kadoo is a personal webspace that you can use to share files with other people. After you create your page, you can start sharing files, photos, videos and even bookmarks, with a total storage space of 10GB, deciding what people in your contact list can see. The service is completely free to use, registration is needed. http://www.kadoo.com

MatchBoxCalendar MatchBoxCalendar is a shared calendar application that enables you to schedule all of your appointments. You can add as many events as you want in a single day, which will be reminded to you via email or RSS, and invite people to actually see your appointments to schdule what is the best day and time to meet with them. The service is free to use, registration needed. http://www.matchboxcalendar.com/

PokeTalk PokeTalk is a web service that lets you have free international calls using the Internet and your phone. After you register, all you need to do is to provide your and your friend\'s phone number, wait for your phone to ring, and you\'ll be automatically connected with the other person, wherever he is in the world. You can have up to 50 calls per month, to both mobile and landlines phones. Free, registration needed. http://www.poketalk.com/

Originally written by Nico Canali De Rossi and Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on October 5th 2008 as "Online Collaboration Technologies - New Tools And Web Services - Sharewood Guide Oct 5 08" ...]]>

Media Literacy: Making Sense Of New Technologies And Media by George Siemens - Oct 4 08

George Siemens — Sat, 4 Oct 2008 09:30:24 GMT

How do you know whether the information you are searching for online has been verified and comes from reliable sources? Are you getting into the mass-media habit of taking for granted whatever you read online? Is your critical evaluation attitude miserably fading? Photo credit: Stephen Downes George Siemens, MasterNewMedia official guide to education technologies and media literacy, scouts and reports from his ongoing research key future scenarios where the increased adoption of collaborative approaches and more effective learning styles unveil a new way of managing, and living successfully during these fast changing times. Here all the details:

eLearning Resources and News

learning, networks, knowledge, technology, trends by George Siemens

Innovate: Downes on MOOCs and CCK08

Over the last several weeks, we have seen a substantial amount of conversation on open education, open teaching, and accreditation. Rather timely then that Stephen Downes\' article in the latest issue (free registration required) of Innovate is focused on our Connectivism and Connective Knowledge course. He details how the course is set up, technologies used, participant contributions, language translations, and other delivery modalities (in Second Life, for example).

Recordings of Previous Presentation...

Recording conference presentations seems to be a given. Great way for people who couldn\'t attend an event to still benefit from the various talks given. Also a great way for presenters to relive mis-spoken words. Several recent presentations I\'ve delivered are available online:

Leading Learning - On Becoming: The cognitive and social impact of technology (.wmv file)
Madison conference - Curt Bonk links to both of our keynotes at Madison from August... and our panel on Web 2.0 and scholarship.

Learning Communities and Learning Cities

Education is generally confined to institutions. Learning, on the other hand, is a continual, ongoing experience, running a range from formal to informal, organized to emergent, self-organized to planned. As institutional lines continue to blur, concepts of learning communities and learning cities become more attractive (and realizable):

"Neighbourhoods, villages, towns, cities or regions that explicitly use lifelong learning as an organizing principle and social / cultural goal in order to promote collaboration of their civic, economic, public, voluntary and education sectors to enhance social, economic and environmental conditions on a sustainable, inclusive basis."

It could probably be better said with less words, but the idea of entire communities and related webs of libraries, museums, and other societal institutions forming the basis for a new integrated view of learning is quite attractive.

Tradition and Emergence

Click on the image above to open the presentation I\'ve posted the slides for a presentation I\'ll be delivering to COHERE\'s Blended Learning conference later today. Topic: Tradition and Emergence.

History of Educational Technology

Click on the image above to open the presentation The educational technology field is almost disdainful of its own history. This is most unfortunate. We have much to be thankful for in the early innovators of the last century (and even beyond). Given the tremendously rapid pace of technology development today, I\'m concerned that even the little history we have will vaporize. Which is why I\'m quite excited about a new initiative with SCoPE, Richard Schwier, and the Learning Technologies Centre at the University of Manitoba: Building a Virtual Museum of Educational Technology. We all agree that museum is not the best word, but it will do for now. We are running a three week online seminar (Oct 1-21) devoted to the theme and planning ways that we can get a larger group involved. Please join in the conversation! Rick\'s current master\'s class will be tackling the museum as a project, but we\'d love to get more classes, groups, or people involved. The recording of our first session is available.

Journalism and the Internet

In education we are facing similar concerns that news media has faced for over a decade - how can the mass of amateurs online possibly recreate the authority and value of the news industry? Who will do the hard work of investigative journalism? How will we ensure that the information shared is credible? William Dutton asks similar questions in Journalism, the Internet, and Empirical Research. He emphasizes that many concerns exist not only in internet journalism but in the information consumption habits of people in any media. In the process, he offers a fairly broad (but shallow) overview of areas needing more research...

The Next Internet

It\'s generally a good idea to listen when Google starts to talk about how it sees the next stages of internet development. Even more so when it is Vint Cerf speaking on behalf of the company. In a short post, he offers a (very) small glimpse of a future where the internet is integrated into all areas of our lives. Apparently, we\'ll be able to do our laundry through a browser. I\'m just not sure how I\'ll do the sorting :).

Visualization

iCharts is a fairly new entrant into the data visualization space. This particular service allows people upload Excel documents and create / share interactive charts. Related - Gapminder continues to offer some of the worst URLs possible, but some of the nicest graphs for comparing data from different regions around the world.
Photo credits: Innovate: Downes on MOOCs and CCK08 - Stephen Downes Recordings of Previous Presentation... - Reeltoreeltaperecorder Learning Communities and Learning Cities - University of Waterloo Journalism and the Internet - Radu Razvan The Next Internet - Tony Phillips Visualization - iCharts

Originally written by George Siemens for elearnspace and first published on October 3rd 2008 as a weekly email digest on eLearning Resources and News. About the author To learn more about George Siemens and to access extensive information and resources on elearning check out www.elearnspace.org. Explore also George Siemens connectivism site for resources on the changing nature of learning and check out his new book "Knowing Knowledge". ...]]>