I’m a big fan of Clicky Web Analytics – Why? Well mostly because of their excellent Spy feature which I’ve previously discussed here and here. A few weeks back I emailed the developers asking them:

“Something has just occured to me as I stare at the tab with Spy opened – could you add the current active user numbers into the title dynamically everytime that number changes?”

I was thinking something along the lines of Twitter search, or Campfire (and Chatterbloc) which display an unread message count in the title field which is also seen in your browser tab menu:

Why is this helpful to me? Well like most people I use multiple tabs and it really bugs me to have to flip from one to the other all the time to refresh or view updates that have appeared via ajax. Anyway, long story short – Clicky implemented the change within about an hour of my email (which was also awesome btw).

Fluid

So that’s great, my tabs now show me my current active live user count on reynoldsftw.com. But then I started to think… I’m using multiple applications, not just multiple tabs – so when my focus is elsewhere – I can’t quickly see the latest user count without going back to my browser and checking out the tab!

Enter Fluid.app. Fluid is a browser-type application which goes one step further – allowing you to build site specific Mac OSX applications based on websites. What do I mean by this? Well basically – I can create a brand new desktop application out of any website. It will have a lovely icon, and launch in exactly the same way as any other desktop application.

Fluid isn’t just that though. It also gives you added scripting ability in the name of Greasemonkey. What this allows me to do as a user is write a small script (javascript) to interact with the page, and do something with the results. In this case, I am going to create a script which reads the <TITLE> HTML element, looking for the user count in brackets “(10)”, and display a nice badge over the dock icon:

Once complete, I now only have to peer down to my dock for the latest user count – and if I want to dive into the Spy page, I just click the icon, and my web application is open. Awesome work – so how did I do it?

Clicky Desktop Application

So the first step is to make a nice desktop application out of my Clicky Spy page. Download Fluid.app from their website and install (OS X 10.5 upwards). Run Fluid – you will be prompted with a couple of questions around what web page you want to make an application. Enter the URL of the chosen site (this could be Clicky Spy, Twitter Search, GMail – whatever), a name for your app, where you want to save it (Applications folder probably) and what icon you want to use.

Icon wise you have two options, use the favicon (which I used – but doesn’t scale well), or use a nice PNG file. Up to you.

Click “Create” and you’re done. Launch your newly created application. It doesn’t look much different to a browser huh?

GreaseMonkey

So next we need to create the script to infiltrate the <TITLE> HTML element, and extract the count from between the brackets. This is pretty easy – goto the script icon and choose “New Userscript…”:

This will prompt you for a name for the script, and also open up a empty script for you to manipulate in your favourite code editor.

Finally, its time to enter some code. Here is the script I am using to extract the user count (ie “3″) from “(3) Blah Blah”:

// ==UserScript==
// @name        LiveStats
// @namespace   http://fluidapp.com
// @description What does this do?
// @include     *
// @author      SteveReynolds
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {
if (!window.fluid) {
return;
}
function updateDockBadge() {
var badgeString = "";
var title = document.title;

if (title && title.length) {
var start = title.indexOf("(");
var end = title.indexOf(")");
if (start > -1 && end > -1) {
start++;
badgeString = title.substring(start, end);
if (badgeString == "0") {
badgeString = "";
}
}
}

window.fluid.setDockBadge(badgeString);
}
setInterval(function(){updateDockBadge();}, 3000);
})();

Job Done! Just enable the script by clicking its name in the script menu, and reload all scripts. Sometimes this doesn’t work so you might need to restart the app.

I’ve posted about Clicky before, but briefly, they are a web analytics provider (ala Google etc), however they offer quite a significant feature list. One of them being the excellent “Spy” feature which shows you real-time interactions with your website.

Back at the end of July 09, the Clicky team upgraded the Spy feature again, this time with some significant upgrades. I’ve now been using it for a couple of weeks, so let’s check it out:

Interactive World Map

Clicky's Spy Interactive Map

The major upgrade is the new interactive map feature which sits at the top of the “Spy” page. You can literally watch your visitors hitting your website from all around the world, what page they’re on – and a few stats like browser, OS etc. As the users navigate through your site, you can track them and as soon they drop off, they drop off the map – very cool, and very addictive watching in busy periods!

New Page Layout

Previously, the old Spy would give you a text-based list of interactions with your website, with some tabs across the top to see what content is currently popular, plus stats by location, referrers, domains and searches. The problem with this (which Clicky have now recognised) was that you could only look at any of those pieces in isolation, and you’d lose the ability to see the interactive text feed.

The Spy layout has now been updated so that the text feed of interactions is static, with a new additional box next to the map which shows the popular content, and stats by certain criteria.

Filters

Clicky Filters

What makes this new “popular content” box even more excellent, is its ability to filter. You can cycle through each tab, for example – select a piece of content, select a country, and it will filter the entire pages content (including the map) to those filters, so you can effectively “zoom” down or focus on particular meta data. A really really cool feature.

Conclusion

All in all, this is a great minor upgrade to the already excellent “mega” spy feature from Clicky. For me, it’s definitely the feature I use the most, and as I said above – it’s HIGHLY addictive.

Clicky posted a great video on youtube to demonstrate the new page, check it out:

Clicky is a great web analytics tool with many cool features. I use it here alongside Google Analytics – mostly for its real-time “Spy” feature which enables me to see what’s happening on the site there and then. Late last week Clicky opened up a beta version of their new “Mega Spy” feature, which pushes their existing “Spy” feature to the next level. I’ve been lucky enough to get on the beta – here’s how I’ve found it…

Original Clicky Spy Interface

From One to Many

The first thing you’ll notice with the new “Mega Spy” feature is the new tabbed interface. Gone is the single stream of data purely based on user actions like link clicks and entrance pages, whilst you still have this content under “Actions”, you can now separate all of that data based on a number of new options: “Content”, “Links”, Searches”, “Countries”, “Cities”, “Browsers” and “OS”.

Actions

The actions tab is probably the most familiar when comparing to the old “Spy” feature. With this view you get to see pretty much all user actions, from the user initially hitting your site (the entry page), where they came from (the referrer), what actions they take on the site (links clicked) as well as information on IP, Country, OS and browser versions. For a quick high level snapshot this fits the bill perfectly. You also have the ability to click through to specific links or pages within your site to get further overall data on that page.

Content & Links

Content and Links sections give you a number of active users against the relevant content or links. What this does is slice the current active users into sections, so you can see X number of people are looking at Y article right this second.

Searches

Again, cutting the active user data into a new slice, this real time view shows all the active users that got to your site via a search term. Whilst this is interesting, it doesn’t really have much value to me as searches usually are sporadic events and aren’t normally drivers for spikes in traffic, so I can really review this data more relevantly on a day-to-day basis rather than in real time.

Countries & Cities

This data slice is interesting in the sense that it can give you some important data about where your traffic is coming from at that point of the day. Whilst you can assume as the day progresses different parts of the world appear, and some disappear, with “Mega Spy” you can actually see this happening there and then. Some surprising results!

Browsers and OS

Lastly, the Browser and OS tabs accumulate data on active users for these data points. As with all the previous tab data, this is great because compared to the original “Spy” feature, you could never get a real number around any of these data points, like “How many of my active users are using Safari 4.0?”. You could see them coming in with the browser, but no rolled up numbers. Very useful during certain events you may want to track in real time.

The Dashboard

New Clicky "Mega Spy" Interface

Overall the dashboard interface has had a significant update too. You can now see a total number of active users online in the top left hand corner, as well as a sidebar list on the left of all current users, their details and what they are doing within your site. What the image above alludes to also which isn’t currently in the beta is the user of filters. This should enable you to filter the current Actions and other tabs against a filter term – another great way to custom slice the data in realtime.

Conclusion

“Mega Spy” is nothing but a massive improvement to the existing “Spy” feature in Clicky. As I mentioned, I use Clicky mainly for this functionality, so to see it improved is a huge win for me. Something really cool would be to enhance it further by integrating Google Maps for example for a more visual representation of active users on a map, and maybe some interactive graphs such as a line graph showing active users over time for say, the last hour. All in all though, a massive feature boost to the already great feature list of Clicky… The future looks pretty darn good!

I’ve been using both Clicky and Google Analytics now on my blog for the past month. Both do their job very well, however have some important differences. Here’s a brief summary of the two products, how they stack up against each other, and why I’m digging Clicky.

Clicky

Probably the biggest selling point for me on Clicky is the realtime nature of their stats generation. You can see within 30 seconds usually if someone is on your site, and their journey through your site. Their “Spy” feature allows you to watch a live feed of your site, showing all stats activity without a page refresh… Very nice. It’s a shame Clicky doesn’t employ this kind of self-refresh to the other elements on its dashboard… perhaps even just to the high level stats would be nice.

Another awesome feature of Clicky is its fully fledged iPhone application straight out of the box. Because (like Google Analytics) the graphs on the site are all flash based, it pretty much ends your experience on the iPhone… The app fixes that, although there are no pretty graphs to look at. Would be a nice to have…

Clicky also neatly integrates your Feedburner and Twitter stats, so you can cross compare visits Vs new followers for example… Talking of integration, Clicky also has an API…

Something I have noticed with Clicky is it not picking up certain sites as referrers. Certainly, I never see any click throughs from Delicious links in Clicky, when I see many in Google Analytics. I can also see more click throughs from Google Reader for example via Google Analytics.

Another downside of Clicky is alot of the features do come at a cost. There are a number of price plans, from free to $19.99 per month, with features being made available depending on how much cash you are willing to part with.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics (GA) is fast becoming an industry leader (if it’s not already). I’ve used it for a number of years, and it’s always proven to be a valuable asset. Feature-wise, it lacks a few key elements which I mentioned above – mainly the realtime stats. You’re likely going to have to wait for a stats update every 4 hours at the moment, which in a world of NOW NOW NOW, is a long time!

I’m surprised that GA still hasn’t integrated with Feedburner or Adsense. It would be awesome to be able to see what ads were clicked on what pages and where etc… I can see which ad placeholder a user clicked, but that’s it. GA also has yet to come out with an API, which really sucks for corporations. This was one reason why we had to hold back from using it in my last job… Sounds like Feedburner integration is coming soon though.

From a usability perspective, Google has it nailed. GA is a great tool to work with, and has so far never let me down. Although again, the flash usage puts the iPhone out of action which isn’t great for those of us on the move.

Conclusion

For me, the realtime stats and availability of the API are two really killer blows to Google Analytics. I’m surprised Google haven’t come out with these features yet, as they do have the power. Although biased, Clicky has a nice table to display them Vs a number of other stats engines which really does show the potential. Clicky could take a leaf out of the Google UI book though, and think about usability a little more.

My only hesitance with Clicky is there is still very much a “start-up” feel about the site, a bit too work in progress. If they could get away from being so developer oriented, focus on plain old users, and sell it like they mean it – they could be onto a winner! Real-time stats FTW!!

Both products are free to try (Analytics is free ongoing). Clicky is priced at $0.00, $4.99, $9.99 and $19.99 per month.

Further Reading:

Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics	Actionable Web Analytics	Google Analytics 2.0