A growing number of hosted application providers are translating complex concepts into easy-to-understand visual representations -- ideal for those number-phobes whose eyes glaze over when confronted with pages of statistics, graphs and charts.

But do these visual applications for Web analytics offer the stats you need to succeed? Or do the charts and graphs leave out critical information that could cause you to miss the point altogether?

"Programs like VisitorVille and Crazy Egg offer eye candy that helps catch people's attention," said Bill Gassman, a principal analyst at Gartner. "There is a real demand for Web analytics at the small- to mid-sized business level where solutions offered by WebTrends and Omniture might be too complex -- and too expensive."

Meet the Mayor

VisitorVille presents Web stats as a graphical environment, in order to help Web site owners visualize and understand what their visitors are doing -- in real-time.

Similar in ways to an online environment like Second Life, VisitorVille's 3-D environment comes complete with buildings, vehicles, and, of course, people. Each building represents a Web page, each bus a search engine, and each animated pedestrian a unique visitor. And each pedestrian gets a visitor "passport" disclosing 24 vital statistics about that visitor.

"Web analytics, given the randomness and the large scale of data points, is a complex process that lends itself well to visual interpretation," said Robert Savage, the creator and "Mayor" of VisitorVille. "With VisitorVille, even a non-technical person can grasp what is happening on the most complex of sites in just a few minutes."

Visual elements are "cute," Gassman said, "but at the end of the day the substance makes the Web analytics applications valuable." Defending his virtual city concept, Mayor Savage points out that VisitorVille offers both the standard numbers and bar charts, plus the additional visual dimension. "So it's meant to appeal to both left-brain and right-brain people."

Meaty Insights

VisitorVille does offer users the ability to dive deeper into the data. Web site owners can view their live visitors through dozens of custom filters, such as "visitors by state," and there are complete visit histories for every repeat visitor. It also features sales conversion and traffic flow analysis. (continued...)

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