Playing Around with ImportXML in Google Spreadsheets

Via Scoop.it - New Digital Media

It’s frustrating trying to get XML data into Microsoft Excel – unless you’ve got the time and patience to build some basic Macros or VBscript for your requirements. With Google Docs, it’s really easy.

A few resources:

If you want to use Google Docs to extract data from the web, it would be a good idea for you to learn a little xPath. “XPath is used to navigate through elements and attributes in an XML document”, or, in simple terms, you can use xPath to fetch little bits of data contained in structured elements like ,or links or pretty much anything, really. Also, there are a few people who have been doing this a while, and probably have sample spreadsheets that blow some of the examples below away – but you have to start somewhere, right? If you’re already an importXML / Google Docs Ninja, maybe go and find something else to do instead of reading this post.

If you’re interested, I made a Google Docs Spreadsheet with all of the examples below: http://bit.ly/9Fs7aF

Does anyone know?

“Does anyone know” is such an interesting search on Twitter – just combine that query with a keyword, like “restaurant” and a location for everyone on Twitter looking for a very specific, thing. Great if you happen to be trading in that thing.

Try a query like this to pull through results from the Twitter search RSS feed:

=Importfeed(“http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=+restaurant+%22anyone+know%22+london+OR+manchester+

OR+birmingham”)

Via seogadget.co.uk

►Mini Matmian:

A useful function with many applications. Thanks to SEOGadget for sharing. I can see the guys at Matmi having some fun messing around with this.

Traffic Analysis: The New Google Analytics Features You Must Pay Attention To

If you didn’t know about it, in January 2012, less than a month from now, Google will close its present Analytics version and will replace it for everyone with the new one.

The new version has a number of great new features, from “real-time” traffic reporting, to social analysis e goal flow visualization.

This article offers a great opportunity to learn and explore some of the most relevant and useful new features that the upcoming Google Analytics has to offer.

Remember though: you do NOT have to wait until January 2012 to test them all out. Just log in into your Google Analytics and check on top of your page a red link that says “new version”. Click it!

Read the full article: http://mashable.com/2011/11/30/google-analytics-new-features/  

Via mashable.com

How to Create a Google+ Profile Banner in 5 Minutes

In addition to setting up a Google+ page for your business and taking advantage of our handy Google+ tips and tricks, check out how to quickly and easily create a profile banner.

We’ve found a neat photo cropping tool that will help you create an eye-catching Google+ profile photo banner in five minutes.

So take a look through this simple gallery walkthrough. Link us in the comments to any creative uses of the Google+ photo banner you’ve seen — or better still, created on your own!

via http://mashable.com

►Mini Matmian:

A nice, quick little tutorial to spice up your Google+ profile. I’d would love to see your attempts. Post screen-shots of your profile or a link.

You can reply directly on Blogger or our tumblr page.

Topsy Review - Social Web Search Engine

What can you use the application for?

Topsy.com is a new search engine that returns results from sites such as Twitter, Blogs, Flickr, Digg, Yelp, Identica and others. The site returns search results that are up to the minute, so users get the latest news from the social networking world. Results are shown in page form, in order of the number of “Tweets” each result has received on Twitter. The results page displays the option of viewing All Results, or results that were written in the last Hour, Day, Week or Month. Results can also be viewed by the top authors. Authors with the most results on the topic searched are shown first. The Topsy home page is dominated by a large search bar. Users may also enter a Twitter username in the search bar, and the search engine will return all the results posted by that user. The home page also has links to an About Us page, to the Topsy blog, a link to follow Topsy on Twitter, a link to Send Feedback, a link to Terms (terms of usage for the site) and a link to Privacy (the site’s privacy policy).

Who would you recommend the application to?The Topsy site is recommended to anyone wishing up to date search results from the social networking and blogging world. The site does a very thorough job of searching and is very easy to use. Search results are returned very quickly and are displayed in a pleasing format.Topsy Features

• Search engine searches the major social networking and blogging sites, especially Twitter
• Search results are ordered according to the number of Tweets they have
• Users can filter the results to show results written in the last hour, day, week or month
• Users can filter the search results by top authors
• Search results are very up-to-date

Rated 4 out of 5 stars by AppAppeal Editor

►Mini Matmian:

A pretty neat little website for searching social media platforms and displaying real-time info from Twitter and Google+.

Check out the video below to see an interview with one of the creators of Topsy.

Topsy: real-time social platform (er, search)

Uploaded by Scobleizer

 Source: appappeal.com