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Noticing the gap in time between the actual page view and the ability to analyze that traffic, several startups have launched paid services to give insight into the traffic much more quickly. Using included Javascript files, these services monitor a website’s traffic as it happens and then provide either an application or a website that enables users to view the stats in realtime.
Chartbeat
Chartbeat is a paid web service that enables users to monitor web traffic in realtime through a web-based user interface, an iPhone application, and SMS alerts. Installation onto a website is as simple as pasting in a bit of Javascript code. Once installed, a user can start viewing stats through the web interface; or by downloading the iPhone application.
Monitoring a website with Chartbeat
On top of viewing standard analytics, such as the number of people looking at a site at a given time, Chartbeat also enables users to track who is talking about a certain website on services such as Twitter. It also offers fairly robust alerting tools. For example, Chartbeat serves as a simple uptime monitor, sending out SMS alerts if it notices that the site has stopped responding to HTTP requests. On the other hand, a user can configure Chartbeat to send out alerts via SMS or through push notification on the iPhone application if site activity goes beyond predetermined limits. The image below shows the iPhone application.
Monitoring a website with the Chartbeat iPhone application
Woopra
Another service providing realtime analytics tracking is called Woopra. This service is also installed by adding some Javascript code to a site and then watching the statistics as quickly as they are collected. However, one differentiating factor of Woopra is that it requires users to install a Java-based desktop application to monitor the traffic (see Figure 9-3).
Although Woopra lacks the alerting capability of Chartbeat, it does allow website owners to interact with their users on a very personal level. From the Woopra interface, a Woopra subscriber can initiate an instant message chat session with any user who is currently viewing the website.
Monitoring a website through the Woopra desktop application
Initiating a chat with a user via Woopra
Learn more about this topic from Building the Realtime User Experience.
The Web is increasingly happening in realtime. With sites such as Facebook and FriendFeed leading the way, users are coming to expect that all websites should serve content to them as it occurs. With this book, you'll learn how to add several realtime features to your site -- everything from chat and messaging services to streaming content feeds -- without making significant changes to your existing infrastructure.
