Yes, I’ve been all too silent — all summer long — because it has been enormously hectic on the family, volunteer and professional scene. Something had to give, and so the blog it was. I’ve been all a Twitter as usual though, so I guess I am still micro blogging. As you know, I am @aloumeyer.

No comment…from you.

Unfortunately this is also the case. Spam comments on new and old blog posts alike have been out of control (I just eliminated a few hundred bogus comments), so I have disabled comments for now. I hope this will be a short-term fix as I seek advice from the WordPress site and other users.

Setup was pretty easy. For a site I coded myself, I would have known right where to place the all-important code that makes Google Analytics tick. However, now that I’m using WordPress (with a pre-designed theme) I had to poke around a little to find the right place to paste it. Hopefully this post will save you a little time if you are trying to accomplish the same thing.

Step 1: Watch at least the first set of videos on Conversion University so you get the gist of how Google Analytics works.
Step 2: Sign up for a Google Analytics account.
Step 3: Once you’re registered, copy the custom code provided that will track your metrics — you will paste this into the HTML code on your WordPress site.
Step 4: In the left-hand WordPress Dashboard menu, locate and click on “Editor” beneath “Appearance”.
Step 5: In the right-hand menu, select “Footer”. This is where you need to paste the Google Analytics code — place it just before the </body> and </html> tags. If you’re lucky, there will be a handy dandy place to paste it as there is with the theme I use (see the image below).

This image may help you determine where to place Google Analytics code.

As Google foretold, it took about 24 hours before I was able to track visits to my site. Near as I can tell, this will now track metrics for all individual pages because I’ve added code to the master theme template.

DISCLAIMER: The steps here are based on the WordPress theme I am using. I can’t guarantee that the process will be the same with your site. I am not responsible for any malfunction your site may suffer as a result of altering its code based on this post. If you’re not familiar with the basics of HTML, CSS, etc. then you may want to seek assistance from a friend or professional who is comfortable and confident with this task.

Possibly a major market radio advertiser during a commercial-free blackout?

I’m going to pick on radio for a moment — specifically certain broadcasters in regions like Minneapolis-St. Paul, where competition for listeners is particularly fierce.

Before I go any farther, you should know that radio has been an important part of my family’s history. It started years ago when my grandfather, Julien Meyer, was an announcer at KBMO in Benson, Minn. For grandpa, it was a passion and a side gig when he wasn’t serving as an educator or elementary school principal. His youngest son, Maynard (“dad” to me), has always made a living as a professional broadcaster, first working in sales or engineering at small-market stations, before forming Lac qui Parle Broadcasting, Inc. with business partner Terry Overlander in 1983.

Today, dad, Terry and a small, committed team operate KLQP-FM, 92.1 FM, based in Madison, Minn. Indeed my family, and the employees “Q-92″, have been enormously grateful for customers who have advertised on the station during its more than 25 years. Flash forward a good decade (or so) for me, where I’ve moved from life in a broadcasting environment to the marketing end of this equation…

Commercial-free radio from a commercial radio broadcaster. How does that work? And what’s wrong with advertising when it’s disseminated via AM or FM frequencies vs. TV, print or online channels of communication? Like any product or service, advertising is supposed to be sold through a mutually beneficial, respectful business relationship. But in major radio markets, there is a growing trend where vendors turns against customers through commercial-free blackouts and for some reason it seems to be widely tolerated by the shunned customers in question.

Of course I know that many fine relationships exist between radio broadcasters and their customers in markets of all sizes and hopefully most enjoy great ROI from their sponsorships. And I don’t suggest that market size necessarily reflects business savvy for broadcasters or their customers. But, seriously, what gives with such emphasis on commercial-free days, hours, mornings and so forth that have become so prevalent among metro area radio stations? It’s like implying that, “If only for a while, you poor listeners won’t be bothered by our irritating customers whose thousands of dollars keep us afloat.” I’m sure I’ve heard tax-subsidized, “member-supported” public radio stations tout their lack of commercials as a key point in their value proposition. What does that say about their commercial sponsors (and let’s be real: corporate underwriting ain’t a whole lot different that advertising)?

I understand, in the iTunes age, that broadcasters have reason to worry. For many radio stations, this largely is the result of their having relied too heavily on music alone to attract and retain an audience. Now to make matters worse, they’re increasingly training listeners to believe that ad-supported radio is a negative thing. With the 24-7 proliferation of very affordable, or free, audio entertainment available online or via satellite, commercial-free blackout periods are only going to be effective for so long (if they are truly effective at all).

Now, let’s consider media that tend to celebrate advertising. You’ve likely heard somebody say, “I don’t follow football, but I’ll watch the Super Bowl because I like the ads.” This year, you could catch all of the ads after the game on YouTube. That’s opt-in advertising! Heck, the Walker Art Center just ran a special exhibit for the British Television Advertising Awards, and every screening was sold out. Think about how often people post funny print ads and direct mail postcards in their offices — maybe you have done it yourself. Have you forwarded or received a recommendation to view a humorous or interesting online ad or web-based promotion? You don’t see many commercial television channels, for-profit websites or print publications that promise ad-free messaging.

What I would challenge more commercial radio broadcasters to do is be creative with ways in which they convey ads, rather than sweep them (and therefore advertisers) under the rug (and I would encourage advertisers to expect better). Discover ways to craft meaningful, memorable messages and present them in an interesting fashion on the radio. Those who are very brave might hearken to the pioneers of broadcasting and even thank an advertiser now and again (OK, baby steps). If nothing else, take a trip 90 minutes in any direction from the metro area border and listen to rural radio for a while. Last I recall at Q-92, the only commercial-free programs were Sunday morning church broadcasts, though you can bet there was a “Brought to you by _____” intro and outro to go with the bells.

Above: The Device in Question

In theory, you should be able to attach the unit to any telephone jack, and it will deliver a signal to the rest of the phones in your household. Needless to say, it didn’t work on either of two different phone jacks in our basement, so I called Comcast. A friendly rep helped me get to the bottom of the issue, and I learned a couple things that may be helpful to others in the same predicament who stumble on this article, so here goes:

If all the lights on front of the modem are blinking, there is an issue with the phone line. There could be a short somewhere, for example, and the modem goes into self preservation mode. In rare instances, there could be a short in the modem jack — easy enough to test this by simply plugging a phone directly into the “Phone 1/2″ output. If there’s a dial tone, it works. In our case, I’d forgotten that the previous owners had wired the home for two phone lines — I really think this had something to do with it. In the end, I simply relocated our cordless phone base from the kitchen to the modem (no big deal to us).

This modem has a battery, so simply unplugging it isn’t a hard reset like the last one we had (duh, no loss of power). You actually need to find something to poke the recessed reset button on back to return the unit to an operable state.

Internet service was briefly interrupted. Finally determined that I needed to power-down the wireless router before resetting the modem in an effort to resolve the phone problem. While blinking lights generally represent a problem on this modem, the “Link” light is one that actually should be flashing to represent an internet connection. I thought that was a little confusing.

Everyone's heard about the bird!

Yes, I know we’ve moved on — 2009 is so seven days ago. But I think it’s worth acknowledging, even at this late hour, that Parade and USA Weekend (those thin magazines in your Sunday paper) each rated Twitter among its relatively short top-topics-in-2009 lists.

• Parade: Unforgettable Stories of 2009
• USA Weekend: Best News of 2009

Not that either of these publications might be considered the foremost authority on social media, technology or world news, but in a way, that’s what’s so cool about this achievement for Twitter. Individually and together their circulations are enormous, and they certainly have an editorial knack for developing stories with mass appeal. Collectively, other topics the pubs chose for their year-in-review aticles included Barack Obama’s election as the first African-American President, Pilot Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger’s heroic landing of an airliner on New York’s Hudson River and the H1N1 influenza pandemic. That Twitter was included with such historic, emotional subject matter is pretty amazing.

Indeed, the rise of Twitter has been a fascinating movement to watch unfold. Given the company’s tremendous growth in 2009, isn’t it “twitillating” to consider what the company has up its sleeve heading into a new decade? If you’re still not tweeting, what are you waiting for? Go to http://twitter.com and join or create discussions.

Note: Props to Smash Magazine for offering the feathered graphic.
Shameless self-promotion to follow @aloumeyer