I have had a day to reflect on the news that Steve Jobs had passed away and have been amazed at the response all over the web. However I do think that a lot of people miss the true contribution that Steve Jobs gave the world.

A lot of people have been talking about the technological contributions of the iOS and OSX products and of course the earlier products. These were fantastic achievements and they are the products that people will look back on for years to come and say that they changed the way we do things and opened up a whole new world. However large a contribution this was I think the key point is missed.

Steve Jobs was a truly great man who has not only given us the products that we all know and love but his true legacy is his story of inspiration and self belief, this was a man that had a career of ups and downs but still managed to come out on top. He set up a company that changed the face of personal computing, then got forced out of the company and set up another one while his original brain child was being run into the ground by an egomaniac. All of this is amazing in itself but it was in 1997 when the real character of the man came out for all to see.

He returned to Apple, which was on the edge of collapse and instead of trying to turn mass market and just sell computers he made risky decisions and was as meticulous as ever with the design of his machines. It would have been very easy for him to buckle under the pressure of the task at hand and give in to what most people would say is the sensible way out. However in the years that followed, with the help of Jonny Ive and the rest of the teams, he managed to change the landscape of industry after industry and become a market leader in MP3 players, smartphones and tablets all while never compromising on design, quality and service. I personally cannot think of another company that has managed this meteoric rise to success without a black mark on it’s record.

In 2004 Steve disclosed that he had pancreatic cancer This would be enough for the average man to take his foot off the peddle and try and recover from one of the most aggressive types of cancer that there is, that is not even close to what he did. In 2005 he made the commencement speech at Stanford University that has become his most powerful and influential speech he ever made and has been making the rounds on all social platforms today. In 2008 Steve was reimbursed $871,000 for use of the company jet, this was a man suffering from a rare form of very aggressive cancer and he was flying all over the world and working harder than ever.

From the time he was told he had cancer to the day he sadly died. He had made Apple the most valuable company in the world and the most iconic brand there has ever been. They are the standard that every company wants to meet but no one has even come close. Steve Jobs was Apple and this image that has become an iconic image over night represents how everyone feels the same.

He showed the world what it is to be a great man, he was private and understated with his trademark dressed down look of a black turtle neck and blue jeans. We never knew the man behind the public face but I think this picture gives us a good idea of what he meant to those around him. It was taken on June 6th this year and was his last public presentation.

It is this attitude and never give up determination that is Steve Jobs most valuable offering to the world. He showed us everyone what is possible and he left us with words of wisdom that will be true long after we are all forgotten. Products come and go but greatness is forever and the influence and inspiration that he has given the world is by far his greatest achievement.

Near field communication is not a new idea but it is an idea that has not been capitalised on effectively on a large scale. The only place it is being used is in bank cards and I’m sure most people don’t know what it is, how to use it or what it does.

This needs to change and I think that the tipping point is not too far away. The real platform for NFC is in the mobile phone, everyone has one and the capabilities are growing on a daily basis. The possibilities of NFC for marketers is just fantastic, location based targeted marketing is extremely cost effective. Payments via mobile phone in shops, data transfer, wish lists, the list can go on and on.

Picture this. You are in a restaurant and have finished your main and are in a bit of a rush, you try and catch the waiters eye but fail miserably. You want to order a desert or coffee, no problem. With the embedded NFC chip in the table you can hover your phone over it, see the menu and place your order. No need for that awkward 5 minutes of trying to catch someone’s attention only to have to mouth the words “desert” while gesticulating wildly.

One of the major benefits for marketers is the ability to gather user information quickly easily and cheaply. If each location has it’s own RFID tag then it will be possible to map usage, uptake, times of usage, most effective locations and a multitude of other forms of data. This could be invaluable to the smaller companies that do not have the finances to invest in market research.

The other major platform that will benefit is social media. Speed is everything, no one likes to wait to be social we all want it know. An RFID tag on a McDonalds door will allow quick check ins for Foursquare and other location based social platforms. Tagging locations on Facebook, tweeting information about an event. All of this is possible with NFC.

The tipping point for me would be the inclusion of the technology in the iOS devices, mainly the iPhone. If Apple decide to do this then the world will stand up and take notice. The potential sales of the iPhone 5 are amazing.  Abramsky increased the estimated iPhone sales for 2012 from 105 million units to 110 million units sold. That is an amazing figure. That could mean 110 million people ready to use NFC technology, that will surely speed up the adoption and the usage of NFC. At the moment Apple dictates what works and what fails in the phone market so I am hoping that they get on board with NFC.

There are however problems with the concept, the main one is security. What happens if a phone is stolen/lost/hacked? Well to be honest the answers are not there for this yet, the closest we have come is to have a £10 limit on NFC payments via MasterCard or Visa, but this is not a very practical answer to what is an extremely complicated issue.

It will be great to see what companies can come up with using NFC, I would love to see a vending machine with it for that time I don’t have £1 for a bottle of water! Tell me below what you would love to see, be as creative as you can.

They are one of those things that you didn’t realise you needed until you have it. Up until recently, GA (and most other conversion tracking tools) has credited the most recently clicked link for the conversion. Which means we know where to attribute our conversions to, right? Not exactly. Ideally, we want to go more in depth, we want to know which digital channel sparked the original interest. Which ad or referral or social network made the customer aware of your brand?

So let’s say a visitor found your site through Google Organic search and converted, that conversion would have always been attributed to a Google Organic search. BUT! What if before they searched for you in Google they found your site through a paid link on Google? Surely that paid link should get some of the credit here? And surely you could do with knowing that it was that paid link that sparked the interest in your brand? Especially if you’re considering stopping those non-profitable paid links – Without that paid link, the second visit probably wouldn’t have happened and as a result, neither would the conversion.

Well now we can find out. Excellent.

We’re greeted with the Overview report of Multi-Channel Funnels, which begins to give us an idea of the kind of insights we can gain from these reports. Even the below visual instantly and neatly, shows us which channels are currently overlapping.

The second report is Assisted Conversions, which partly shows you what you already know (or you can already find out in GA) e.g. How many conversions was attributed to organic traffic and the value of those conversions (Last Interaction Conversions/Value). More importantly here though, it shows the ‘Assisted’ metrics. In the example below, Organic Search has assisted in a further 219 conversion with an added value of $518, which previously would not be attributed to organic search.

The next report ‘Top Conversion Paths’ will show all of the various paths that have resulted in a conversion (only over the past 30 days, though). Like most reports in GA, you can choose from a range of different metrics to view in the report from the drop down above the paths. You can also select the length of path you want to view by (All paths, 2 paths, 3 etc…)

Time Lag and Path Length give you an idea of the length of a complete conversion path. How many days or weeks does it take to get to a conversion? How many channels (paid, organic, referral, affiliates, social etc…) does it take to get to a conversion? And of course, the values related to that specific data.

So, what can we gain from these new reports? Well, aside from the actionable and extremely valuable insights you can gain from the standard reports there’s many more possibilities like; Custom Channel Groupings (such as all branded/non-branded traffic), or Conversion Segments (such as First Interaction is Organic). As always, we have the added bonus of being able to export the data to Excel for some analytical wizardry. I would like to go into more depth about these reports but I’ll save that for another time, partly because now is probably a good time to start using and testing with these reports yourself, but mainly because I went over my 500 word quota 61 words ago and Rhys might start shouting at me.