Google Re-Opens Analytics Service as Invite-Only

taboguilla writes "As of January 11, after freezing the Google Analytics new user subscriptions shortly after it first started, Google's snazzy web site hit counter is adding new users on an invitation-only basis. If you would like an invitation, you can submit your email address to on the Google Analytics home page and wait until they decide you are worthy."

Comments

What is Google analytics?

[jpolonsk]

It always helps when you explain what you are talking about?

Re:What is Google analytics?

[iogan]

Google's snazzy web site hit counter is adding new users
I would venture a guess that it's some kind of web site hit counter. But I'm not 100% on that..

__________
link yo blog/website with yo face http://www.doyoulikemyface.com/

Re:What is Google analytics?

[Michael Crutcher]

This page provides a much better starting point. "Snazzy web hit counter" doesn't even begin to describe what it is. A hit counter is extremely simple and doesn't require a lot of resources in terms of minds or hardware. What they've done requires both.

What they've apparently built (I wish I had access so I could check it out) is a standard analytics model based on click stream traffic for websites and an infrastructure to support distributed web reports. Click stream analyisis for websites is not a trivial problem. The hardware required to host this given the reports they're generating and the data sizes they're working with has got to be huge. What they've built is probably pretty simple since the type of data they're tracking about your customers (whether the page was clicked) is pretty limited. I'm curious as to what exactly their script does - is it solely clicks or is tracking users over a session?

Of course if you subscribe to the google really is evil (or they want to make money) what they're going to eventually do is merge all of their traffic data (including gmail, google videos, etc.) to provide analytics on the customer the clickstream stuff is definately interesting, but the customer profile would be a lot more valuable.

They may even provide the click stream data for free and offer all of their services as well as consultation for developing custom data models for the merchant. This is a stretch but given their areas of expertise would make some sort of sense.

Pardon my ignorance

[matr0x_x]

but can someone please explain why Google is so big on the "invite only" idea. Isn't Gmail technically "invite only" right now - and everyone and their dog has an account there.

Re:Pardon my ignorance

[coolcold]

because it provides them publicity and server load control

Re:Pardon my ignorance

[abscissa]

Gmail is invite only to make it very difficult, if not impossible, for spammers to create a large volume of accounts to spam with. For any other normal user, it should be a joke to get an invite however. If you live in the US you can get Google to send you one via SMS.

What's the Deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, on top of its highly successful search and adsense, Google now wants to be the next DoubleClick. Well that's fine and I suppose that a lot of web monkeys want to have detailed statistics about their site. But, what is the deal with aggressive and forceful statistic collection? I'm speaking generally and not specifically about Google here.

I've noticed a marked increase in the use of Flash to track users. I've also noticed an annoying trend of scripts that request or post information to a tracker site every second. If you leave the page open it constantly hits the tracking site.

I find all this to be highly offensive. Web monkeys can slice and dice their logs in any way the like but stop trying to hijack my machine in persistent attempts to track my page viewing down to the second! When I come to your site, I want to view your site! I do not want your site causing my machine to load Google, DoubleClick, OLN or anyother pages. It's rude! It's dirty! It's like porn site popups! It makes me not want to come back to your site or your company. Ever!

The future of Google

[dada21]

Everyone who is anti-Google complains about how Google should stop trying new things and stick to what they're good at. The thing about Google is that they're not really "good" at anything -- they're great at finding new markets by continuously pushing the envelope of need.

I love the Analytics idea, and I hope I get chosen. Web site performance is one of the most complex dances I've ever seen, and I believe Google may be one of a very select few companies with a group of minds that can properly understand what we think is just a simple hit count.

I'm anti-stock market, and I believe the Google is way overvalued (more realistic would be 10 times earnings and even that is too much without a reasonable dividend), but I think they have the talent pool needed to finally move beyond the desktop, the operating system and the hardware. Whoever said that information was the PC was right -- but it isn't just access to information that makes it have any value. You need to be able to aggregate, sort and display that information in an understand fashion. The hit counter is one of the most important (and overlooked) piece of information when it comes to understanding how to make your website more valuable to your users and to your investors.

Re:who cares? it sucks anyway

[Janek Kozicki]

it fails to count most traffic for no apparent reason.

it requires javascript turned on, in the visitor's browser. That skips from 5% to 30% of visitors (depending on the nature of your website - ie, homepage of links versus windoze wares site).

Works via Javascript ... and Slashdot uses it ...

[xmas2003]

For those too lazy to RTFA, Google Analytics uses Javascript ... so obviousely you need that enabled for it to work correctly. So while most people/browsers have this enabled, it will undercount those that don't ... which incidentally includes most search engine robots.

BTW, Slashdot has been using this for a while ... if you have any doubt, do a view source and look about 20 lines down. Since they already have access to the raw log files (argueably better data), the tin-foil hat crowd shouldn't be too worried about this WRT /. ... but it is pretty interesting that web sites are (basically) allowing Google to collect (and potentially view) this data for them.

Achtung, babies.

[baudbarf]

Am I the only person who sees danger here? I've never heard it mentioned before, but Google gradually amassing the ability to track your every movement on the web.

Now, web servers have long been capable of logging every move that you make ON THEIR SERVER, but once you go to another server, they lose you. What Google is doing is (intentionally or not) bugging millions of web pages with Javascripts which are loaded from their own server.

For those who don't understand web technology, every time a resource is loaded from a server, your browser tells that server who you are (IP and any applicable cookies) and also what page sent you to fetch this resource (referer header). So, every time your browser loads an "Ads By Gooooooooogle" advertisement script, or a creative usage of the Google Maps API, or now a "Google Analytics" image/script; your browser checks in with Google's server and says "Hi! I'm browser #2j823 and I've just visited this URL."

As more Google resources are dumped onto web pages by enthusiastic webmasters, their "surveillance coverage" of the web grows, and, even now, it's considerable enough to give a good outline of each user's general habits and usual haunts.

So, Slashdot, is it a good thing that a private company is taking on an ability that would be terribly controversial for the government to take on; especially when the government is just a phone call away from requisitioning that data?

Very Exciting News!

[spyrral]

My Firefox tab says "Slashdot | Google Re-Opens Anal"

Re:Adblock is your friend...

[sethadam1]

But why? Urchin is to help a webmaster. Do you want to hurt the websites you visit? I can understanding blocking annoying features - I block tons of JS and flash and cookies, but why not run this script?

Sometimes the ad blocking crowd are a little overzealous.

Re:Adblock is your friend...

[Quixote]

This lets Google track me everywhere on the WWW. A cookie set by Google-Analytics can be read by the script from every site that has the script; therefore they (Google) can track you as you jump from Slashdot to Digg to Bullzeye to RecipeCentral and so on (assuming these sites have the Urchin script). I don't like the idea of being tracked everywhere I go like this.

I am amazed that the Googleaid-drinking Slashdot crowd isn't up in arms about this tracking possibility.