This week we've got questions about how to define user generated content, surverys of online business models, and more.

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We're reaching critical mass

The mobile web is reaching a critical mass. The amount of mobile surfers is increasing dramatically, and we're set for an explosion. CNN's mobile site traffic has gone from 2.7 million page views a month, when it launched, to over 30 million. Neilsen reports that mobile growth has occurred 8x faster than PC internet growth. Smart phone adoptions rates are skyrocketing, and the iPhone appears to be leading the pack. We are starting to see long-term trends forming, and I think that in our thinking on "the mobile web" we are missing that the effects of mobile browsing is not going to be limited to cellphones.

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I just logged into my ING Direct bank account and noticed a potentially frustrating hurdle on the way: the "Secret Question". On this particular visit, here's the "Secret Question" I was asked:

Obviously, I'm not going to reveal the answer to my security question in this blog post. So let's just pretend I had originally entered another of my favorite movies, "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek".

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the secret to high quality links is in who you know

Need some good links? Well put down that reciprocal link email request and get your hands dirty with a little bit of research. If you're looking to build a site for the long run then you should spend the time to find out who the big players in your vertical are. Find out which sites are the most respected and find out what groups and associations you can get involved in. If you want to get the most out of your site then it's important to engulf yourself and your brand into the community.

You can't push websites out of the SEO factory like they are all exactly the same. While it may be easy to just submit your latest project to the same list of directories as your last site, you won't be getting the best value. Most industries will have their own group of devoted followers. Take advantage of this fact to help to promote your website, gain quality links and drive traffic.

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ah, spring roundups

What a week. The first day of spring hit on the 20th, and the tech world outdid itself with fantastic posts. Talk about spring energy.

This week we have Twitter and the "attention economy", the economy of click through, Google Chrome plug-ins, Microsoft testing centers, measuring social medias impact on your business, more sky-high conversion rates, more old people on the internet, and twitters absurd growth rate

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So far a lot of the talk has been about how powerful Google Analytics is as a result of its tight integration with your Google AdWords campaigns. If you are like most online businesses AdWords is an important advertising channel, but definitely not your only one. You will likely also be managing email campaigns, other paid search vendors (MSN AdCenter, Yahoo Search Marketing, or links within documents such as PDFs, Word, Excel...), display ad campaigns... To help manage all of these campaigns there is a great deal of data that can be found in the "Traffic Sources" section of Google Analytics in "Campaigns".

Properly tracking your online campaigns depends on tagging of your landing page URLs. The process of doing this is simple; you just need to add the Google Analytics campaign parameters to the end of your landing page URL. The process is simple, but it can be a lot of work as you need to tag all of the links that you direct to your site (except AdWords and organic traffic). If you don't tag it you won't be able to attribute the visit to a campaign (that visit will appear to be an organic campaign if you have untagged MSN or Yahoo paid traffic, direct if you have untagged emails or documents or none). As a general rule of thumb, if you are paying for the traffic to arrive at your site you want to have the referring link tagged.

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I recently came across some great examples of how computer-generated content can deliver bizarre, confusing and even hilarious results.

First up is a CAPTCHA that co-worker Kent Clark encountered on a Twitter account sign-up. (Thanks for sharing, Kent.) Check out the "word" on the right:

Even assuming I know where to find the "pounds" symbol on my North American keyboard, I'm still going to have a heck of a time finding what appears to be a "7/8" character.

My other examples come from Adwords. And whom can we credit for supplying these classic Adwords groaners, but that most venerable of Adwords advertisers, eBay.

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There are worse things than cookies. Cheesy plates, for instance.

In last week's "As the cookie degrades ... " we explained how cookies work (aka Cookies Rules) and identified Good Cookies. Now for the bad cookies ...

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35 years after its implementation at PARC...

Yesterday Apple announced it. Yes, the thing you've all been waiting for. The greatest development in iPhone history. A change so monumental that it will fundamentally change how we use our iPhones and iPods forever.

Apple implemented copy and paste into the iPhone's OS.

Biz. Pop. Bang. Wow. Lets go party like its 1974!

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rev and rel: its all about who is linking to what

Have you ever wondered what the rev attribute does? I would not be surprised, because it has no explicit usage like the rel attribute does (take the nofollow value as an example). From what I can gather it seems that the rev attribute was widely ignored or misunderstood, which has has lead it to be under used, so let's explore it's meaning shall we?

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