Today Google announced the launch of real-time analytics within their Google Analytics service. I’ve been in the web analytics area since the first beta of Webtrends and am glad to see Google finally offering a real-time feature as part of their very popular metrics offering. Real-time stats are critical when you run ad campaigns or are now using social media tools to help spread your marketing messages. When you monitor real-time stats, you can make changes on-the-fly to your campaigns to optimize the heck out of your spend. I also hear from other bloggers that they use real-time metrics tools to monitor for traffic based on adjustments to story titles to see which provide a better response.

Naturally today’s Google Analytics announcement must mean that real-time analytics tools including Clicky, Chartbeat, SiteMeter, Woopra and ExtremeTracking are dead. Maybe these tools should consider a quick pivot to real-time daily deals (I kid!).

Blogger Holden Page immediately noted, “Google Analytics went real-time. In one fell swoop hit about four startups, one of which I use religiously (Clicky) with an iron fist.”

I like the blog post by the Clicky team – they always use pepper sarcasm into their posts. The title of their blog post reads, “SHUT. DOWN. EVERYTHING.”

They note, “Hmm… did anyone actually read the announcement that Google made today? This isn’t “real time Google Analytics”, this is a single report in GA that is real time. The rest of GA remains the same. This is more akin to Chartbeat, to be used as a real time compliment to a standard analytics package, rather than a full standalone real time service like Clicky is. But I guarantee you Chartbeat will be just fine, as will everyone else. We’ve all had, and continue to have, plenty of advantages over GA other than real time data.”

They then link to a number of tweets that signal death for Clicky, Woopra and Chartbeat. The quotes include:

• “Sites like Clicky will soon be out of business”
• “getclicky and chartbeat ought to run for the hills”
• “Is this the beginning of the end of Woopra?”
• “Google killing off Chartbeat”

I am still waiting to see proof where death of a service occurred because a large company put out an offering in that space. I guess the closest we could come would be all those tools that built on top of Twitter only to have Twitter build their own – but remember I warned against that many moons ago.

Note: we are an affiliate of Clicky but none of the links in this post carry the affiliate code.

Find more stories about: analytics, Chartbeat, Clicky, Google Analytics

The big news in the social media expert camp from last week was the notification that all links that are posted on Twitter, both on the website and using a third-party app, will now automatically be converted to use Twitter’s official t.co URL shortener. You can read the Twitter help post and the developer guide to learn more about t.co and how it works. Part of the conversation around the t.co rollout reminds me of some of the discussion when Digg launched the Diggbar.

Short tl:dr version: Just because a t.co url appears in your referral log, it does not mean that all the traffic to that url has come from Twitter.

Sean at the analytics service Clicky posted about how the change to use t.co will make it appear that Twitter has zero influence because the referral logs will show t.co instead of twitter.com going forward. When I initially read the post, I thought there was something wrong but couldn’t put my finger on it at the time. Yesterday Zee at the Next Web (note: they are a Twitter default user) created a post titled, “Twitter Just Got the Respect it Deserves”. He continues along the same lines as Clicky and has several key points:

• Twitter is now influential in terms of traffic from an “eyes of the media” standpoint
• Facebook and Stumbleupon better watch out because now Twitter will appear really big as a social media traffic driver
• Brands and businesses will now take note of how influential Twitter is
• You can search to find out which tweet was the influential one because you can search on a specific t.co url

Unfortunately it looks like there are issues with both the Clicky post (and the very wrong change they made to their service) and Zee’s statements.

T.co and how it appears in the referral log

There are lots of times where a t.co URL gets copied OUTSIDE of Twitter. For example, yesterday Mashable reported about Gaddafi and the changes in Libya. When that story gets posted into the Mashable Twitter stream, it now takes on a t.co URL. But followers of the Mashable Twitter stream may copy the URL (which copies the t.co URL not the original URL) and place it into Facebook, Google+ or any other social network.

It is important to note that Twitter does appear to be changing the URL when a user copies a t.co url and posts it on Twitter – this will help with tracking back to a user assuming that the URL is never copied outside of Twitter. BUT, in my testing, if you retweet using the new retweet option, the URL stays the same – this will cause the same issue I discuss below.

When the URL is clicked, it seems to appear on most analytics tools that the traffic is coming via t.co and not from the source network (i.e. Facebook, etc.). If we use the theory that Zee posted, this will make t.co and Twitter itself appear more influential than it is because to his team, it now looks like Twitter sent all the traffic when it was another network. Additionally this would make the Twitter user who originally posted the link appear to have driven traffic that might have come from other sources.

And it’s not just an issue for social network postings – if I copy a t.co URL from another user and send it via email, why should that appear as influence from Twitter?

Additionally, if you use the search technique that Zee suggests, it may make a Twitter user appear more influential than they are because when the link is clicked 500 times on Facebook, now it will look like that user sent the traffic to your site when in fact it was shared by a popular user on Facebook.

Clicky’s URL change and why it needs to be reversed

I like Clicky and their team – I’ve used their service since the early days and they are one of the few services I will recommend when someone asks about analytics tools (note: there is an ad on the right bar but none of the links in this post carry any referral links). In their blog post, they note, “We just updated Clicky to convert t.co referrers into “twitter.com” automatically. Knowing the specific t.co link someone came from has no value, but knowing someone came from Twitter does.”

Update: Clicky has reversed the change!

Example of user copying t.co URL into Google+:

Zee and several other Clicky customers note in the comments that this change is a huge mistake – that it is important to be able to see the t.co referral to direct posts. I agree with the commenters here that changing any t.co referral to twitter.com is a huge mistake and one that needs to be reversed asap.

Oddly, in my Clicky testing today, it appears that clicking a t.co url from Facebook shows up as a referral from Facebook and clicking a t.co url from Google+ shows up as “plus.google.com/search”.

But when I copy the t.co URL and paste it into a Skype chat or into an email or Gtalk chat, the referral shows up as Twitter.com. These referrals should either show up as direct or as a t.co/xxxxxx referral.

Summary

Just because you see t.co in your referral log, don’t assume that all the traffic came from Twitter – it may have come from any number of social services and/or traditional sources (e.g. email, direct sharing, etc.). It looks like those of us who study analytics will need to sharpen our pencils as we try to figure out exactly where our traffic originates from and the path it took to get to us. And it looks like Twitter has some work to do on how and when they change URLs when a t.co URL is shared on their service.

Find more stories about: analytics, Clicky, Google Analytics, Twitter, url shortener

I’ve been a fan of web analytics startup Clicky since the beginning. This week they announced a new partnership with Olark that will allow you to chat with your customers and users in real-time. Olark is a Y-Combinator startup that offers a widget which you can place on your site to allow for chat with your customers and/or users.

In all of my years dealing with web analytics, I can’t remember ever seeing an integration like this new Clicky/Olark functionality. Clicky offers a real-time analytics monitoring service called Spy which offers you the ability to watch your traffic in real-time. It can be very addicting, especially if your blog post or startup get some good links or press.

There are plenty of companies that offer popup customer chat windows – I know when I visit the Rackspace site I try to login very quickly so I don’t get hit with a popup chat box.

The new service makes it possible to chat with your customers or users by clicking on their link in the Spy.

A simple use case for this new service is watching a potential customer move around the site and then clicking to chat with them to close the sale. Another use case would be watching a user navigate through a number of pages in your support documentation — click to chat with them to directly answer their questions and be a hero.

To use the new service, you must have a premium account with Clicky (starts at $10/month) and you must have an account with Olark. Olark has a free account which is limited to 20 conversations a month and their paid subscriptions start at $15/month.

Note: We are an affiliate of Clicky but none of the links in this post carry the affiliate code.

Find more stories about: analytics, Clicky, Customer Service, realtime

I’ve been a fan of web analytics startup Clicky since the beginning. Last month the company announced their new video analytics functionality.  This week the company announced a beta test of a new interface to their web analytics product. I guess Twitter wasn’t the only one who launched a new Web interface this week. The new interface is available at beta.getclicky.com.

The Clicky blog explains the changes to the analytics interface which include:

• Ajax page loads which make the pages load faster and smoother
• navigation that changes based on the context of the page
• important stats for each report remain visible as you scroll

My favorite part of Clicky is the real-time spy. The spy lets you watch traffic to, and on, your website in real-time.

The past couple of months I have also been using Piwik which is a free, open source analytics tool. It’s not as polished as Clicky but I am totally in love with the Piwik real-time monitor as well. Piwik must be installed locally while Clicky runs as a web service.

It’s amazing how far web analytics tools have come from the earliest days of Webtrends in the mid-90s.

Note: We are an affiliate of Clicky although none of the links in this post are affiliate links.

Find more stories about: analytics, Clicky, Piwik

Web analytics service Clicky has announced the launch of their video analytics service which is part of the overall Clicky web analytics platform. Clicky has integrated directly with video hosting company Viddler and provides the ability to track videos from YouTube and Vimeo as well.

The Viddler integration will go live sometime in August as Clicky notes that the Viddler team has some additional work on their end before the connection is made live. The Viddler integration will not require you do anything different to make sure the video stats reach Clicky.

To use the YouTube connection with Clicky, there is a bit of work involved. You can read about the changes to your blog or website that must be added on the Clicky help site. It addition, the way you embed videos is different than just copying and pasting the code directly from YouTube into your blog. The same goes for Vimeo…you would need to add some code to your templates and then change the way you insert videos into your blog or website.

Here’s an example of the stats page:

Note – we are an affiliate for Clicky but none of the links in this post are affiliate links.

Find more stories about: analytics, Clicky, online video, Viddler, YouTube

Web analytics service Clicky has announced the launch of a URL shortener. I don’t write much about URL shorteners because frankly they are way over-hyped. Dave Winer has been posting a lot about the category so check out his blog for more information and education.

In my scan this morning for the Today’s 10, I noticed that Clicky is now offering a URL shortener of their own. The difference with the Clicky shortener (clicky.me) is that it’s directly tied into your Clicky analytics account. You must have a Clicky account to use the shortener.

They compare the Clicky shortener to the Twitter default shortener Bit.ly. Clicky notes that the biggest difference is that Bit.ly stops tracking the user when they arrive to your site while Clicky continues to track the user within their analytics tool. Maybe one day Twitter will allow users to select which shortener we want to use though that’s doubtful especially with their recent click tracking test.

Clicky now allows for segmentation of users and data by short url. They also boast that their offering only tracks humans not evil bots, search robots and other Internet crud.

In typical Clicky fashion they discuss the revenue model for Clicky.me. There isn’t one – well that’s not completely true. There won’t be any direct revenue from the offering but it should drive new users to the Clicky service and will strengthen the overall offering.

One of the comments on the announcement post wonders if spammers will use it since the shortener will work with the free version. If they moved it to paid-only plans, the new offering could help with conversions.

I’ve been using moourl for my shortening needs as it’s quick and has a cow on the page. The only real suggestion I have for all of the shorteners is to offer the preview option that TinyURL does. I never have a worry clicking a TinyURL as I know I will hit a page from which I can decide to proceed. Bit.ly apparently only offers this if you hack the URL (wtf) and I don’t know if Clicky’s offering allows for a preview but here’s hoping they add it. Safety will become more important with short URLs as more of the evil gets a hold of them. 

Note: We are an affiliate of Clicky however none of the links in this post carry an affiliate code.

Find more stories about: analytics, bitly, clean url, Clicky, TinyURL

Day 4 in the Ten Days of Holiday Gifts features Clicky. Clicky describes the service as, "Clicky gives bloggers and smaller web sites a more personal understanding of their visitors. Many analyzers give good summaries, and Clicky is no different – but the similarities stop there. Clicky stands out with its refreshingly clean and simple interface, innovative features like Spy and RSS feeds, and an unrivaled per visitor level of detail. You also get real time stats, outbound link tracking, download tracking, IP tagging, custom data tracking, and much more."

Check out the feature list and comparison to other analytics tools. We use Clicky on CN and you can read all of our Clicky coverage along with our interview with founder Sean Hammons.

Clicky is offering Three (3) Free Professional Accounts for the life of the account! To enter for one of the accounts, send in an entry using our contact form. We will select three winners at the end of next week.

Note: I’ve turned off comments on this post to avoid any entry confusion – also, we are an affiliate of Clicky but I have turned off all affiliate links on this post.

Find more stories about: analytics, Clicky, holiday gifts, Quick News

Web analytics provider Clicky has announced the launch of customizable email reports today. Each report can be sent to multiple email addresses which is good when you need to get daily reports sent to clients. The reports can be customized to include the data points you are most interested in.

If you have multiple sites using Clicky, you can setup the reports as templates as assign them to multiple sites. The email reports option is currently available only for Pro account holders but founder Sean Hammons says they may provide a basic email report to all customers in the near future.

Currently you can only select daily, weekly or monthly. I’d love to see an open selection where I can pick the times and frequencies that work best for me. I am still hooked on the Clicky Spy. To be able to watch visitors in real time is just like heaven.

Here’s a sample report – note that this report has only a couple of options checked.

Check out our interview with Clicky founder Sean Hammons and why we included Clicky in our top acquisition targets for 2008.

Editor’s note: We are setup as a Clicky affiliate however no links in this post carry the affiliate code.

Find more stories about: analytics, Clicky, Quick News, reporting

We’ve written about Clicky Web analytics several times including our first product review just shy of a year ago. It’s my favorite medium-level analytics application on the market. Why? Speed, features, the freaking addictive real-time spy and excellent support from the one person team of Sean Hammons.

Today Sean has posted about a variety of new visualization tools that Clicky now offers. Clicky has hired the team at Open Flash Chart to create even more customizations on their charting solution. Here is one basic example chart that’s now possible (bar charts were available previously):

The charts update on the fly and the "compare" feature is where the charting tool shows its strength. You can compare practically anything you want to see if there are correlations between the data. Sean has created an example displaying social media inbound traffic vs. bounce rate – perfect for checking how many Digg’rs come back a second time. The comparison possibilities are endless – I already have a list of charts to create.

In the title of this column, I included, "Clicky…Shows You How Freemium Is Done." Freemium means that the service offers a free version and then premium upgrades. I said this because these new charting features are free through this Sunday and then they move to the pro account (paid). Sean gives you the first crack rock free, gets you hooked so you keep coming back to him to buy more crack. I’ve written before that too many startups who employ the Freemium model give away too much for free and customers never have a reason to upgrade. But giving a taste of premium features every now and again makes perfect sense for trial.

In case you are interested, we are currently running the following analytical tools on CN:

• Clicky
• Google Analytics
• Mint
• ExtremeTracking
• A homegrown proprietary analytics tool

On the CN job board, Clicky is currently seeking a Web developer.

Find more stories about: analytics, Clicky, Insights, reporting

Online analytics service Clicky has announced their plans to translate and localize the service into about ten of their top requested languages. The languages include: German, Spanish, Portugese, Italian, Russian, Swedish, Turkish and Dutch. Facebook recently began a translation project as well.

This is a "community" project — that means Clicky is asking its users to do the translation. You select a language and are presented with a term to translate. After the translations are in the system, you can vote on which translation is best and then a winner for each needed translation will be selected. What I’d like to see added is a percentage of total completion for each language.

Are you thinking about translation and localization as you develop your Web applications? While not applicable in every case, localization can bring new visitors and potential incremental revenue. If you aren’t thinking of localization, please share your reasons why.

Find more stories about: analytics, Clicky, Insights

We’ve written about the online advertising maximizing service Rubicon Project several times before including their new funding round last week. We applied for the service after receiving a beta key and were basically declined – what they noted is that "we would be a perfect candidate once the public launch happens".

While checking my Clicky analytics account today, founder Sean Hammons has a post about his experiences with Rubicon Project to-date. He obviously got into the beta. Here are some snippits from his post:

That optimization is a fairy tale unfortunately, and doesn’t do jack diddly. Plus we’ve had two major problems with the service, including them not paying us for our first month even though we had earned WAY above the minimum threshold, and both times their customer service sucked big time. And the ads are extremely irritating anyways, and that’s not at all what we want. 

This company has a raised $18 million in funding which is just unbelievable. There’s no way they’re using any more bandwidth or resources than Clicky is (they’re still in private beta), and we started on essentially zero dollars from our own pockets and have taken zero funding and have zero debt.

Clearly the issue with any of these maximizers is garbage in-garbage out. Have you used Rubicon Project or one of the other ad maximization services (e.g. YieldBuild/PubMatic)? If so, leave your thoughts in the comments.

Find more stories about: advertising, Clicky, Quick News, Rubicon

After last year’s acquisition post, I thought it would be interesting to look at 5 great acquisition targets for 1st quarter 2008. I do not have financials for any of these companies, so I am working from a base of technology and visibility. For each company I list, I have also listed a possible buyer along with my commentary on why the purchase makes sense. Do you agree or disagree?

AOL

Buyer: Yahoo

Why: Yahoo needs to expand its base of distribution for the Yahoo ad platform. What better way than to acquire the population segment who uses AOL and loves it? AOL users click ads which means a potential cash win for Yahoo sa they could integrate contextually-relevant advertising into AOL, something AOL doesn’t do currently. It would also give them access into Hulu thru the AOL Video portal. It might even perk up the employee morale which I read has been quite low this past year.

Zoho

Buyer: IBM

Why: A couple times each week I read about IBM wanting to own the services market. Acquiring Zoho would give IBM a foothold into Web 2.0 and since Zoho targets the small business, would give IBM a chance to sell the small business on even more IBM-based services. It could even help IBM to slowly become a household name again in the Web space, something that they have no real presence in today.

Clicky

Buyer: Webtrends

Why: Webtrends is so completely out of the Web game, it’s sad. I remember beta testing the first version of Webtrends in the mid-90s and watched the company never move forward. Clicky is hot, both from the application-side and the buzz-side, and could be a good fit for Webtrends. Most small businesses need simple Web analytics and while Clicky is more robust than just simple, it would give a slow entry into the current Web market for Webtrends. That is of course if they actually want to move forward, something I’ve wondered for eight years now.

CrazyEgg/ClickTale

Buyer: Omniture

Why: To help Omniture move further into the Web testing market and provide a rounded suite of tools for their clients. Last year I said that CrazyEgg should be acquired by a large creative agency but I’ve changed my mind and am going with Omniture. CrazyEgg and ClickTale provide the testing and Omniture provides the analytics – I could see some nice A/B type testing with these acquisitions.

Pageflakes/Netvibes

Buyer: Yahoo

Why: Both Pageflakes and Netvibes have good footings into the early adopter, “cool techie” segments. This is a segment which Yahoo lacks on but could be a very influential segment for buzz. Completed correctly, Yahoo could (once again) start to get their search and other products in front of the early adopter, blogger crowd which can be an excellent way for Yahoo to get messages out and have forced use of their technology.

Note: Zoho is a current sponsor of CN.

Find more stories about: acquisitions, ClickTale, Clicky, CrazyEgg, Insights, Netvibes, Omniture, Pageflakes, yahoo, Zoho

Day 3 in the Ten Days of Holiday Gifts features Clicky. Clicky describes the service as, "Clicky gives bloggers and smaller web sites a more personal understanding of their visitors. Many analyzers give good summaries, and Clicky is no different – but the similarities stop there. Clicky stands out with its refreshingly clean and simple interface, innovative features like Spy and RSS feeds, and an unrivaled per visitor level of detail. You also get real time stats, outbound link tracking, download tracking, IP tagging, custom data tracking, and much more."

We use Clicky on CN and you can read my review from earlier this year along with our interview with founder Sean Hammons. I believe Clicky is one of the most useful Web 2.0 apps around and with my 10+years of analytics experience can say one of the strongest on features, especially for the price. Check out the feature list and comparison to other analytics tools.

Just for readers of CenterNetworks, Clicky is offering Two (2) Free Professional Accounts for the life of the account! To enter for one of the accounts, send in an entry using our contact form. We will select two winners at the end of next week!

(I’ve turned off comments on this post to avoid any entry confusion)

Find more stories about: analytics, Clicky, holiday gifts, Quick News

I’d like to thank each one of you for your loyalty and patronage over the past year. I’ve got a full recap coming but it’s simply amazing where CN has grown and of course it’s thanks to each of you. Like the Wine Man says, "It’s a lot of you and a little of me and together we are changing the tech industry." (I tweaked it a bit).

With that said, I’ve been working hard to line up a variety of exclusive Holiday Gifts for you. Over the next ten business days, there will be one gift each day. From service discounts, to premium beta access to free conference passes, we’ve got something you will like!

In the graphic below, you will note one slot with ??? in it. That’s because I have left one slot open. I’d like your feedback on who should fill that slot and I will go after them! Leave your ideas in the comments. And if you have a service to offer as a treat, contact us. It can’t be a free service is the only rule.

Here’s who’s participating — pretty impressive lineup!:

• OurStage – 12 free song downloads – get holiday gift
• Compete – free credits towards the search analytics tool – get holiday gift
• Clicky – two free pro accounts – get holiday gift
• Freshbooks – 30% off new subscriptions – get holiday gift
• TapeFailure – 40% off new subscriptions – get holiday gift
• Drop.io – free premium upgrade codes – get holiday gift
• CrazyEgg – Some pro accounts – get holiday gift
• Future of Web Apps in Miami – 5 free conference passes – get holiday gift
• CenterNetworks – 50% off job board posts – get holiday gift

Update: Please DO NOT signup for TapeFailure – the site will be closing at the end of this month :(

You won’t know which Holiday Gift will come which day nor what time – so be on the lookout! Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to All!

Find more stories about: CenterNetworks, Clicky, Compete, CrazyEgg, Drop.io, FreshBooks, future of web apps, OurStage, Quick News, TapeFailure

Clicky is one of the analytics tools used on CenterNetworks. I love the Spy feature which allows you to watch your traffic live. Today they launched a new dashboard which is basically the home page for your stats and displays a variety of reports at a glance. The app is very well done from both a usability and content standpoint. I asked Founder Sean Hammons to participate in an interview so we can all learn about his tool and his tips for your startup. Check out the transcript below. Also check out our previous Clicky coverage.

Allen: Can you provide a brief background about yourself?

Sean: I’ve had a high interest in computers since I was young (currently 29), and have taught myself most of what I know. I don’t have any formal training or a degree in my field. I graduated from Oregon State with a Bachelor’s in Psychology of all topics. I started fooling around with making web pages in 1999, and have been employed in this field for about three and a half years now.

Allen: What is Clicky and where did the idea come from?

Sean: Clicky is designed for small to medium sized web sites, with a strong focus on usability and data presentation. It started as an internal project at my last job. We wanted a tool that showed us what individual users were doing on our web site in a clean and easy fashion, and there was absolutely nothing that was both cheap and good. We liked the results a lot, and decided to make it into a public product. That was about 9 months ago.

Allen: How does the service work?

Sean: People sign up and are given two lines of HTML to add to their web site. One line of javascript sends us lots of juicy details about everything happening on your web site. The second line is a backup image based tracking system, so we can still track users who have javascript disabled, although we can’t get quite as much data out of these people. Then people can view their data on our site, which is updated in near real time.

Allen: What makes Clicky special?

Sean: Our focus on usability and data presentation is key. Most of the data available from our service is also available from many other services. But it’s either confusing or poorly done. Our interface is very clean and easy to navigate, and the data is presented in a way that makes sense. We also have some really cool features like Spy (a live view of people using your web site), an API, custom data tracking, and outbound link tracking (which I’ve found extremely useful).

Allen: What’s the team like at Clicky?

Sean: Well, there’s just two of us, and we live in different cities, and we work out of our homes. So we don’t see each other too often, but we do talk by email or phone just about every day. I am the programmer and my partner handles business stuff and other non-techie details.

Allen: Who is using Clicky? Bloggers, corporate sites, etc?

Sean: All types of sites. Not sure if any major corps are using it, but there are plenty of business sites and other non-blog sites using Clicky. About half our sites are blogs though, which is one of our our target markets.

Allen: Who are your competitors?

Sean: There’s about a billion analyzers out there, but the only ones I consider as serious competition are Google Analytics (it’s free and everyone loves Google), and Mint (the only analyzer that’s ever made me say "wow, that’s cool").

Allen: Sell me on using Clicky instead of Google Analytics.

Sean: I’m perfectly fine with people preferring GA over Clicky, as Clicky isn’t for everyone. It really depends on your web site, but the people who like it swear by it. If you have a relatively high traffic site, and are only interested in trends, then GA is a great product, no doubt. We don’t offer nearly as much trend data or cross-segmentation of data as they do, but we offer a great interface, a lot of detail on individual users, and have a ton of features that GA does not offer – real time data, an API, stats via RSS, Spy, custom data tracking, tag clouds, outbound link tracking, download tracking, non-javascript support, feedburner RSS statistic integration … the list goes on. So, it depends on what you’re looking for.

Allen: Do you have a monetization plan? If so, can you share some details? Are you funded?

Sean: Yes, we make money off premium subscriptions, ads, and licensing. We’re completely self funded at this point.

Allen: Can you share some details about your marketing plan?

Sean: We have done exactly zero marketing. We have spread purely by word of mouth.

Allen: What’s coming in the next 3-6 months for Clicky?

Sean: We just released a fully customizable Dashboard that’s a lot of fun to use and offers some great trend data. The technology behind it will be spreading to the rest of the site within a few weeks. We also want to offer a number of widgets for our users to put on their web sites. We have a contest going on right now with over $600 of prizes going out to the people who can create the coolest widgets using our API, so we’re hoping this will be a good start for that. Beyond that, I’m always making improvement to the backend code and database, and tweaking the interface here and there. We also have a top secret feature that will be coming in a month or so, that I can’t talk about right now. We’re really excited about it though.

Allen: What’s been your biggest lesson learned since you started Clicky?

Sean: We’ve had a lot of people approach us about potential investments, or partnerships, or helping us out in some regard. Unfortunately, these people tend to be greedy, flaky, or both. So, be wary. If you are interested in help or money, consider initiating the relationship yourself.

Allen: Now that the pageview has been declared dead, where do you see analytics moving over the next year?

Sean: Not sure. Trend analysis is a pretty hot topic right now, and we plan to offer a lot more of it when our infrastructure can handle analyzing all of that data in fun and interesting ways. This is where GA really shines. Unfortunately, we don’t have billions of dollars in the bank like Google does, so we don’t have ten thousand servers running this thing.

Allen: How important is analytics to a Web site or blog?

Sean: I would say that if you’re not using analytics on your site, you’re insane. It’s extremely important and useful to know how people are using your site, and how they’re finding it.

Allen: What advice do you have for those thinking about starting a web application?

Sean: We entered a very saturated market, which includes a competitor (Google) that most people run home to mommy about. But – if your idea is good, or your product has unique features that other similar ones don’t, you can succeed! We are making enough money for both of us to live off of, and then some. If you want to make money, have a monetization plan other than Adsense. Adsense is crap unless your site is content oriented, and web 2.0 "service" sites do not have the content to produce good ads. Consider running your own ad service (like we do), or use something like text-link-ads.com. "Freemium" service is also a good way to go (free service with limitations, pay service for full feature set). It’s what we do, and it works well.

Allen: Which RSS feeds are you reading these days?

Sean: I prefer actually visiting web sites for content. Using aggregators for content is a sweet idea, but just too much information for me to digest. Daily, I read Slashdot, Engadget, JoyStiq, del.icio.us/popular, and TechCrunch. I also read Avinash Kaushik’s blog (it’s all about analytics). However, I do use RSS for one thing, and that’s to keep myself up to date on our competitors without too much effort by subscribing to their blog feeds ;)

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