Sitemeter follow-up

Today's photos were taken at a small gathering at my friends Reid's and Luisa's place in honour of a visit from William and Mona; some of you may recall my Blather about William giving us a tour of Google.

Sitemeter has finally come out and responded to allegations about its partnership with Specific Media. It says that the specificclick.net cookie is NOT spyware and says that it can't help the fact that anti-spyware software companies incorrectly mark it as such.

It's a good response (considering the circumstances), but the timing is unfortunate; it would have been wiser to keep its users informed from the beginning, or at least responded immediately when its users began wondering what was going on.




As I said in yesterday's Blatherings, it was the breach of trust that is prompting me to seek other means of keep track of my stats, not necessarily the fact that Sitemeter has partnered with Specific Media. It would have been different if Sitemeter had sent out an e-mail or at least put up a post, warning its users what it was about to do, giving us the option of not using the cookie from the beginning, and explaining the reason behind its changes.

Instead, it started beta testing a third-party cookie without letting users know. This was bad for several reasons.



1. Many people (including myself) are already feeling cranky about being bombarded with things online that we don't want, like spam and annoying pop-up ads. Sometimes I feel as if I'm trying to walk down a street to visit friends, but strangers are aggressively shoving flyers in my face the entire way, and occasionally hurling ticking packages at me as well.

2. As annoying as the above scenario sounds, it's even MORE annoying when one of those people (whom I had considered a trusted acquaintance) slips a package into my pocket when I'm not looking, a package that they got from someone I don't know.

3. And BEYOND annoying when I discover that when I visit people I know (or rather when any friends visit me), the secret package spawns other packages that secretly slip into the pockets of my friends and collects info about them without their knowledge.



Photo by John Chew.

But enough with the analogy; you get the picture. I wish Sitemeter luck, but I'm off to check out other stats tracking possibilities. Right now I'm testing out Statcounter and Mint.

Statcounter gives great info, but I think will be too pricey for me. There's a free version, but it's limited to a log size of 100. The cheapest tier is US$9/month; this doesn't sound like much, but it's more than I can justify spending on my hobby blogs. I'm also trying Mint, which costs US$30/site (one-time fee); I'm trying it out for Inkygirl. The user interface is gorgeous (yes, I'm a sucker for that), and there's lots of well-presented info with easy implemented add-ons that remind me of Wordpress Plugin functionality. I'll post a more detailed review in an upcoming Blatherings.

Other solutions people have suggested so far:

Analog
Webalizer
AWstats
GoStats.com

Links o' the Day

Pearls before Breakfast: an experiment in which a world-famous violinist masquerades as a street musician. Fascinating and sad at the same time. Thanks to Julie Duffy for the link!

How blogging can help you get a new job (Wall Street Journal article)

What happened when my friend Reid let me Twitter for him (heh)





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