browsing Google Analytics reports on iPhone

I've tried Analytics Pro tool from AppStore (about $4 IIRC). I got addicted to it - browsing reports while laying in the bag makes it fun and inspiring. It brings me more ideas and allows me to check reports more often.

No feeling of "lost time" that I get looking at reports on the computer.

banner ad performance

Several monthes ago I've bought a banner using non-google advertising broker on a site that has my target audience. It was claimed that my banner will be shown 150k times per month.

Too bad that broker doesn't allow to see real number of times banner was displayed. I was getting approx 3-5 clicks daily on that banner (I didn't track number of conversions).

It costed me $50/month. It seems more experiments are needed with that broker (it has too many sites in database to choose from).

tried to outsource development of iphone program

I've got an idea of a program for iPhone. Decided to outsource development of its initial version to somewhere else.

Posted a project on guru.com. All bids are in range $2k-$5k (got 15 bids); some people ask per hour - chinese ask $15/hr, americans from $60 to $125 (the guy with arabic name).

Posted same project to rentacoder.com. All bidders seem to be arabic there. They ask from $1200 to $1600.

Then I've sent request to authors of similar programs in AppStore to buy their source code. People charge from $3k to $10k for it.

It seems I'll have to code it myself..

cross-platform desktop shareware sample

Found a sample of cross-platform desktop shareware - see http://www.rainlendar.net/

This is a flexible calendar. It uses Lua for scripting. Price is $10. It uses GTK2. On linux it linked it statically though (this is LGPL violation!).

find all sites owned by the same person; find blog of your competitor

Found a web service that allows to search all web sites by same owner, or by google analytics ID. It links sites by Google Analytics ID, Google AdSense ID and other IDs like Kontera and YPN - showing all sites containing the ID of the site in question.

They claim it's possible to find blogs of your competitors.. That's quite possible, I tried several sites run by people I know, and it really listed all their sites, even they've never told me about. It turns out one of my competitors bought 3 additional domain names for their site (but since they were absent in google search results on keywords I considered important, I didn't know about those sites).

That's nice, before this service, it was possible to search for sites only by domain name owner data (but due to popularity of private domain registration, it was becoming obsolete).

coupons for AdWords , MS AdCenter and Yahoo Partnership Network with 90% discount!!

It turns my favorite domain name registrar runs (or just entered) a hosting business, and offers a lot of coupons when signing for a hosting plan! By spending $60 (for Developer hosting plan, that costs $20 per month, minimum period is 3 monthes) one gets a coupons for advertising services for $475 ($200 for MS AdCenter, $100 for AdWords, $75 for Yahoo Search Marketing, $100 for CitySearch). One gets 5 domains names for free too, but in case you don't prolong the hosting after initial 3 monthes, your domains need to be transferred to other registrars; depending on registrar, they can charge you for 1 year during transfer; some of them won't though).

The only limitation is that one has to activate all coupons in 15 days period, but that's not a big deal, I think. So one can get $475 of advertising budget by spending only $60 - very nice deal!

Creating animated banners in Photoshop seems to be trivial..

Tried to create animated banners in Photoshop, for first time. It turns to be very easy!! I never thought it was that easy (for people who know Photoshop basics, at least). Will compose a lot of them, and put them to AdWords..

turns out AdWords limits to 25 campaigns per account..

Just hit an Adwords limit of 25 campaigns per account. Surprisingly, Google Adwords Editor complained with unfriendly message "error code 17, remove something from your account" when I tried to create new campaing in it. I had to go to adwords account online and try adding new campaing there, only after that I got a clear explanation that the limit is 25 campaigns per account.