AIAIO: Our Blog

Google recently released Google Correlate, a fascinating tool that correlates user-supplied data sets with search terms.  From big Goog’s blog post:

Using Correlate, you can upload your own data series and see a list of search terms whose popularity best corresponds with that real world trend.

We’re data nerds here, obsessed with trends, the wisdom of the crowd, analytics, and optimization.  The possibility to find meaningful trends for our customers (and the greater good!) are too large to fathom–and can quickly give you a headache when you think about the power of correlating people’s interests around the world with trends in our own data.

So I decided to give it a try.  With a layup, as it were.  What would happen if I fed the weekly pageviews to the Ai site into the magic machine?  I know that one of the more common ways people land at our site is by searching for “alexander interactive,” but could GoogleCorrelate2000 figure this out from our pageviews?

YES.  In 1.20 seconds (much of which certainly was network latency).  I pasted 52 rows of data, and as a reminder for those reading along, didn’t tell Google what the data was.  She didn’t know I was interested in Alexander Interactive.  She gots dates and some numbers.  And here was her response:

Now it’s time to have some fun with this.  Google generously allows you to use their Search By Drawing tool.  Draw a line, see what it’s correlated with.  I had to cut myself off as you could spend hours with this:

We’re so taken with this tool that we are holding an internal contest for the one among us to find the most interesting, useful, or important search term trend in one of our analytics or ecommerce data sets.  The victor wins the admiration of his/her colleagues.  And free lunch at any local eatery.  Stay tuned for more on Google Correlate.

Tim Broder

At Ai we’re all about tradition, and one of the closest traditions to our hearts is our very own Jimmy B Award, bestowed for oustanding performances.

To stand out here, you’ve really got to be special and there is no doubt that our newest recipient, Tim Broder, fits the bill.  Tim has been pulling major weight, leading the development charge on our biggest projects.

We’re pretty sure that Tim’s tireless efforts are due in no small part to the fact that, well, the man doesn’t get tired – as evidenced by his performance at the Ragner Relay.

The Broder Boy is truly our Superman, and we want to wish him a big thanks and congratulations.

Did we mention that he can jump tall buildings in a single bound?

We are gearing up with excitement for this year’s Internet Retailer Conference and Expo. Canopy CEO (and erstwhile Ai director of strategy, and, well, yours truly) David Wertheimer will be giving his live website critiques for the fourth time, and Ai and Canopy have a large and gorgeous expo floor booth in the works.

If you’ll be attending the conference, do stop by and say hi. See you in San Diego!

Continued Mistakes is written and drawn by Jeremy Hitchcock, an actual employee of Alexander Interactive. He is also a diligent and loyal worker who never uses company time for doodling.