That’s how things are right now. Check out these sweet potential logos for Parker Planners:
You like? Yeah we’re redoing everything from the logo, colors, branding, website, and now mobile applications. I’m really excited about it.
Steve Jobs was one amazing dude. I can’t believe the amount of impactful things he helped develop in such a short time. Including Pixar! Nuts that he founded Pixar after Apple let him go.
In honor of beards everywhere, I give you bearded Jobs:
Today I was looking at old Apple product presentations he gave on Youtube. It was really inspiring. I have a great opportunity with my next move with Parker Planners and getting some inspiration from the Jobs really helped. He’s definitely someone who trusts himself. More so than your average dude. One thing I found very useful in a video about the iPod Nano was that he said you have to start with the human experience and work backward toward the technology. I think his products really do that. Steve said he’s tried it the other way around many times and failed many times; having the scar tissue to prove it.
That’s so awesome. Thinking about people has to be the first step in product development. It’s about how we live, think, feel, observe, and interact with our surroundings. Our lives are improved so much when designers take a second to consider the human experience. I want to be one of those designers.
Here is the original iPod intro video. Mimic this thought process with another product and you’ll make money. After the first 4 sentences it’s clear they know what they’re doing. Bam.
I haven’t written about what’s been going on for a while. Recently I’ve felt more alive. Last night I stayed up all night with a couple friends. We talked about all kinds of stuff and it was fun. I guess one of them has never been in love. Had boyfriends, dated, but never really let it happen. Nuts! Yeah it can hurt but man way better to love and lose than to never go there at all.
Everyone needs to be vulnerable enough to get their heart broken. It’s about daring to live. If you’re not all in what’s the point? You gotta be all in. Life isn’t about juggling a bunch of different passions and people. It’s about depth. It’s about discovering what you love and being the best you can at whatever that is. When I went to New York last May it was such a breathtaking atmosphere because people seem to know who they are. They seem to be dedicated to a cause and find joy in their role. And being in love is the best darn thing there is in this world. Nothing beats it. Don’t care how much money or fame you got, without love it’s all for not. Maybe I’ll put that on my quote tab 
Life’s been kinda crazy lately. I interviewed with LucidChart up in Draper. They’re a great company with a promising future but I don’t know that it’s the right thing for me. I need to identify with Parker Planners. I’ve struggled with that from day 1. “What’s so special about paper planners?” people ask. “Isn’t everyone using their smartphone?” I’ve heard it all many times. It’s true we’re working on a smartphone app. The first version ought to be in the app store by the end of the year. But that’s not the point. I need to own up to being the planner guy. I am the planner guy. There’s $100 million of sales out there in this space to be had. I’m going to capture as much of that as I can. I’m going to make products that are more interesting and less expensive than the competition. I am going to dominate this industry. I will work so hard in organizing the efforts of talented people that thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and eventually millions of people will have positive, memorable experiences with Parker Planners.
I don’t mind owning up to the challenges. I am an entrepreneur who owns a successful business. I am providing more than adequately for myself and preparing to provide for others. I am Parker Planners. I live it, sleep it, play it, do it, love it. I can succeed with this business as I have in the past. We will achieve 100% growth this year, 2011. We will generate over $x in sales this year. Next year we will generate over $x in sales. Booyah!
My first iPhone app was released today in the iTunes store!! I’m so pumped! If you’ve never seen Guy on a Buffalo on you tube before, here you go:
You’re welcome.
So now what the world needed was a sound board so you can play your favorite parts of the songs any time! This app has the first two Guy on a Buffalo videos. There are two more and we’re working on another app to include those.
Here’s a screenshot of my app on iTunes from apple.com:
Here is a link to get there.
I’m super excited! We’ll see what craziness comes of this.
If you’ve read much of this blog you know I love startup businesses and inventing stuff. I just read another one of my friend’s blog posts on entrepreneurship. He hit some things spot on. Here’s a link.
I’m with him all the way, read that post if you want to peer inside the mind of an entrepreneur. We are kind of delusional. We have to be. If everyone saw the world as fearfully as most, no one would dare and try new things! I figure my job is way more secure with owning my own business because I’m the last one to get fired if things go badly. There’s really no such thing as ‘job security’ anyway and there are plenty of people with masters degrees searching for bread.
The last few months have been pretty insane with Parker Planners. We’re going through some significant changes. It will be like a new company by the end of the year. I’ll write more on that as things happen.
I’m not sure if I will be in startups my whole life but as long as I can create things that people like I’m all for entrepreneurship as a life-long addiction. There’s really nothing like it. I feel like I’ve written this 100 times on this blog but maybe not enough. I was always intrigued by older people’s lifelong regrets when I was a kid. You wouldn’t think kids pick up on that stuff but they do. Usually people have 2 regrets in the career aspect of their life: #1 didn’t finish school # 2 didn’t start a business. I always figured it was simple enough not to be one of these people.
I’m not trying to put anyone down. Anyone in this country can do both of those things in a matter of months. I’m just saying if I could do things over I wouldn’t! The freedom and happiness that come with owning your own business are invaluable.
BYU’s first football game is Saturday!! BOOYA!
I was visiting my friend Janie (one of the most impressive people I’ve ever met) the other day and I saw this newspaper on their end table. It’s Janie’s brother-in-law Tom Lee in front of a class at UVU. He was on the team that helped put the man on the moon and teaches astronomy.
Notice the headline- “If you don’t do the things you like, you might as well die.”
Sounds like Dennie Butterfield has experience in both doing what he loves and doing what he hates. The message makes me think of a commencement speech by Steve Jobs at Stanford University given in 2005. Skip to 7:30 when the introduction is done. Jobs’ message is great. His point is that you’re going to die. If you’re going to die, you have no choice but to do what you love if you’re going to be happy.
It’s a cliché phrase but you really don’t want to ‘live someone else’s life”. If you try, you’ll be unhappy. Parents, the market, tradition, friends; no one can know your path but you. Life’s about being bold enough to decide.
I love it when non-college-grads give commencement speeches!! Check the innovative shade device at 12:51.
Here are my birthday plans:
CHECK – Thank my brother for the sweet book
CHECK – Test drive 2011 BMW 335i DOUBLE CHECK. I was rippin’ around a roundabout and the salesman said swear words ha ha ha
CHECK- Get haircut from Molly at Sport Clips
CHECK- Make progress on my wonderful business
CHECK- Eat at a fancy pants restaurant with my parents
CHECK- Hang out with my buddies down here in P-town a.k.a Provo
WORKING ON IT- Buy myself a Piano if I don’t have one by the end of the day Ha!
Love,
Ethan
Wow, seems like Apple really blew it with Final Cut Pro X. The prior version of Final Cut Pro was $999 and many people bought it. It’s because it was professional-grade software on which real movies were edited. Examples: Enchanted, Napoleon Dynamite, The Simpsons Movie, Where the Wild Things Are, and The Social Network. It’s the real deal.
Enter Final Cut Pro verion ten (X). It comes with an impressively low $299 price tag and you download it from the “Mac App Store”. It’s more like iMovie (free movie editor) than any pro editor, though. People are calling it iMovie Pro. Lotsa fuss. You can’t even import a project from a prior version? Many features missing? Apple knows best I guess. Dear Omnicient Apple, I’m hungry, what should I have for dinner?
What a strange move by a software creator. You’d think they could gather a bunch of professional movie editors and ask them what they like and dislike about the software. Listen to customers maybe? I had a memorable experience with product development once while working a convention put on by Omniture. In 2009 I attended their ‘Summit’ event in Salt Lake City. They gathered all their most influential customers (many CMOs of fortune 500 companies) and asked them what they thought about Omniture’s products. It was an amazing moment. Their CTO, an intelligent and funny guy named Brett Error, lead the discussion and they gathered valuable feedback. On top of that they had a web page with a constantly changing board of features that customers wanted. Each different feature was voted up/down depending on customer demand. Now that’s cool. No wonder they grew rapidly and sold to Adobe for $1.8 billion.
I own a macbook and an iPhone but DO NOT consider Apple to be the greatest company ever with perfect execution on every product. Sometimes their decisions are downright ridiculous.
One of the most memorable experiences I have with design was at Arizona State when I saw Patrick Scofield give a talk. He kept repeating the words “positive, memorable experiences” in reference to designing products. Boom! Roasted, Apple. I think that’s what it’s all about. Creating positive, memorable experiences, not mass pandemonium by selling a sub-par product nobody asked for at a price no one was expecting through a medium no one uses.
Ever heard of a Palm Pre? It used to be my main smartphone squeeze until I got an iPhone 4 last September. Recently at Parker Planners we’ve been developing what will be the best planner application for the iPhone. The calendar app from the Pre, though, was fantastic; lightyears ahead of the sorry excuse for a calendaring application that comes standard with Apple’s iPhone/iPod touch.
I want to use the Pre’s planner app for reference in creating our iPhone app but my old Pre’s screen was tragically cracked while breakdancing last fall. I bought a used Pre on ebay for $25 last week and I thought I was off to the races but you can’t even use the thing unless you hook it up to Sprint’s service plan (and we all know how much I love Sprint).
So blast. I had a broken screen Pre and one that wanted service. What was I to do? I looked into hacking the operating system but that seemed like more trouble than it was worth so I ended up disassembling the two phones and using the motherboard and memory from the old one and the screen and touch-sensor thingy from the new one. It worked!!! I was truly amazed I didn’t break something while working on these phones. The little connectors are like attaching synapses in a mouse’s brain and the wires are like hairs on a flea. Miracle of miracles and a few you tube instructional videos later I had a fully functioning Pre once more. BOOYA. $30 and I’m back in business. ($5 for this crazy little tool to remove the torx-head screws the size of half an eyelash) Here are my Prees post-op:
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to make something with my hands as my planners are printed in China and everything else I create these days is made of electrons. I’m used to working on motorcycles or cars but this was still way fun. Can’t believe it worked! What’s nifty is that the Pre is a great camera, video recorder, and Mp3 player, too. Plus the files are 120x easier to access than an apple device.
Can’t wait to keep going on the app. The plan is to debut at Tech Crunch Disrupt in San Fransisco this September.
Oh yeah, and THIS is what I really really want for my birthday.
Recently I gathered all the books I had started and not finished and put them on my desk in a small stack. On top was Think and Grow Rich which I was reading for the 3rd time and after that was MBA Admissions. It feels great to finish what you started. I’m now reading Outliers by Malcom Gladwell and it’s good so far. I’ve read his two big ones: The Tipping Point and Blink.
Gladwell just revealed something amazing about modern internet rich folk. They were all born within roughly a year of 1955!! Crazy, huh? I guess it was the perfect time because you weren’t so old that you already worked for IBM and had a narrow mindset about these new-fangled personal computers and weren’t too young to not be aware of what was going on. Here’s the list:
Microsoft
Bill Gates- Oct 1955
Paul Allen- Jan 1953
Steve Ballmer- Mar 1956
Apple
Steve Jobs- Feb 1955
Google
Eric Schmidt- Apr 1955
Sun Microsystems
Bill Joy- Nov 1954
Scott McNealy- Nov 1954
Vinod Khosla- Jan 1955
Andy Bechtolsheim- Sept 1955
Crazy, huh? It’s kind of like how 14 of the early 20th Century’s billionaires were born within 9 years of one another around 1830. Nifty stuff. I sometimes chide business writers who haven’t started a business themself but Gladwell’s data rocks so I chide not.
Ethan
Ever heard of that? Yes, you have it’s on Back to the Future (dig the plate). I saw one in the Provo Temple parking lot today and snapped this with my iPhone. I really don’t think I’ll ever buy another point and shoot camera, smartphones have great cameras now. I would like a Canon SLR though.
In case you didn’t know, one of the most hip things out there right now are QR codes. My friend at BYU started this company called QR Code City and has an iPhone app to go with it. They are like UPC codes but cooler. If you download the app it opens up your camera app and can scan the code really fast. From there it could provide a link to a website or other stuff I don’t understand yet. Yes! QR!
Here’s MY QR code!
So if you have an iPhone, go get the free app “Scan” by QR Code City and then hold it up to your computer screen! It will automatically read the symbol and go to my website!! Here’s their website.
I went to see a band play last night at someone’s house on the hill in Provo and got to show off the primitive version of the Parker Planner for iPhone to a few people. I’ve been getting a really positive response. Good hear feedback from people, I really hope it develops into something very useful.
The band totally rocked, though. They are called the Whits and honestly their vocalist is better than most. I mean like most, as in anyone you’ve heard. Some of their songs are just so darn catchy. If they get lotsa votes they get to play at the Stadium of Fire in front of about 45,000 people! Vote for these cats, they’re good. If you see the music video, just know that they have lots of variety and the guitar sounds WAY better in person.
It’s #27, The Whits.
Go here and vote!!!
I’m a pirate. At least according to this article.
I watched the video below today on entrepreneurship. She’s saying what we entrepreneurs all think. And passionately. There is no replacement, no supplement for the real thing. Either you’re all in, or you’re a want-trepreneur. It’s fine to think you’re in the game, but it might be helpful to get real and accept her definition of true pirateness.
A friend of mine lost his house (second heading, 3rd paragraph) in the name of his company, Zinch.com. Unless you’ve been there or close, you may reconsider your definition of entrepreneurship, too.
This video is from Ted, the conference where smart people say stuff. White people like it. So I’d like to meet Tara Hunt. She seems cool. I’m convinced she would be an interesting person to talk to. Betcha there’s a chance we’d get along.
One of my favorite parts here is around 15:00- she says that entrepreneurship is not about having this lofty goal and taking the fastest path to it. It’s about asking questions and seeking answers. In my case, it’s “what would happen if it’s not just me who likes this planner?” All I’ve been doing is trying to answer that question for the past 4 years.
The moment you start a business, you’re already rich. You own 100% of a great company. You just have to ask questions and seek answers until you’re satisfied. Some are more easily satisfied that others.
Family is more important than career. So those of you supporting families- way to go. I once saw a grown multi-millionaire man cry in front of an audience because he still regrets missing his daughter’s birthday.
If you watched the whole video up there you heard the part about how entrepreneurship can be tough on those you love. Yeah, it’s true. A relationship last summer was heavily stressed because she thought I was nuts for investing all my time and money into something that didn’t pay me a stable salary- in a culture that values family- at age 25 (time to start a family!!!). While I do think that my current journey is the path to happiness for me, you have to realize that I was ready to sell my business at the time if it was necessary. Don’t worry, I still know what comes first.
So for Tara it’s too bad being an entrepreneur has taken a toll on her family. I don’t think it absolutely has to be that way. My brother-in-law is a heck of an entrepreneur and a heck of a husband and father, too. An amazing wife, 5 awesome kids, and a rockin’ business. In that order. I’d like to emulate that.
There are people who aren’t entrepreneurs that work 80+ hours a week during busy season. Crappy thing for them is that they don’t own what they’re working on and therefore have no hope of selling it or allowing someone else to manage it while they take time to focus on family. Another reason why entrepreneurship rocks.
Ethan
I’m at CAMEX right now. It’s the yearly college market expo of glory and wonder. So far so cool. I just saw Blake Mycoskie speak- founder of TOMS shoes, he’s way cool.
I’m really hungry and I gotta pee really bad but I’m so pumped to get out stuff to our booth!!! I just want to get this thing rolling!
I wad considering buying some kinda junky trade show food but I just asked this guy where to get good food and he told me about the spot. Literallly, it’s called “The Spot”, ha ha. He said it’s real good soul food we’ll see how it goes.
Be said “yeah they even got a steam table goin” probably 4 times. I promise to document said steam table. Maybe I’ll give it a hug.
I’m at CAMEX right now. It’s the yearly college market expo of glory and wonder. So far so cool. I just saw Blake Mycoskie speak- founder of TOMS shoes, he’s way cool.
I’m really hungry and I gotta pee really bad but I’m so pumped to get out stuff to our booth!!! I just want to get this thing rolling!
I wad considering buying some kinda junky trade show food but I just asked this guy where to get good food and he told me about the spot. Literallly, it’s called “The Spot”, ha ha. He said it’s real good soul food we’ll see how it goes.
Be said “yeah they even got a steam table goin” probably 4 times. I promise to document said steam table. Maybe I’ll give it a hug.
There is some super crazy stuff coming up in the near future for me, but I like it. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Next Wednesday I’m going to Texas for another trade show but this one is bigger than the last- exactly 20 times bigger. At the last trade show we had about 50 potential customers and nabbed 18. At this one there will be about 1000 so the pressure is on. We sink or swim; excel or rack up a whole lot of expenses. My employee Boston and I have been at it hard these last 2 weeks calling potential customers and sending out emails to invite people to our booth and buy stuff from us. He’s only been with the company 2 weeks but we made the decision to bring him to the Houston show because it’s 3 days long and we will really appreciate the extra help. His wife seems to be excited about it, too- she said Boston comes home really happy because he likes his work. To think someone works for me and likes it is a huge compliment, more on that later. I’m excited Boston will get to meet my partner Benjie, too. Benjie (Benjamin and now Ben, but to me he will always Benjie Be) has been the best business partner a person could ask for since day 1; we’ve been working together since 2008 and he never ceases to amaze with his smarts, work ethic, and lack of anything that looks like fear. I’m really glad he and his wife are still involved with Parker Planners and I look forward to each time we get to see each other. He lives in Boise now, but we’ll see how long that last with the growth rate of the company (crossing toes). Kinda crazy to think other people are involved in my crackpot idea of wanting to sell a product to stores across the nation . . . and liking it.
My biggest fear when Parker Planners was super tiny was employing people. I didn’t want other people to have to rely on me for their welfare. I didn’t mind risking everything I had or failing myself, but to have someone else’s livelihood come strait from me or be affected by my decisions was something that I didn’t want to be held accountable for. I’ve since come to understand that everyone is responsible for their own decisions and someone taking a chance by working for/with me is just doing what I do- enjoying calculated risk. It’s not being reckless. It’s asking “what’s the best and what’s the worst that could happen” and if you can handle the worst and you REALLY want the best then why not go for it?
So the pressure is on, big time. If we see the same success from this show (percentage-wise) as the last, Parker Planners will be well on its way to becoming a legitimate concern in the college market. We might see things like bigger companies stepping in to compete or someone sniffing around at acquiring us. Either way it’s way exciting. We are very fortunate to be able to stay with my sister in Houston, that really worked out nice. Also one of the opening sessions of the show is a keynote by the founder of TOMS shoes, the company that gives a pair of shoes away for each they sell. I love inspiring stuff like that. Stories of people beating the odds are cool. It’s because that’s what we all have in us. We can all beat the odds if we have faith and are persistent enough. It’s in our nature and in our blood because of where we come from.
This is a story about a team beating the odds. They rock. Those guys are big role models for me in the entrepreneur world. Mick especially, ever since I found his blog and read every single post in early 2009 he has made me feel like dreams come true and you can kick as much butt as you choose. His 2-sentence bio blows minds: All-state athlete in 2 high school sports, chess club captain, sterling scholar. Princeton drop-out and founder of a VC-backed start-up with rapid growth and consistently making national news. On top of that he’s really personable and was on a hip-hop dance team back at Princeton. But I’m not just a looker.
I want to be this person for other people. I’d like to be someone that liberates people from their fears with my presence like Marianne Williamson’s quote says. Lotsa people think Nelson Mandella created it for his 1994 inaugural speech but I guess it was really from one of her books published in 1992. It is our light, not our darkness that most scares us. This makes lots of sense to me because knowing what we could be frustrates us a lot more than our failed attempts. We sometimes even dislike those that have worked harder than us to achieve their potential because we know we could have had the same thing had we exercised more faith or wasted less time. Tyler Haws is a great example of working on a huge goal and maybe not having all the natural ability in the world.
When I was 19 I set a goal to become a millionaire by the time I was 26. I figured (as a 19 yr old!!! don’t take this as my opinion now) those that don’t get there until they are 30 didn’t use their 20’s right and those that get there before 25 probably stole it. It could still happen. I’m not saying it will but it’s possible my stake in Parker Planners could be that valuable before this June. I’ll be real here and say it’s not very likely but saying that it can’t happen would be to deny magic its magicalness. We could get into 400 more stores at the Houston show, have Office Max, Target, and Staples love us at the NY show, release a sweet iPhone/Android app at Techcrunch Disrupt in May, and poof! PP equity is worth a lot. I’d for sure sell some ownership, hire people, and stuff, but it would fulfill the 19 yr old dream of mine.
Yay dreaming on paper. For the year 2011 I would very honestly be content have this business pay my bills so I can still work on it. I love what I do and will fight like a rabid monkey to keep it going.
The diabolical Sprint is at it again. Before today it is my estimate that in the last 4 years I have spent a total of 25 hours on the phone with them and I’ve received about $800 in credits and back-charges. That’s $32 per hour, not bad! This all stemmed from a tip I received from my friend who said that if you’re calm and you spend enough time on the phone with a cell phone company you can get whatever you want. I’m a believer.
Today (Jan 27) has been a battle of legendary proportions. Their defenses are supported by endless notes from prior credits. Their agents use the term “valid charges” like water falls from the mighty Niagara, they pretend to understand your situation for a moment only to slap you in the face with a spikey lead glove of repetitive excuses you’ve already heard. I lean back in my chair, tired, thirsty, nearly defeated. something inside me won’t give up. Can’t give up. I will not submit to their slimy pressure, I will not bend to their abyss of non-sequitur corporate drivel.
A beam of light, a ray of sun in my bone-vibrating dismay – - I am not alone.
A deep, fast, flowing river of disgruntled customers understands the hate that is Sprint. People have gone so far as to find the CEO’s phone number and email address and publicly post them on the internet. Not just him, but also 25 of their top executives. The people’s contact info is for the taking. I called a few just to see if they were real and turns out yes, they are. The American people won’t stand for an organization that serves so many people when they are so corrput and so big ($32 billion per year rev).
The end of the story? I won. I beat those punks. They most certainly did NOT get to charge me their last huzzah of BS and cram it down my throat like so many others. Screw those guys. Big time. I got the charges reversed and it’s bye bye bye. Worst customer service ever.
Along with this rant is my graphically altered logo protest of Sprint. Enjoy.
Werd. Improvements in the biz. Today was Boston’s second day at the office and it’s been going really well. He is all about Parker Planners and owns his work. He showed up today with a whiteboard and markers to help keep track of things. Rock.
Here are some pictures I’ve been sharing on Twitter lately. Sorry to those who aren’t friends with me on facebook or follow me on twitter, they wouldn’t see this stuff. It’s kind of a lazy man’s way to blog. When I post something on twitter from my phone it automatically goes to my facebook feed, too.
I got another key for my office made today and met the owner of this vehicle in the key place. It’s also a mid-1980’s VW diesel contraption. Front-wheel drive, weird.
My office now has a second person, a second desk, and some cool stuff on the walls.
Eric and I went to the BYU vs UNLV basketball game. Jimmer Fredette did it again by silencing a critic star player on the other team and proving he can pass the ball, too. 29 points but also 7 assists and 2 other team members scored 12 points or better.
This is a hilarious and amazingly long discussion on facebook about “The Jimmer”. It made it on ESPN.com.
The ESPN article: here
The amazing facebook thread: here
Mike and I went to a BYU Volleyball game recently, they’re ranked 3rd in the nation. Great to watch.
I’m on an intramural soccer team. This is my coach, he don’t take guff.
Thanks for reading.
Ethan
Nope, not for me but for other people. We’re looking for someone to help out around Parker Planners so I’ve been reading resumes and interviewing people these last few days. It’s fun, I love being able to see how creative people are and how they react to things. Most business stuff is very not fun so I’ve tried to keep things interesting for the interviewees.
First I asked them what they thought was the funniest you tube video out there. Then we would watch part of it together. I got some interesting responses, oddly of all the videos I had only seen one before. Then I would ask them if they played guitar, only one taker there but he played Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time” which was inspirational, he was actually a pretty good singer.
Then came the art project test. I had them look at my website (the prepared ones had already studied it beforehand) and draw me a new one with a blank piece of legal size paper and a bag of markers provided by me. I wasn’t judging their artistic ability, but rather their ability to have fun with something new and stand behind their ideas.
After that it was pretty much a discussion of their schedule and if they were a fit for the company. Good times. Today I let the lucky winner know they will be a part of Parker Planners and thank the rest for applying. It’s been really hard to decide because everyone is so qualified for the position. We got mostly PR majors this time.
The biggest thing we need help with right now is contacting college bookstore buyers in preparation for the trade show we’re attending in Houston at the end of the month.
Yo!
Ever wonder how many hits my blog gets? No? Ok.
Nah, I think you’re lying everyone loves data. Here’s a summary of how many and what kind of visitors I had in 2010. Kinda fun! The data is gathered by Google Analytics, a free service to anyone with Gmail. You add the code to your website/blog and it does the rest.
Below are just a couple simple figures. It has A LOT more, like the type of computer or browser a person has, how often people come back, etc. Just know that almost every website gathers this info and so much more. I customized these reports with Adobe Illustrator so they would be more simple and readable.
Comment and let me know if this is the first time you’ve heard of Google Analytics or if this info scares you or if my blog is more/less popular than you thought.
This first one is a summary of total visits and what countries across the globe enjoy reading www.ethandparker.com. Because web browsers can translate stuff instantly, these people can still read what I’m writing about unless I put text in an image like I did below where it says “Top 5 Countries that like me!”
One day I will reach out to those in Mongolia. One day.
Since the US is the most popular country and most of the readers live there, let’s take a closer look. Utah not surprisingly is the state that visits the most, but AZ and CA aren’t bad. It was my goal to have visits from all 50 states. Including visits from 2009, it happened!
Below is a summary of people visiting my blog via smart phones. Notice in 2010 the trend of this traffic becoming more popular. Just like the CEO of Omniture told our group of 20 BYU students, the mobile market (smartphone) is like the internet was in 1995. That was 2 years ago so it’s looking more like 1997. What are you going to do about it?
I hope this was informative and a fun.
Parker Planners