The Continuing Google Analytics Debacle 2
Let me start off this post by saying that I love Google Analytics. I use it pretty much every day to monitor the traffic to this site and to several others. In concept, it's a great application.
Now if they could only just get the damn thing to work.
I'm not sure what they were expecting three months ago when they launched, but they must have been off by an order of magnitude or so with their estimates about the number of signups. That's the only way that I can explain taking 3 months just to get back to the point of letting people sign up again.
Did they do any load testing at all on this thing? I still find it to be a regular occurrence where the initial summary page just sits there, refusing to show me my data. Even after multiple refreshes I still end up with nothing. The solution? Come back in a few hours.
Now I know that this is a free service and I should be happy with what I got, but just because something is free doesn't mean that you shouldn't finish it and get it tested before you send it out the door. If you own the world's most powerful computer, I feel like you really shouldn't be having simple application load problems.
Oh well, I guess I'll just keep using it when it works and continue waiting patiently for a Measure Map invitation...
Trackbacks
Use the following link to trackback from your own site:
http://kurt.karmalab.org/trackbacks?article_id=the-continuing-google-analytics-debacle&day=23&month=01&year=2006
Many Google applications are just not prepared for the large number of users they attract or are just not well designed.
Gmail, Google search and Google Maps are awesome applications, but there is other google applications that I just don't get it or is just badly designed/supported.
One of the worst and more buggy application that I've used recently is called Orkut, a kind of friendfinder.com or myspace.com application. With milions of users the application can barely be used. Server side errors, security issues with cookies and many other problems that doesn't stand for a Google logo.
The Google RSS reader is another tool that has a nice "tech" interface using Ajax but to me is too hard/complicated to use. The interface is just not easy. The way I read my favorite RSS feeds on My Yahoo is way better.
Summary: We can't assume that all Google applications are good as the Google search is.
Hi, while you're waiting for your MeasureMap invitation... let me suggest you give Blogbeat a try.
We're a blog analytics service (much like Measure Map) and we just opened the doors a few days ago.
You can sign up for a free 30 day trial if you'd like to check it out.
Regards, Jeff