Measure Map and Google Analytics

One of my must-read blogs, TechCrunch, has a recent post entitled “Google Analytics Swings at Measure Map.” Though I love this site and its coverage on everything new and cool happening around the web, I have to take exception with that headline as it assumes something I don’t quite think is there yet with Measure Map. If these two services were to compete head to head, I think we all know who would win. Measure Map and Google Analytics are definitely targeting different crowds.

I received an invite to Measure Map last week and after setting it up (very easy with JavaScript, just as with Google Analytics) on my blog, I was very interested in seeing what types of web statistics the service would provide. Now obviously, you have to give it some time to start aggregating the data before you can make any judgments. This is definitely a service that will go over well with those who have blogs on hosted services like TypePad and Blogger. But just from my initial glance at what stats these two services will provide, it’s not even close. Even if you don’t have an account with either service, just take a gander at some of the screen shots floating around the web.

I’m going to hold off opinions until there’s enough data in each to actually form some real, coherent comparisons. From what I have seen from both services to this point (granted, this is very little) is Measure Map is much more targeted towards blogs while Google Analytics is more for web sites in general. Some of the data out of Measure Map is very cool and simply laid out – visitors, links, comments, and posts. Measure Map then gives you an understanding of your readers and the performance of you blog with stats like: “X visitors came to your blog today” and “17% of those visitors had been to your blog before.” As I’m so used to looking at my data in AWstats though, I keep finding myself searching for more raw data to make these kind of assumptions myself. What they’re doing is great, but I’m the kind of person who just like to see more of the data upfront. This looks like it isn’t where they’re going though and that’s fine – just a different angle on how the data is reported. On the other hand, if they have the collected data, maybe we’ll see more ways to slice and dice it from them.

One thing that appears unique between the two is Measure Map’s ability to track and measure comments. This isn’t something I worry about too much, but that’s obviously because you people aren’t commenting much on this blog (you hear me? hint hint). As Measure Map develops though, I plan to comment on more of the differences between the two.

Now I can only ponder how Google’s 12 hour wait time on Analytics is very slowly turning into more than 48…