Ask HN: Do you use real-time analytics and for what?

[matthiaswh]

There seems to be a lot of buzz building around real-time analytics. Nearly any time a discussion about Google Analytics comes up, someone seems to chime in with a wish-list for GA to add real-time stats. (Usually more of a complaint about not offering it, or a wonder at why they are missing out on that market.)

I don't understand the need for real time traffic monitoring except in some very specific niches. It's always been my opinion that analytics (or any data, for that matter) is only useful if you can analyze the cause and respond accordingly. There are some occasions that would call for a real-time response, but not many.

So do you use real-time analytics for your website, and for what purpose? Has an occasion come up that required you to respond immediately rather than a few hours or even a day later?

[shantanubala]

If you're just talking about traffic analytics, then having an understanding of who's sending you traffic in real-time is really important for building a brand. The only way you can comment on blogs, Reddit, HN, or any other web site to answer questions is via real-time analytics. It'll help you connect with online communities and web sites, and make the communities want to support you.

[matthiaswh → shantanubala]

While I think this is actually an interesting usage for them, I've always been satisfied with setting up Google Alerts for brand monitoring. This has the advantage of catching mentions of your website that don't include a link.

[benologist]

Real time lets you spot problems and opportunities as they happen.

Developers using my platform have been able to identify problems they introduced very quickly when they were fixing bugs because data hits their reports in seconds and counters stopped going up just after their last build did.

In the context of websites real time analytics helps you efficiently produce or monetize content that has far too short a lifespan to wait for older systems to refresh their reports.

It's also very reassuring for users - before I made Playtomic real time devs often asked when the stats would update because they were testing their games, the reports weren't updating, and one of the options in that situation is they did something wrong.

[illdave]

I used Chartbeat on Hackerbuddy.com - it has customisable alerts which can go straight to your iPhone, so when traffic spiked I was able to react. The app hit the front page of Hacker News, and I was able to join in the conversation early on, which was really useful. It also got mentioned by Mashable, and Chartbeat alerted me and let me share the Mashable link around. It also monitors uptime and alerts me if the site is down - which means I get to reboot the server pretty much as soon as it happens. I'm not 100% sure real-time analytics is a requirement for everyone, but for me it's been extremely useful.

[staunch]

I'm using GetClicky and really like it. It's useful to be able to see who's on your site and what they're doing. It's great for testing things (campaigns, site changes). Instead of waiting hours or a day to see what the effect was you can watch as people come in and see what they do.

Olark(YC S09) is another really awesome thing for this. It's meant for messaging but it lets you watch users as they browse around from page to page. You can popup a message saying "Hey, did you find everything okay today?" which may sound a bit creepy, but is really powerful.

[matthiaswh → staunch]

Changes to a site require a significant amount of data before it is really meaningful. Looking at the response and actions of an individual and then trying to apply that to how the masses will respond almost always ends in failure.

While looking at a specific visitor's actions on your website might be interesting, it's not useful in the grand scheme of things. Interacting with them via Olark is different, since you have the opportunity to directly influence their decisions.

Have you ever been watching your real time analytics and been able to react to them in real time, to the benefit of you (the website owner) or the website visitor? I'm not trying to be antagonistic, just trying to determine the real benefit of real-time analytics and how they are being used.