After reading about Volodya's insertion of a GA tracker for Boost.Build docs, I wonder whether it'd make sense to add one of these to the boost.org website itself. Some of the data we could gather, like for instance the geographical distribution of visitors, can be very illuminating. There are two problems at first sight with this: * Whose the reports' associated Google account should be? * How to make the data public? This is not technically trivial, but maybe some volunteer would like to do the job of extracting the data via the Google Analytics Data Export API: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/22/make-your-google-analytics-data-public/ Thank you, Joaquín M López Muñoz Telefónica, Inevstigación y Desarrollo
on Mon Jun 08 2009, joaquin-AT-tid.es wrote:
After reading about Volodya's insertion of a GA tracker for Boost.Build docs, I wonder whether it'd make sense to add one of these to the boost.org website itself. Some of the data we could gather, like for instance the geographical distribution of visitors, can be very illuminating.
There are two problems at first sight with this:
* Whose the reports' associated Google account should be? * How to make the data public? This is not technically trivial, but maybe some volunteer would like to do the job of extracting the data via the Google Analytics Data Export API:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/22/make-your-google-analytics-data-public/
Is there a rule against sharing an account? One thing we _could_ consider is getting the SoftwareConservancy to set up http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/education/new for Boost. -- Dave Abrahams BoostPro Computing http://www.boostpro.com
David Abrahams <dave <at> boostpro.com> writes:
on Mon Jun 08 2009, joaquin-AT-tid.es wrote:
After reading about Volodya's insertion of a GA tracker for Boost.Build docs, I wonder whether it'd make sense to add one of these to the boost.org website itself. Some of the data we could gather, like for instance the geographical distribution of visitors, can be very illuminating.
There are two problems at first sight with this:
* Whose the reports' associated Google account should be? * How to make the data public? This is not technically trivial, but maybe some volunteer would like to do the job of extracting the data via the Google Analytics Data Export API:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/22/make-your-google-analytics-data-public/
Is there a rule against sharing an account?
I don't think so. The only problem here would be to designate the custodian of the account credentials, as we certainly don't want them made public.
One thing we _could_ consider is getting the SoftwareConservancy to set up http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/education/new for Boost.
I don't know if non-persons can get a Google Account; if you take a look at the associated TOS it reads: "10.1 Google gives you a personal, worldwide, royalty-free, non-assignable and non-exclusive licence..." OTOH, it's certainly much nicer if we can get the account assigned to boost.org rather than an individual. Maybe we need some legal advise here. Joaquín M López Muñoz Telefónica, Investigación y Desarrollo
2009/6/8 David Abrahams <dave@boostpro.com>:
on Mon Jun 08 2009, joaquin-AT-tid.es wrote:
Export API:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/22/make-your-google-analytics-data-public/
Hopefully, there's someone out there working on an open source solution right now. Although maybe not. There seem to be a few PHP API classes but I think the best way to approach this would probably be to use the wordpress plugin as a starting point.
Is there a rule against sharing an account?
One thing we _could_ consider is getting the SoftwareConservancy to set up http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/education/new for Boost.
AFAICT you can only use individual google accounts (not apps accounts) for signing up to google analytics. You can link google apps education edition to google analytics, but I think that's just for tracking the apps pages - it looks like you still have to use your google account: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2008/11/google-analytics-for-google-app... But you can give access to other google accounts: https://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55500&hl=en_US&utm_id=ad Daniel
joaquin@tid.es wrote:
After reading about Volodya's insertion of a GA tracker for Boost.Build docs, I wonder whether it'd make sense to add one of these to the boost.org website itself. Some of the data we could gather, like for instance the geographical distribution of visitors, can be very illuminating.
There are two problems at first sight with this:
* Whose the reports' associated Google account should be?
Daniel James :-) Seriously, to use GA to optimize anything, one has to have direct access to the reporting interface, and it's not like we have lots of folks working on the website.
* How to make the data public? This is not technically trivial, but maybe some volunteer would like to do the job of extracting the data via the Google Analytics Data Export API:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/22/make-your-google-analytics-data-public/
Since the data will be of limited use, it might be sufficient to provide monthly reports on key metrics only. - Volodya
Vladimir Prus <vladimir <at> codesourcery.com> writes:
joaquin <at> tid.es wrote:
* Whose the reports' associated Google account should be?
Daniel James Seriously, to use GA to optimize anything, one has to have direct access to the reporting interface, and it's not like we have lots of folks working on the website.
Certainly Daniel is an obvious candidate, but as I comment in my previous response to Dave it's preferrable (aesthetically as well as perhaps legally, given that getting a Google Account implies acceptance of the terms of service) to have a non-personal account.
* How to make the data public? This is not technically trivial, but maybe some volunteer would like to do the job of extracting the data via the Google Analytics Data Export API:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/22/make-your-google-analytics-data-public/
Since the data will be of limited use, it might be sufficient to provide monthly reports on key metrics only.
I'm not keen on the idea of adding just another task to the burden of the webmaster when there's the possibility to automate the job (if we find the volunteer to do the programming, that is). Besides, we could have a really beatiful mashup, with a worldmap showing geographical distributions, statistic graphs, etc. Joaquín M López Muñoz Telefónica, Investigación y Desarrollo
http://www.quantcast.com/boost.org is another alternative. The advantage is that people can look at the stats without having to log into an account, while an admin type can insert a 'quantify' js and control the public views. e.g.: http://www.quantcast.com/digg.com/ __Luke On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 12:49 PM, Joaquin M Lopez Munoz<joaquin@tid.es> wrote:
Vladimir Prus <vladimir <at> codesourcery.com> writes:
joaquin <at> tid.es wrote:
* Whose the reports' associated Google account should be?
Daniel James Seriously, to use GA to optimize anything, one has to have direct access to the reporting interface, and it's not like we have lots of folks working on the website.
Certainly Daniel is an obvious candidate, but as I comment in my previous response to Dave it's preferrable (aesthetically as well as perhaps legally, given that getting a Google Account implies acceptance of the terms of service) to have a non-personal account.
* How to make the data public? This is not technically trivial, but maybe some volunteer would like to do the job of extracting the data via the Google Analytics Data Export API:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/22/make-your-google-analytics-data-public/
Since the data will be of limited use, it might be sufficient to provide monthly reports on key metrics only.
I'm not keen on the idea of adding just another task to the burden of the webmaster when there's the possibility to automate the job (if we find the volunteer to do the programming, that is). Besides, we could have a really beatiful mashup, with a worldmap showing geographical distributions, statistic graphs, etc.
Joaquín M López Muñoz Telefónica, Investigación y Desarrollo
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