A tale of 100 clicks - The Mad Ape is watching you!

The Geeks Like to Watch

I have seen it all. Web techno freaks keep releasing new technology that is getting more and more advanced. Take for instance this new site: clicktale.com. They have taken collecting site visitors statistics to a whole new level.

By adding a snippet of code to your header and a snippet to your footer you can watch a video recording of visitor surfing habits while they are on your site.

Forget Interpretation…Seeing is Better!

I have their free version running on my site. Although it limits me to 100 trackings per week, it at least it gives me a good taste of the power of this technology. Just like traditional stats I have already discovered the pages of my site that attract the most attention. But unlike traditional stats I can monitor the progress of visitors.

Further it is easier to see a visualization of generated stats versus interpreting graphs, charts, and reports.

Follow the Progress

I was able to follow each visitors progress through my blog, seeing where they clicked, how they scrolled, what they hovered over, and what they read. Other statistics offered are IP addresses, referring URL, screen resolution, location, time on each page.

Why Would I Want to Watch Me?

One thing I did not like was that there was no way to directly filter out my visits to my blog. This would be a nice feature to have as I do not need to monitor my surfing habits. I will leave that up to you when I visit your blog.

The admin of the service offer a solution to this by manually adding code to your site. I think they need to come up with a less geekified solution myself. If they can build technology like this, I am sure that they can incorporate blocking me from being recorded on my blog.

The Nitty Griity

One of the first things with this new technology is that you will want to play with the video and watch a few clips. Get your jollies by playing ‘Big Brother’, but once you get over the eye candy it is time to make the stats work for you.

I am not interested in individual stats but I am interested in collective stats when trying to figure out more effective ways to monetize this blog.

Heat it up

Take for example the heat map that is generated. It shows a how many viewed a particular section of a page,which links they hovered over, and which links were clicked.

Potential to Improve User Experience

John Chow, in his review of the site, was hesitant to incorporate this service into his blog. He thought he would be invading privacy. I respectfully disagree with him as this is no more intrusive than any other stat collection technology. The big difference is the visual aspect to it. For some reason we can get up-tight when things are visualized. Seeing something is more powerful than reading something.

Thus, some people become nervous with software such as this. But in my opinion, this nervousness is unfounded. In fact I see it as a blessing to my readers as I can target them with what they want, easier. When this blog becomes the self-sustaining juggernaut that I know it, I will be investing in the paid version of this application.

A Parting Shot

I give this service approximately 1 year of service before it is gobbled by google. They will want to have this technology…Clicktale can I buy some shares?

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