All Ping

Gerald Donovan created the first panorama photo from the top of the world’s tallest building. The 2.6 GB, 360-degree panorama was shot at the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

Commonly, we use JPEG of PNG for images on the Web. These two image formats technically work just fine until the introduction of high-definition screens of mobile devices, which prompted web designers to reconsider the efficiency of these format usages for the Web.

In short, a high-definition screen requires twice the regular image resolution and size; otherwise, the image could be pixelated. There are, however, a few consequences regarding that matter: first, for users who have low Internet connection speed will need to wait for the website to load (really) slowly. The images will also take more space in web storage, which eventually will also consume much of the bandwidth.

Recently, Google proposed a solution: a new image format for Web called WebP. This format offers image clarity while maintaining a smaller size than that of JPEG and PNG. Let’s take a look at the WebP image format.

WebP Comparison

In this example, we compare an image by Rula Sibai in three different formats.

As you can see above, the images above look almost of the same quality, yet the size for the WebP format is the lowest of the three.

Furthermore, WebP supports Alpha channel that allows us to create transparency on the image, which is great for creating an image logo. Here is an example and the comparison.

WebP Tools

Unfortunately, many image editors – except Pixelmator – does not support WebP format at the moment. But, there are already a few tools that allow us to load, create, save and convert JPEG, PNG, and other image formats into WebP format.

WebP for Photoshop – This is a Photoshop plugin that allows you to load and save your image in WebP format.

Convert to WebP – This tool converts JPEG and PNG and other format into WebP.

WebP to Other Format – This tool changes WebP to other formats.

Gimp For WebP – A plugin for Gimp to support WebP format.

WebP Codec for Windows – Using this codec we can view WebP format in Windows natively.

Sadly WebP support is not widely supported by most browsers yet. Currently, it is only Opera and Chrome that support the WebP format natively, while Firefox is still considering it.

For full list of WebP browser support you can head over to the following page.

Final Thought

WebP seems to be a promising image format for Web in the future. Despite the lack of support, there are a few advantages on using WebP:

The image size is a lot smaller, We could save much storage space and bandwidth with smaller image sizes.

Since WebP size is smaller than JPEG and PNG as in our above test, the image will likely load faster.

WebP is a lossy image format like JPEG. But, unlike JPEG, WebP supports Alpha channel that allows creating transparency on the image. So, rather than using PNG and JPEG, we can simply use one format for our web images.

Further Reading

WebP, a new image for the web – Google Developer

WebP on Chromium – Chromium Blog

Comprehensive Guide to WebP

Twitter Web Analytics Tool can be accessed by every Twitter user now. Twitter will always remain the original pro in the run of social networking sites. This social networking platform never lost the charm among its lovers and day by day, it is making the product more powerful and friendly for marketers and businesses of all size and all kinds.

Twitter Web Analytics Tool

The recent inclusion of ‘Twitter Web Analytic Tool’ for all the users will now enable everyone to analyse the ‘Social Compliance’ of their tweets. Earlier, available solely for the Twitters’ Advertising customers, it helped the business users a lot to track the status of their tweets and plan marketing campaigns accordingly.

What’s the use of Twitter Web Analytics Tool?

With the new tool, anyone can now measure the performance of his or her tweet. Let us see what this Twitter Web Analytics Tool is all about in details:

Users now get the full access to the humungous data about other people, user groups, and brands, who follow them. The main aspect of importance is the ‘Timeline Activity’. Timeline Activity is a graphical view of the total number of ‘mentions’, ‘follows’, ‘unfollows’ that the user has received in the last month. Below the summary list, there is a detailed list mentioning about the user’s most recent tweet.

The Timeline Activity can be refreshed in certain incremental interval (for example every 6 hours). The monthly details are also available as weekly details, along with fetching the data of the same day. Before Twitter Web Analytics was made open to all, there are certain Twitter analytics tools already in use. However, the accuracy and authenticity of the data and information was a matter of concern always. Now, people can easily get accurate data on the performance of their Twitter profile as well as the tweets they make.

If we look at the benefits, marketers can make use of three major aspects –

Information on the volume of traffic Twitter is following in to the publishers’ website

Insight on the nature and intensity of engagement a Tweet button is producing on the website

Understanding of content sharing strategy throughout the social networking site.

Well, now another aspect of importance is how to use the Twitter Web Analytic Tool. Here is how you can log in to the tool:

1. Go to Twitter Ads and log in to your account.

2. Next, click the ‘Analytics’ button and choose any of the 3 options. You’re done.

Now, you can see all the data of your Twitter account. Twitter Web Analytics was a much planned out effort by the company, which has started with the acquisition of BackType. BackType provides all the technology support to make the analytics happen.

Should I use the Twitter Web Analytics Tool?

Marketers and business owners have always loved to see the analytics data of their Twitter activities. This has always helped to gain better insight of their customers’ viewpoint. The social media revolution initiated by Twitter always needed an analytic tool for the marketers to better understand, plan, and execute their campaigns. Now, with the tool becoming open to all, will enable general twitter users become aware of what is happening around their Tweet ecosystem. So, now you also get ready to bring that social impact in your Twitter account and make your profile socially compliant.

Ok friends, here I want to tell you something important. Actually many of us are not yet able to view the analytics. Even Avi told me that he was unable to view analytics at first but he finally found a way to get access to the analytics.

Now, you can see all the data of your Twitter account. Twitter Web Analytics was a much planned out effort by the company, which has started with the acquisition of BackType. BackType provides all the technology support to make the analytics happen.

Should I use the Twitter Web Analytics Tool?

Marketers and business owners have always loved to see the analytics data of their Twitter activities. This has always helped to gain better insight of their customers’ viewpoint. The social media revolution initiated by Twitter always needed an analytic tool for the marketers to better understand, plan, and execute their campaigns. Now, with the tool becoming open to all, will enable general twitter users become aware of what is happening around their Tweet ecosystem. So, now you also get ready to bring that social impact in your Twitter account and make your profile socially compliant.

Ok friends, here I want to tell you something important. Actually many of us are not yet able to view the analytics. Even Avi told me that he was unable to view analytics at first but he finally found a way to get access to the analytics.

At first I was not able to access Twitter Analytics.

Every time I click on Analytics > Timeline Activity and I was taken to the same Ads promotion page. Then I asked some of my friends if they were able to view their analytics. None of them were able to view anything except the Ads promotion page. I also read blogs like Mashabe but didn’t find any clue. Finally I tried to make it out in someway.

What I actually did?

1. I clicked on the “Account and Billing” option at the top right and selected “Billing History”.
2. Then I was taken to the billing page.
3. Then I clicked on the “Switch to Advanced” option.
4. This brought up a popup which was showing Basic account v/s Advanced account features.
5. And as I clicked on Advanced I became an advanced account users and finally became able to view my Twitter account analytics.

Actually the thing is, many of our ads account is still in basic mode and so we need to get in to advanced in order to view the analytics. As told in the above ic that only advanced users can get access to analytics and so I was not seeing analytics before when I was on basic plan. But the roblem has been solved now. Wow!

Hope you liked the article and I’m sure you will enjoy viewing your Twitter Analytics.