

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.)<p>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.<p>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
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
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.

