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IoT Devfest Website Analytics

When organizing an event with 100 or so people, there are many decisions to make right away. Should we have a website? Brand? Logo? It’s not a huge event so putting it on Meetup or just using the ticketing website (we use Universe that has a really nice looking event page) sounds like a good plan especially with limited resources. Logo design? Only if someone on the organizing team happens to be a designer because that kind of thing can cost thousands of dollars.

We decided early to have our own website and got really lucky that a designer (thanks, Travis!) was willing to help out with the brand. We think having our own site and brand contributed immensely to the success of our event and below is some of the evidence we used to come to that conclusion.

In a later post I’ll go into some detail about how 2/3’s of attendees registered in the week before the event but that fact might help explain the analytics for the IoT Devfest website seen below:

As you can see, on Monday, January 4th we had our second highest number of “sessions” (a complicated metric but it’s the best guess at “visits”). It’s also the day we contacted our fellow organizers and asked them to get the word out and some did that on Monday but others did on Tuesday. Event day was Saturday, January 9th and that was the highest sessions with 523. I’m glad to see that so many people used the website and next time I’m going to make sure it’s even better. What else could we have added? Where could we have organized it better? What did you think of the logo/brand/design? Suggestions and feedback welcome! Hit me up on twitter @tooshel.

Sheldon

P.S. Below is the hourly sessions chart. It would be fun to correlate the time that we tweeted and organizers sent out email to the times where we saw a spike in website sessions (registration was on the front page where you see the video now . . . STILL keeping it up to date!). Maybe there is a business idea in there somewhere.

IoT Devfest

What an amazing event! I’m a bit biased because I helped organize it with Mike but I can tell you I wasn’t so sure it was going to be great the week before the event. At that point we only had about 50 people registered and were thinking about ways we could downsize it. It’s taken selling out, a few days of reflection, and many many many many many people saying it was great for me to know for sure I wasn’t completely biased. In the coming weeks I hope to reflect on the event and post some stories here that I thought were interesting. In the meantime, I need to get post-event work done (reporting, paying bills, videos, etc).

Project Fi after a month

I’ve had my Nexus 6 and Project Fi for about a month now. The short review is that I love the service but don’t like the phone. Below is the long version.

Hardware

Simply put: I think the phone is too big. It’s bigger than a Samsung Note 4. Even a month later I’m not used to it. Barely fits in my pants. It’s two hands for just about everything. That said, it’s nice having a screen that big with me all the time. Basically, overall, like a big phone but maybe not this big. It’s likely I’ll change my mind in a month just like every other big phone user.

The perf on the phone is fine. It’s not much better than my old (stolen 🙁 from my car) Nexus 5. But I don’t notice any lag except on Tapped Out . . . . but I hear that is an Android 5.1/5.1.1 thing.

Google also sent a welcome pack (and I put my phone in the case they sent and then took a picture) which was a surprise and delight moment.

Network

One of the most intriguing features of Fi is that it makes T-Mobile and Sprint into your network (along with Wifi which is uses instead of either of those two if you are connected. Here in AZ you are taking the #3 carrier for coverage (T-Mobile) and the #4 carrier (Sprint) and making into a tie for #2 in coverage with AT&T and nowhere near as good the #1 carrier for coverage (Verizon). I installed an app called “SignalCheck Pro” mostly so I could tell which network I was on and I was surprised how often I was on Sprint’s network. The jumping between Sprint and T-Mobile is seemless but I have had times where I was on Wifi on a call and the call was dropped as I walked away from the Wifi. It’s something to be aware of but hasn’t bothered me much.

Google Voice

When I transferred to Project Fi I was informed that I either use my current Google Voice number or I port my cell number and loose my Google Voice number. That was a tough decision since I used both often. Anyway, I ended up porting my cell number (and moving my Google Voice number to a different google account) and it went fine. And I love that SMS text messages are integrated with voice messages with a translation. That was certainly a surprise and delight feature.

Project Fi

Not much is different between Google as a provider and T-Mobile as a provider except that I use the Project Fi app to keep track of my data usage. And THAT is the real downside of having to pay for every byte . . . it makes you think about everything you do. There is something to say about psychological detachment you get when you have allotment of data to use or not use. That truly is a big downside to Project Fi . . . even more than the forced Nexus 6.

Pricing

Project Fi will not save you money except in edge cases. Start at out $20 and then add $10/GB for data. That SOUNDS cheap, but it really isn’t. Especially for people with a family or anyone who uses more than a few GB of data. T-Mobile recently announced a 10GB family plan . . . 10GB for each user. . . . and two people on that plan is the same as a Fi plan using only 3GB each. And I like to tether! So I frequently use over 3GB of data. The T-Mobile plan is so compelling that I decided to give my 3-year-old daughter a phone that I can use when I need to tether.