I have been reading Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk recently (an excellent and very practical book by the way) and came across a section on Web Analytics in the book. I have reproduced it below (with permission) as it makes a very important point – don’t obsess about your web stats!

Please people – you watch the news about identity theft and discuss it in your local pub, bar, restaurant or book club, but as soon as one of these “games” appears in your social network you happilly divulge all your inner secrets. So, when your identiy is stolen, your bank account emptied and your credit cards maxed out, please remember your identity wasn’t stolen – you gave it away.

A social network relies on its credibility and this is achieved by how it protects its members. Sadly, Ecademy’s credibility as a social network has been completely undermined by one of its founders as it has allowed my details to enter the public domain and as a direct result has caused my email account to be spammed. In the title of the post I mentioned Twitter, Ecademy and LinkedIn. The reason for this is that they can act as a very effective funnel for networking. Here’s how.