Three Applications That Monitor Real-Time AnalyticsThree Applications That Monitor Real-Time Analytics

Back in February I wrote about the importance of monitoring real-time analytics for your product, service or blog. Now I'd like to share three applications that provide real-time analytics and statistics.All three of these applications are installed using a couple of lines of Javascript. Typically all you need to do is insert the code into your template to get the application to receive your visitor data.

Woopra is in beta mode and you need to apply for the beta to have an account created. After your account is created, you login to the Woopra Web application and from there you can view your site reports. Report categories include Visitors, Searches, System, Pages and Referrers. Woopra allows you to "tag" visitors so you can track them later on. I like this feature a lot as it can help to see how long it takes a visitor to actually convert. Woopra also supports viewing reports via the iPhone if you install a variety of files on your server.

In a blog post last week, the Woopra team announced the latest version of their application. If viewing real-time stats in a list wasn't enough, now they support viewing the live stats on a world map.

Clicky is the tool I currently use to monitor real-time stats on my network of sites. Last week they announced the upgrade of their Spy to the new Super Spy. The Super Spy is only available to paying customers but if you give it a try, you will be hooked quickly. The Super Spy (and the regular Spy) display traffic to your site as it arrives. You can view all traffic from a source and easily click to view the referral link. The ability to view the referral links is what makes real-time stats so powerful. After viewing a referral link, you can determine if any action is necessary (e.g. replies to blog posts, changes/updates to a website, etc).

NY-based Chartbeat moved into their beta stage this past week. The service is free for 30 days and then $10/month. Chartbeat provides alerts via text message and email when you hit certain traffic levels or if your site becomes inaccessible. Chartbeat also merges in some lightweight social tracking so you can monitor the chatter about your brand. The team behind Chartbeat has created several Twitter applications and there is a lot of Twitter hooks inside Chartbeat including the ability to monitor Twitter searches. Chartbeat also provides you with a widget you can put on your site to show how many other people are currently browsing a specific page.

In case you are wondering about Google Analytics, they don't provide real-time analytics however you can change the default view to "today" which gets you relatively close to live.