Calculated Metrics Come to Google Analytics

Wrote this for the work blog, but it gets me excited enough that I also wanted to touch on this here. Google Analytics has rolled out support for calculated metrics, which means we can now define custom metrics (such as Revenue per User) inside of Google Analytics, rather than needing to pull this data and process it with a spreadsheet before reporting. 

This is the kind of move that makes me happy to still be firmly hitched to the Google Analytics wagon. I still have yet to find a better analytics suite, and it has hit the point where I have very little fear of Google Analytics going the way of Google Reader. This is the perfect example of that - little by little, Google has managed to fix or enhance pretty much every deficiency within the suite, and has rolled out some great features in the process. Demographic data, Social data, Multi-Channel Conversion information, and Real Time are features and reports I rely on daily, and they are all features added within the last several years (primarily, with the rollout of Universal)

 

Chromecast and Spotify - Together at Last

As someone who owns multiple Chromecasts, including one for his bag "just in case", this is huge news for me. I had figured they were just not going to support it, and was planning on just using Bluetooth speakers everywhere. Kudos to Spotify for finally listening to its users, and to Google for (it seems) integrating Spotify Connect to make them happy.