Holy Smokes, Chartbeat is Goooood!
Web Analytics is a tool to provide data on what pages of a website are being visited by who and when. We use Google Analytics, which has been great - and works very well for a daily look at what kind of traffic is coming to our community and where people are coming from.
I usually visit Google Analytics at the end of each US day to see what has happened and what's been hit hardest on the Sift. It's also handy to find out if another big site or other MSM source has linked to our content.
There are limitations however. For one - the results are delayed by a couple of hours and only arrive once every hour. There is also no way to share the stats because Google has not published an API for its analytics service
That's why I'm completely blown away by Chartbeat, which provides realtime stats for what's happening on a site and plenty of widgets and a fully accessible API to integrate into the site.Have a look at this fellow stat junkies - it will knock your socks off.
Edit: Due to the API used, we might be providing a little too much information. For security's sake, I'm pulling access until we've conferred with the Chartbeat guys on how to make this completely safe. Then we'll make it a permanent installation on the site. (Thanks JoeDirt!)
I usually visit Google Analytics at the end of each US day to see what has happened and what's been hit hardest on the Sift. It's also handy to find out if another big site or other MSM source has linked to our content.
There are limitations however. For one - the results are delayed by a couple of hours and only arrive once every hour. There is also no way to share the stats because Google has not published an API for its analytics service
That's why I'm completely blown away by Chartbeat, which provides realtime stats for what's happening on a site and plenty of widgets and a fully accessible API to integrate into the site.
Edit: Due to the API used, we might be providing a little too much information. For security's sake, I'm pulling access until we've conferred with the Chartbeat guys on how to make this completely safe. Then we'll make it a permanent installation on the site. (Thanks JoeDirt!)
28 Comments
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
We had to install a snippet of Javascript for tracking. Please let me know if it causes any problems.
deputydogholy shit wow. just signed up, now 'awaiting data'.
i take it that's a new service?
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
I know - right? One of those head slapping moments for me - that of course this is just what we needed. Yes, brand new I think - found it from this article.
deputydogcheers dag, that's me obsessed for a few weeks.
'people writing'?! that's fucking crazy statisization right there!
OrnthoronI first read that as "Chartbeat is Gold" and wondered who in the world this user was who I somehow had never heard of but who nonetheless joined the stream of jubilantes.
gwiz665Holy Monkeys! Very cool.
kulpimsWOW!
lucky760Holy shit, that's incredible!
What a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Never thought I'd say this in any capacity, but suck on that, google.
SagemindVery Very "Dynamic"! Coolio!
blankfistWow.
Farhad2000It's all an illusion. It's not showing me online from Kuwait. Your reality is false. Exit the matrix.
Honestly I don't know why its not showing me but it looks really neat otherwise.
EdeotI'm a little shy. Would you guys mind logging off when I log in? Nothing personal, I just want the site to myself for an hour.
DeanoImpressive! The real time referral searches are interesting - "sexy ants girl". WTF?!
dystopianfuturetodayDouble wow.
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
Just reading the FAQ, it appears that a heartbeat is polled from the site visitor every 10 seconds, that's how the stats stay so dynamic.
For the "reading" metric, I think that means the user has the mouse on the scrollbar when the hearbeat happens.
The "writing" would mean keyboard clicks detected.
The "idle" would mean no user interaction (watching a video probably)
So frigging addictive.
schmawyCongratulaitons Chartbeat! What? Oh, Chartbeat is goooood. No wonder I'd never heard of him.
maatcOnly checked it out for a few minutes, but it looks awesome!
So good actually that I think the title of your post might have one "o" too much in "good"...
I promoted a video and I instantly saw how it attracted traffic!
Very very nice. Love it!
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
Added some "o"s to prevent confusion.
Farhad, I think the reason why you are not showing up might be because it uses a minimum number of hits from a location for it to display.
SagemindI'm using IE7 on my computer at home, when I go to Chartbeat, I get an error message that reads,
"chartbeat is not compatible with Internet Explorer 6. Please upgrade. Or, you can use Firefox or Google Chrome browsers (chartbeat functions smoother with either)"
I haven't used IE6 in forever - I have Tabs damit!
joedirtDag, that's cool and the Page Density part would be good for finding hot videos.
Is it possible to setup a second Chartbeat acct and the javascript key for
http://www.videosift.com/
http://www.videosift.com/?pg=2
http://www.videosift.com/?pg=3
http://videosift.com/top
http://*.videosift.com/?pg=2
etc.
Those pages would be one Chartbeat key and all the other videos would be another key, so the page density map could be a visual list of hot videos.
I also wonder if the Expand video twistie that uses AJAX to open the video embed on the same page could also add some javascript for Chartbeat so even those videos / clicks would be tracked. (ie. on one page http://www.videosift.com/?pg=2 I could watch eight videos but it appears that I am idle the whole time, even though I am expanding videos)
joedirtWow that API is pretty slick. With like 20 seconds of regex text editting I was able to grab the last 100 pages accessed. I could even grep for /search/ or whatever.
http://videosift.com/video/Zero-Punctuation-MadWorld [7]
http://videosift.com/video/Playing-With-Nitroglycerin [4]
http://videosift.com/video/Crazy-Foosball-Skills [4]
http://videosift.com/video/We-Didn-t-Start-the-Flame-War [3]
http://videosift.com/video/Mike-Tyson-Being-Mike-Tyson-His-Ridiculous-Quotes [3]
http://videosift.com/video/Porn-Star-Blows-State-Trooper [3]
http://videosift.com/video/The-God-Who-Wasnt-There-2005-documentary-film [3]
http://videosift.com/video/2-British-police-officers-get-pwned-by-cameraman [2]
http://videosift.com/video/Elevated-Procedural-realtime-terrain-demo [2]
http://videosift.com/video/Fastest-Computer-in-the-World-Project-Roadrunner [2]
http://videosift.com/video/Short-Documentary-on-the-Creation-Museum [2]
http://videosift.com/video/SiCKO-Full-Documentary [2]
http://videosift.com/video/Billy-Joels-video-for-We-Didnt-Start-the-Fire [2]
http://videosift.com/video/If-only-I-had-a-gun [2]
http://videosift.com/video/Star-Wars-The-TV-Series-Intro [2]
http://videosift.com/video/Susan-Boyle-Singer-Britains-Got-Talent-2009 [2]
http://videosift.com/video/Top-Gear-Communist-Cars [2]
http://videosift.com/video/You-Wouldnt-Invade-Poland-So-Why-Is-It-OK-To-Download [2]
http://videosift.com/video/Doctors-Find-Small-Fir-Tree-Growing-in-Man-s-Lung [2]
http://videosift.com/video/Unintentionally-disturbing-and-hilarious-ad-Mr-Bucket [2]
http://videosift.com/video/Zero-Punctuation-Grand-Theft-Auto-Chinatown-Wars [2]
http://videosift.com/video/Google-SketchUp-7-adds-dynamic-components [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Elderly-Chinese-Couple-and-Their-Unwanted-Orphans [1]
http://videosift.com/video/BillO-is-Pissed-at-Spain [1]
http://videosift.com/video/The-Ascent-of-Man-5-Music-of-the-Spheres [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Wal-Mart-The-High-cost-of-low-price [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Cat-Found-Prank [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Skydiving-instructor-shows-how-it-s-done-in-a-wind-tunnel [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Fuck-The-Annotated-Documentary [1]
http://videosift.com/video/PG-Porn-Squeel-Happy-Whores [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Meet-Egypts-Strongest-Man [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Locals-crossing-the-Mekong-River-in-Yunnan-by-cable [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Whos-Nailin-Paylin-The-Hustlers-Palin-porn-flick [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Weird-Sea-Creature-Caught-in-Algeria-1 [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Ursula-Martinez-nothing-up-her-sleeve [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Jimmy-Stewart-Reads-Beau-A-Poem-About-A-Dog [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Nitro-Circus-Getting-Launched-Off-The-Blob [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Horizon-Supermassive-Black-Holes-2000-space-documentary [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Will-Ferrell-SNL-Harry-Carry [1]
http://videosift.com/video/How-to-respond-when-a-girl-says-she-has-a-boyfriend-1 [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Domino-s-employees-fired-over-YouTube-videos [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Christopher-Hitchens-Hells-Angel-Mother-Teresa [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Laptop-Hunters-Homeless-Frank [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Who-s-that-Pokemon-IT-S-GIRUGAMESH [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Obama-is-a-Fascist-Why [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Hunter-S-Thompson-Aspen-Sheriff-Election-1970 [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Great-white-sharks-feeding-on-seals-1 [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Lick-My-Baby-Back-Behind [1]
http://videosift.com/video/The-Life-of-Buddha-BBC-Documentary-50-min [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Never-Eat-At-Domino-s-Again-Disgusting [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Felix-s-Machines [1]
http://videosift.com/video/Smelcome-to-You-Announcer-Fail [1]
http://videosift.com/video/The-Girl-In-The-Window-Horrific-Discovery-Of-Feral-Girl [1]
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
Rather than a second account, it would probably be better to use the API - though I'm not sure what methods are provided.
>> ^joedirt:
Dag, that's cool and the Page Density part would be good for finding hot videos.
Is it possible to setup a second Chartbeat acct and the javascript key for
http://www.videosift.com/
http://www.videosift.com/?pg=2
http://www.videosift.com/?pg=3
http://videosift.com/top
http:// .videosift.com/?pg=2
etc.
Those pages would be one Chartbeat key and all the other videos would be another key, so the page density map could be a visual list of hot videos.
I also wonder if the Expand video twistie that uses AJAX to open the video embed on the same page could also add some javascript for Chartbeat so even those videos / clicks would be tracked. (ie. on one page http://www.videosift.com/?pg=2 I could watch eight videos but it appears that I am idle the whole time, even though I am expanding videos)
SagemindI have to admit, Dag, I was wondering about the whole confidential aspect of this. Watch out for your competitors, they would love to get their hands on this info... Better to keep your info private except for individuals you know you can trust.
... but thanks for the info regarding Chartbeat!
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
It's not so much competitors, but JD discovered that the API could potentially expose information about our visitors - who deserve anonymity.
We'll definitely try and expose as much of the stats that we can - stand by.
joedirtAll your IP are belong to me..
Not really. It's not a big deal really, most site that have tracking images at the bottom (like sitemeter) you can you see the traffic and all the stuff your browsers expose (IP, http referrer, UID, OS, etc).
NicoleBeedo we get to peek at chartbeat again yet?
kronosposeidon*quality
siftbotAwarding dag with one star point for this contribution to Sift Talk - declared quality by kronosposeidon.
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