CaboodleErik

Feb 05 2006 - 04 45 PM

I'm happy to announce that this is the first thread on the Caboodle forum to be closed. Stephen Linfitt gave a ring, and we agreed that this whole topic had become a bore and a source of unnecessary friction between people who have more in common that they don't, and, most importantly, a diversion from more diverting topics. So to everyone who jumped in, especially all the Andys, thanks for your enthusiasm, but let's aim it at something more productive.

andyJ2	Feb 04 2006 - 12 12 PM
I finally understand why steveloop has been so defensive here are the latest stats from Alexa.com. (Feb06) The stats are the same that Steve has quoted in the past ie > PAGE VIEWS PER USER - ONE WEEK AVERAGE feb 06 Xpatloop 4.0 Caboodle 24.5 I guess its the turn of Steves stooges to start posting screens of BS to try to cover and swamp this post.

andyJ2

Feb 04 2006 - 11 45 AM

In Eriks posting on the collapse (-50%) of xpatloops page views he quoted a link on Xpatloop, written by steve that supports openess and transparency in reporting stats. This same piece by Steve also supports Alexa.com as the respected online industry benchmark. Expecting Steveloop to defensivly remove the link, which he did yesterday, I copied it and have pasted it below:- XpatLoop is officially Hungary's favourite website for foreigners and > locals with an interest in expat life > Attached below is a supporting report based on facts from Alexa.com, > the respected online industry benchmark. > These are openly available results and so provide a level playing > field for comparisons and full transparency. > > > PAGE VIEWS PER USER - ONE WEEK AVERAGE - 19 DECEMBER 2003 > > > > 1. XpatLoop: 7.5 > 2. Budapest Sun 3.0 > 3. Budapest Business Journal: 2.0 > 4. Budapest Week: 2.0 > 5. Budapester Zeitung N/A > > IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT TRAFFIC RANKING > > > > Overall 'traffic ranking' is a fairly clear term, in the case of > Alexa.com these statistics are based on aggregated historical traffic > data from millions internet users. The lower the traffic rating on > Alexa the better. > > > > Where traffic comes from is the key issue, and the key point here is > that the vast majority of Budapest Sun online users do NOT live in > Hungary, on the other hand the vast majority of XpatLoop visitors do > live in Hungary. > > > > Therefore it needs to be well understood by local sponsors and > advertisers that traffic to The Budapest Sun online is not generated > by local expatriates or Hungarian visitors > > > > XpatLoop is the only website which directly targets expats, and is the > only website in Hungary viewed by expats that is independent audited > by a leading Hungarian research firm in the online field, Medián > http://www.webaudit.hu > > > > Finally for info, we encourage all clients to independently audit our > performance, British Airways is one such example and here is what they > have to say: > > > > "Using a third party media auditing firm British Airways has found > that XpatLoop.com provides good value for money given the BA marketing > objectives. XpatLoop.com has proven to be an effective channel of > communication. >

Peterson	Feb 03 2006 - 08 32 PM
(Sorry,pressed the wrong button.Oops!) Ahem...Mr Wellesley:You play the impartial narrator,but it seems to me you might have a vested interest...

Peterson	Feb 03 2006 - 08 28 PM
Mr.Wellesley:

Andy88

Feb 03 2006 - 07 56 PM

AndyJ2, Wow your last post was wordy...shame you still haven't declared your identity though. Oh sorry, to all, for my typing skills by the way - after all this is a forum not a writing class isn't it, and this message entry window is rather small. Anyway, as it's early evening this Friday here's my best, brief yet positive reply. 1. Contacted Stephen Linfitt about the latest few posts in this forum and he suggests you give him a call on Monday at the end of the afternoon for a discussion in person. Erik D'Amato can give you his number (Erik is also welcome to call him then too) or if you prefer drop me an email with your direct number and I will pass it on. After you verify your true identity, and if your motives are genuine, he is ready to show you the freeware that his net team use to monitor site stats. For your info this 'free software analyzer neatly displays all the possible information the logs contains', given the above understandable conditions he says he's ready to show you relevant info pertaining your enquiry. 2. He also suggested I point out here that the link below to the article written in January 2004 is from a now defunct channel, which was already deleted from Xpatloop before ErikCaboodle posted the url below. Therefore given time that link will no longer be available on the web. About that fact, as Vándorló stated here earlier, 'this is how the internet works and internet applications work'. You may remember from earlier in the 'Tips for families with kids' section (which is the only forum in which StephenXpatloop posted on Caboodle as explained to you before) that XpatLoop is currently being modernized and streamlined in keeping with the online public statement that goes something exactly like, XpatLoop.com is open for continuous development and improvements. http://www.xpatloop.com/about.php By the way, he says he stands by all the words in that link, provided of course they are read in full and fair context, hence the need to post that url here. 3. Stephen Linfitt sent me a couple of very relevant quotes from that article of January 2004 - ones that Erik D'Amato chose to ignore - and asked me to publish them here to provide a balanced picture, "Finally for info, we (Xpatloop) encourage all clients to independently audit our performance, British Airways is one such example and here is what they have to say, "Using a third party media auditing firm British Airways has found that XpatLoop.com provides good value for money given the BA marketing objectives. XpatLoop.com has proven to be an effective channel of communication." Krisztina Nemeth, Marketing Manager, British Airways Hungary, 05.01.04."

ArthurWellesley

Feb 03 2006 - 04 22 PM

Gentlemen, Seems a quick summary is needed here for clarity, so here's what I hope andyJ2 and anyone else reading will find is another interesting historical perspective on earlier posting in this forum. People need to know that: Andy foog_inc. has a good sense of humour. andyJ2 - hereafter Bruce - hasn't realized his first question was answered in the very first reply to that initial question. Seemingly Bruce is in denial about the fact the discussion ended long ago, that or he has too much time on his hands and continues to write what was best described earlier as codswallop. Andrey shines useful light on why Bruce should stop hitting his head against the wall, and Andy88 realised that brevity is his friend and stopped posting two-screeners. Since Bruce hasn't yet declared his identity why would anyone need to justify anything to him. Anyway given the first reply to Bruce from Erik, XpatLoop never needed to enter the discussion, Stephen having earlier demonstrated, as Vándorló put it elsewhere, a genuine business-like wish to meet users needs. Vándorló helped in a fair way by explaining very technically to Andy88 why Caboodle is not really a dymamic website, and with that Vándorló almost smothered the debate until Bruce piped-up again. Perhaps we should all be thankful for that as the side-topic about the Caboodles problem of rating abuse is interesting too. ErikCaboodle, sorry NapoleonCaboodle fsailed to answer about that having decided to flee the discussion, by quoting Napoleon, after realizing he had already put his foot-in-it enough. In the main discussion NapoleonCaboodle viciously attacks Media Agencies, demonstrates a gaping lack of knowledge about what really counts in terms of readership data, and his chosen measurement tool - SiteMeter - is thoroughly trashed by Andy foog_inc. and Andrey. Most importantly NapoleonCaboodle is seen within this very forum to actively fabricate statistics about unique users. Now it seems NapoleonCaboodle has broken his word and returned to the discussion with a tirade of rants. So it seems quite significant that NapoleonCaboodle choose to quote a self-proclaimed Emperor who won a few battles but lost the war, you know his barbarous campaign was crushed by the British. Indeed the more one thinks about it the more interesting it is that NapoleonCaboodle confesses to following the advice of a megalomaniac. Perchance he has much in common with his stated hero, such as: Napoleon's near-religious lying and duplicity, not to mention more of his personality disorders which I will not go into here now. Its enough to say that these days Napoleon's name is usually connected with overreaching ambition and delusions of grandeur. As most people know Napoleon was eventually sent into exile on a small island, a place where all he was able to dictate was his memoirs to an ever-dwindling group of followers. Okay that's all time allows, hope that overview helps; ready to add more later as required. Arthur

CaboodleErik

Feb 03 2006 - 12 55 PM

Andy88: To be frank, when I said that Stephen Linfitt's unsubstantiated claim about Xpatloop's readership statistics sounded about right, I was mostly being polite, because I didn't want to pick a fight. The fact, however, is that no one but Stephen has any idea, because he refuses to make those statistics public. So they could be 1/10 of that, for all anyone knows. And because of my sense that he has enlisted people to spam this forum, and to do so in a dishonest and unfriendly fashion, I am now going to take the gloves off a bit. On 05.01.04 Xpatloop published a promo piece entitled "XpatLoop is officially Hungary's favourite website for foreigners and locals with an interest in expat life" which you can find here: http://www.xpatloop.com/articles.php?id=2288 It was about how Xpatloop had edged out other local sites on Alexa.com, the Amazon.com-owned site static-tracking service in terms of page views per user, quoting an Alexa number of 7.0. The Xpatloop piece referred to Alexa's ranking as "the respected online industry benchmark," and went on to say that "These are openly available results and so provide a level playing field for comparisons and full transparency." Sounds familiar, no? But then take a look at this: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&range=6m&size=medium&y=r&url=xpatloop.com#top As you can see, the much-ballyhooed page-view stat has collapsed, dropping by more than 50%. Then, under the chart where it says "Compare:xpatloop.com vs" type in "Pestiside.hu" Ouch! Also note that if you do a separate search for Caboodle, which has just begun to be tracked by Alexa, the current stat for page views per visit that Stephen got all excited about when it was 7.0 is.... 17. Double ouch! Now, I myself don't put great faith in Alexa for relatively small sites like Pestiside and Xpatloop. But if it's good enough for Stephen, then it should be good enough for you, Andy, and, I supposed, in this case good enough for me. Meanwhile, I think you may be right; perhaps these matters need to be more actively publicized.

andyJ2

Feb 03 2006 - 11 58 AM

"AndyJ2, probably the only main question any readers here will be wondering about now is why you dont actually listen to the answers given to you." -cos no body has answered my original question....Where is the independant support of SteveExpat loop audience data he quotes in these forums. "In case you the first reply to you at the start of this series of posts hasnt sunk in yet, may I remind you that he agreed the XpatLoop stats you refer to are correct". Im afraid this paragraph has no meaning in English. "Quoting ErikCaboodle: regarding StephenXpatLoop's statistics, they sound about right to me". By my standards this is not independant varifiable data in support of EXpatloops readership claims "So why do you choose to skip over the comments of others when they answer your questions, such as Andrey pointing out that the Caboodle use of SiteMeter is a waste of time since its basically crap" My question is why Xpatoop refuses to support its readership claims. The best site meter to use is a second question...what in your view would be a better "free of charge" site meter to choose?? "Already let you know that tracking software which is more sophisticated than SiteMeter provides valuable info for publishers about such things as key words and key search results". I dont have access to this software...will the smaller advertiser on Xpatloop have access? "These are things which any business competitor could use such info their advantage. So obviously thats a reason why Erik would want to see more details about other websites stats." Stephen has already publically claimed 500,000 page views and 10,000 visitors ....the next step is to varify them. Big advantage to a competitor if he refuses to support his claim but no advantage to a competitor if he supports them. "So you and me are clear, all decent media agencies and employ industry standard tools for tracking, such as double-click technology, to ensure websites perform well enough according to proposed stats." Im still not clear about the validity of Stephen Xpatloops audience claims as he refuses to support them "If you are really interested in this whole topic why dont you now ask Erik why he posted a screen shot of his latest stats page and not a link to give access to this info to readers etc"? Because it was StevenExpatloop who started the subject of audience figures and refuses to spport the claims he made to me. In fairness Erik has shown willingness to be open about his stats..and as said the best choice of meter to achieve this is another querstion. "What do you think about Erik first claiming a unique visitors figure which he then followed-up with an admission he doesnt actually measure unique visitors". He was clear he was estimating "Or if you are not really interested in this whole topic then suggest you go do something else instead of trying and failing to take shots at a website that actually wrote suggestions to help you." I will be very happy to move on once SteveExpatloop supports his readership claims

Andy88

Feb 03 2006 - 10 35 AM

AndyJ2, probably the only main question any readers here will be wondering about now is why you dont actually listen to the answers given to you. In case you the first reply to you at the start of this series of posts hasnt sunk in yet, may I remind you that he agreed the XpatLoop stats you refer to are correct. Quoting ErikCaboodle: regarding StephenXpatLoop's statistics, they sound about right to me. So why do you choose to skip over the comments of others when they answer your questions, such as Andrey pointing out that the Caboodle use of SiteMeter is a waste of time since its basically crap. Already let you know that tracking software which is more sophisticated than SiteMeter provides valuable info for publishers about such things as key words and key search results. These are things which any business competitor could use such info their advantage. So obviously thats a reason why Erik would want to see more details about other websites stats. So you and me are clear, all decent media agencies and employ industry standard tools for tracking, such as double-click technology, to ensure websites perform well enough according to proposed stats. If you are really interested in this whole topic why dont you now ask Erik why he posted a screen shot of his latest stats page and not a link to give access to this info to readers etc? What do you think about Erik first claiming a unique visitors figure which he then followed-up with an admission he doesnt actually measure unique visitors. Or if you are not really interested in this whole topic then suggest you go do something else instead of trying and failing to take shots at a website that actually wrote suggestions to help you.

andyJ2	Feb 03 2006 - 09 08 AM
Interesting historical perspective and analogy. I appreciate getting audience data from Stephen Expat.loop is a reall (Napolionic?) battle, but let me just restate the main issue of this thread so we are not sidetracked...... Why does Xpatloop make unsupported claims about its readership? Why is Steve Xpatloop so reluctant to provide some independant support to his Readership numbers

ArthurWellesley

Feb 02 2006 - 08 41 PM

Gentlemen, As NapoleonCaboodle suggested could happen, I stumbled upon this discussion thought the 100's of links, anyway have just drawn my own conclusion. On balance, as you already understand, I believe Andy88 makes most sense - all be it sometimes in a long-winded way as foog_inc. amusingly points out. Interesting as all the details of this discussions are, it's the Napoleon quote that caught my eye. Courtesy of this illuminating title, A review of Napoleon: A Penguin Life, by Paul Johnson, I offer readers the following, "Napoleon's true legacy was a loss of status for France and many needless deaths: After all, the military record is unquestioned - 17 years of wars, perhaps six million Europeans dead, France bankrupt, her overseas colonies lost. " "And it was all such a great waste, for when the self-proclaimed tete d'armée was done, France's "losses were permanent" and she "began to slip from her position as the leading power in Europe to second-class status."" Hope the contents of this post aren't too off topic, all contributions are welcome I suppose. The above helps summarize reasons for my conclusion, and perhaps it may provoke a few replies. So there we are for now, for what its worth. Arthur

Andy88	Feb 02 2006 - 05 11 PM
andyJ2, seems you need to be reminded again of the first reply Erik sent to you 2 pages etc ago: Finally, regarding StephenXpatLoop's statistics, they sound about right to me. Or isn't Erik a reliable enough source for you? If not wouldnt it mean Caboodle is an unreliable source of information.

andyJ2	Feb 02 2006 - 09 40 AM
2 pages and 24 posts later....still no varification of Xpatloop's readership claims..... In XpatLoops "Charter/mission statement type thing" it states "WE BELIEVE IN THE EASY EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION..." prehaps this should now be amended.

Vándorló

Feb 01 2006 - 10 08 AM

Andy88 said: "why isnt this a link to this forum featured on your front page at the moment? You know since you posted just a few minutes ago, and since very few others, if anyone else, is posting right now, a link to this should be featured." Andy88, you don't know or perhaps have misunderstood how a Content Managment System (CMS) works. Typo3 is the name of the CMS that caboodle.hu uses to manage their website, the front page is a pooled resource of a range of content in their site. Each of the features on the front page should be viewed as a seperate application or program. To manage all the seperate applications and represent their current state the CMS uses caching. Caching means that what you see on the front page isn't necessarily the current state of each individual application. But you need caching to avoid using up too much computing power. So each of these applications is updated asynchronously. This allows the majority of users to have a reasonably fast user experience and also to have a reasonable approximation of the current state of each service (application) offered by the website. This is why the discussion thread you added to was not available immediately. It is very likely that updates to the discussion summary on the frontpage is configured only to be updated every few hours. As demand increases, the time would be shortened to reflect a more dynamic rate of change. For example, their news features from MTI are obviously queued to only be updated once a day. Other components have higher refresh rates. The overview from Typo3 clearly states that this type of management process is used: "internal messaging and workflow communication system for shared authoring and collaboration" The 'internal messaging' part tells us that each of these processes is added to a queue which is updated in the background when demands on the system allow it to. There is no conspiracy at work, this is how the internet works and internet applications work. Hope that helps

foog_inc.

Feb 01 2006 - 06 51 AM

CaboodleErik: Sitemeter stats can be faked, simply set the counter's "zero" count to read 1,000,000 or whatever number suits yer fancy. So, errrr, fuck transparency. And set that sucker on 20 baszillion already. Andy88: You really work for a media agency? Are you ever this mind-bogglingly long winded in your professional life? Brevity is your friend. AndyJ2: There are too many Andy's here. Mind if I call you Bruce to avoid confusion? -Foog (whose real name is, of course, Andy)

andyJ2	Feb 01 2006 - 02 10 AM
".... TAXI FOR ANDI 88 is outside" Goodnight Andy88!

Andy88

Feb 01 2006 - 01 25 AM

CaboodleErik, you say just let whomever happens in on this discussion draw their own conclusions. Okay then why isnt this a link to this forum featured on your front page at the moment? You know since you posted just a few minutes ago, and since very few others, if anyone else, is posting right now, a link to this should be featured. So the fact a link to this discussion it isnt featured on your front page right now smacks of you are hiding it. And that goes to show you actually dont want others to happens in on this discussion and draw their own conclusions. If youre tempted to jump in and have some fun, as you say, then go ahead and clearly answer this big question: Why you posted a screen shot of your latest stats page and not a link to give access to this info for your readers etc? AndyJ2, why not now ask you why Erik is hiding readership figs from his readers? And as said, perhaps you might know what CaboodleErik is hiding? Why is CaboodleErik scared? We need to Know! Etc etc. Also, what about a comment regarding: your claim of a unique visitors figure which you then followed-up with an admission you dont actually measure unique visitors. Thats really very awkward for you, no? Really CaboodleErik, you should at least address the other issues, inc: How about sharing your thoughts about you featuring full and fair descriptions on your site, and about moderating - rather than censoring - anon type comments. Also will be interesting to hear your thoughts about any potential abuse of your rating system.

CaboodleErik

Feb 01 2006 - 12 59 AM

Andy88: Obviously, I'm tempted to jump in and have some fun with you, but I'll just let whomever happens in on this discussion draw their own conclusions. (Like Napoleon said, never interrupt your enemies when they are making a mistake.) But I would ask just one more time why you are so against giving readers a little verifiable information about something like site statistics. Just throw a few lines in your next two-screener.

andyJ2

Feb 01 2006 - 12 46 AM

Andy88 All is forgiven! I see the problem, common with expats, there is a language barrier between us. when I used the term "support" (As in StephenExpatloop please support your audience data claims to me) I didnt mean the following:- -architectural devise for holding up a building -A medical truss -repeating the same claim again and again -requoting the claim -saying someone else felt the claim sounded about right -shouting the claim even louder. I did mean:- make your raw data that forms the basis of your claim available to me for me to assess independantly. Apologies for any confusion