GoSquared (Web Analytics)

For years I've used Google Analytics and Blogger's flawed (but flattering) analytics, and not really thought much about it. They provide plenty of information and I don't need to pay a penny. This is before we even get into their integration with AdSense and Blogger, which makes life ever so simple.

It surprised me then, that when I first followed a tweet to GoSquared that I actually signed up for the service at all. But there was something compelling and inviting about it. (And it wasn't just the offer of a free trial - honest.)

Twitter age

The graphical layout is completely with the twitter age, there's no doubt. No clunky, slow loading here, and the dashboard immediately wows. To find the features just click on cogs and play around. Most of the stuff you expect is here, and it is rewarding to find it all, like many modern apps.

GoMobile

Take GoSquared for a spin on an iPad and you'll be in web app heaven when you add the website to your home screen from Safari. No complaints here, except that the Trends layout currently takes you back into the browser, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before that gets integrated.

How does it feel to change?

What takes time to acclimatise to is the reversal from Google Analytics, of looking at a month at a time, to looking at what is happening on your site right now.

In Google Analytics you can look at Real Time analytics, but it isn't as immersive as GoSquared, it's mostly a squished together graph. In GoSquared, conversely, you can look at weekly and monthly trends but the entry point is always the dashboard, showing you how many people are on your site concurrently right now. (What happened in the past is important, but not very.)

What does it take?

Adding GoSquared to your site is easy, just a JavaScript snippet like you'll be used to from Google Analytics (unless you link automagically to your Blogger site). More difficult is tearing your eyes away from the beautiful dashboard.

The right stuff

If you use Google Analytics then you're probably used to looking over your monthly page views and visitors, and feeling good about yourself when these are on the rise.

In comparison to GA, GoSquared is a wake-up call that the Internet isn't interested in months and weeks very much anymore, what happens on the Internet happens now. It is no good flattering yourself that ten people visited your blog last week (they were probably bots anyway!), you need people to be constantly on your site and you need that concurrent figure to be as high as possible, otherwise you my friend are wasting your time.

Conclusion

GoSquared is your analytics life-coach and fitness trainer. It is for people who want to be motivated to aim higher. Whether it is worth a relatively low monthly fee is entirely your choice.

Note: There is a rewards scheme that will see you right for up to 50,000 page views per month for free if you tweet a link and encourage a friend to sign up, etc.

And there's more ...

Developers will be pleased to hear that with each account you are issued with an API Key and for each site a Site Token, so that you can get developing with the GoSquared API.

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