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Roll Your Own Analytics

pcmaffey.com

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81–90 of 105 posts

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#81

Post by ozten »

soared wrote: post #48

This is like a marketer suggesting an engineer roll his own security. If its a fun side project, do it! If you actually want it to work, don't do it. If you want to /really/ use it (checking more than sessions), don't do it.

Many places I have worked end up using N solutions plus atleast one from scratch BI platform.

I don't think rolling your own auth or encryption is an apples to apples comparison.

One of the new hotness in marketing is micro-funnels. You have to have customized metrics built into the product for that to work.

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#82

Post by samat »

mejakethomas wrote: post #55

(Data engineer here) Nice article! I did something very similar to this for my blog but used Snowplow's javascript tracker ( https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow-javascript-tracker ), a cloudfront distribution with s3 log forwarding, a couple lambda functions (with s3 "put" triggers), S3 as the post-processed storage layer, and AWS athena as the query layer. The system costs under $1 per month, is very scalable, and…

Is there a way to guild a comment here?

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#83

Post by ozten »

laythea wrote: post #67

I hate all these user spying tools, whether home grown or bought in. Please, if you write software, don't do it. Just let us buy the software and run it. Like in the good old days.

We need a more nuanced conversation that "spying tools".

Developers creating software should see that 80% of people can't finish filling in a form or that 80% of people click on something that isn't supposed to be clickable. That way they can identify UX bugs and improve the product.

Sure, asking users to opt-in to telemetry for improving the product is a best practice.

Are developers trying to improve the product, or are you just collecting data to sell to 3rd parties? Big difference.

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#84

Post by Tsubasachan »

dcbadacd wrote: post #74
lostapathy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm okay with this. If a user agent is attempting to block my tracking code (piwik.js), it's likely that the user doesn't want to be tracked. What users DO want to be tracked????

Stop being so hysteric, if you want to avoid first-party analytics then don't use the service , if someone reads my blog I have the full right to find out how long my articles are read. Protesting against first-party tracking is like protesting against visitor counters in shops and security cameras, luddism.

Actually there are a lot of things the law says about security cameras in my country...

Thankfully analytics can be blocked if someone so desires.

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#85

Post by coldacid »

smacktoward wrote: post #47
tasubotadas wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and only takes a few minutes to setup. The usual trap. That's why we have managed DBs.

Matomo offers a hosted version of their product as well.

Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of keeping your analytics local to your site/service?

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#86

Post by lostapathy »

dcbadacd wrote: post #74
lostapathy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm okay with this. If a user agent is attempting to block my tracking code (piwik.js), it's likely that the user doesn't want to be tracked. What users DO want to be tracked????

Stop being so hysteric, if you want to avoid first-party analytics then don't use the service , if someone reads my blog I have the full right to find out how long my articles are read. Protesting against first-party tracking is like protesting against visitor counters in shops and security cameras, luddism.

I'm not being hysteric, I'm just pointing out that the parent poster was kind of offering a a false worldview.

It's not that some of his users want to be tracked and some don't, it's more that some are aware of how to ask to not be tracked and some aren't aware.

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#87

Post by johntash »

cyrusmg wrote: post #25

I wish pages like this one had RSS feed. I would like to follow future articles, but I do not want it to end up in my email inbox.

OT, what do you use to follow RSS feeds with? I've tried a few different feed readers since google reader was shut down, but never settled on one for more than a couple days.

I sadly rely on reddit/hn to get updates/news now.

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#88

Post by kfarr »

mejakethomas wrote: post #55

(Data engineer here) Nice article! I did something very similar to this for my blog but used Snowplow's javascript tracker ( https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow-javascript-tracker ), a cloudfront distribution with s3 log forwarding, a couple lambda functions (with s3 "put" triggers), S3 as the post-processed storage layer, and AWS athena as the query layer. The system costs under $1 per month, is very scalable, and…

This is a great idea using cloudfront logs as the "raw data store". Well done.

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#89

Post by laythea »

dcbadacd wrote: post #75
laythea wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the distinction between spying on a user using a piece of traditional software and a web site. At the end of the day, you are spying on users to better yourself and sometimes at the cost of the user, who mostly is not aware of the manipulation that goes on. Sorry for the cynicism, but that is the reality.

First-party analytics is like blocking people in face masks entering a store, using security cameras or counting daily visitors. Your "cynicism" is more Luddide-ism. As with physical venues that employ analytics, you can easily just not visit those sites that want to know a bit more about how people consume content than seeing "GET /page.html" in HTTP logs. I'm writing this text to you as a huge free-software propone…

When any normal person visits a store they can see the security cameras watching, and they can likely image that they may be counted.

It is not accurate to say that it is like that the average person who goes to a web site is even in the slightest aware of all the different ways in which they are being used.

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#90

Post by laythea »

ozten wrote: post #83
laythea wrote: post #67

I hate all these user spying tools, whether home grown or bought in. Please, if you write software, don't do it. Just let us buy the software and run it. Like in the good old days.

We need a more nuanced conversation that "spying tools". Developers creating software should see that 80% of people can't finish filling in a form or that 80% of people click on something that isn't supposed to be clickable. That way they can identify UX bugs and improve the product. Sure, asking users to opt-in to telemetry for improving the product is a best practice. Are developers trying to improve the product, o…

"Are developers trying to improve the product, or are you just collecting data to sell to 3rd parties?"

Problem is, there is no way to know or properly police this.

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