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HDDb.netHey Scobleizer: Here’s a Solution for Web Stats
Scoble blogs tonite on how stats services generally seem to suck: they don’t agree with each other, they don’t agree with server logs, they don’t match up with experience.
The same frustration drove me to posting weeks ago when I proposed a unique solution: Google should let web masters make a subset of their Analytics data public. Of course, this doesn’t address Scoble’s questions about the conceptual thinking about stats - i.e.: are pageviews still relevant?
The original post is here. The gist of it, quoting myself:
Adding a “Sharing” option to Google Analytics and surfacing stats in “site:” searches (for those site owners who have elected the sharing option in their Analytics account) would do the job nicely. Let site owners control the degree of information shared, keep everything opt-in, and rock and roll. I know I’d share my high-level views & visits stats in a second. In addition to providing all of the value Alexa does, it would also add a layer of transparency to making ad-buys - something else I would appreciate.
I still think this would be a great idea, and would be more than happy to share my stats this way. What about you?
Aren’t Sitemeter users essentially sharing their stats when they post a Sitemeter button on their site?
I think the more relevant discussion here should be about what constitutes a viable public metric. Pageviews certainly don’t work, not just because of AJAX- I visit dozens of blogs daily and seldom see more than one page because you no longer need a nav function to catch up with recent posts. They’re already aggragated together. RSS further complicates the issue. Someone is going to create an algorithm that mixes views, time, consideration of the technology used on the site, etc, to create a new measurement standard- actually I have no doubt they are already. First one to do it right is going to have something huge.
I’d share a subset in a heartbeat… Well, if Matt at WordPress would crack open the Wordpress.com API just a smidge more and let that golden Urchin light shine in…
Great idea!
Hey Martin - good call. I’m not really familiar with sitemeter, but will look into it. In terms of coming up with a hybrid traffic metric - agreed, there’s a big opportunity there. The notion of RSS is really confounding.
[...] Share Web Analytics to improve industry Scoble notes that Analytics programs are inconsistent, TechFold provides some interesting commentary that suggests we share our stats with the industry. I would do it. [...]
Testing based on some recent comment problems:
With GoStats you can share any subset of your data.