Google Analytics dashboard

A vital thing for anyone producing a product is the ability to track its use and how people are interacting with it. When the average person put up a website a few years ago, their only hope for knowing how many people were coming to their site were those old hit-counters. Well, metrics have come leaps and bounds since then. As an example, take a look at Google Analytics. With just a small piece of code put on each webpage, Google gives you a window into who is coming to a site, where they are coming from, how long they’re spending on your pages, and what paths they’re taking through your content. This kind of information once took a team of IT and marketing people running scripts on log files and generating reports by hand for management. Today it is all free, and I think that is pretty amazing.

There are many great resources for people who want to interpret and utilize the information coming from Google Analytics. One that I walked through this week was “How to track social media traffic with Google.” It helps you to set up custom segments and view your traffic based on the source (such as, you can see how users who found your site through twitter.com tend to navigate your pages).

In the future I’m hoping to take a look at some of the other options that are out there, including Web Trends and Microsoft’s new Developer Tools.

This type of free, specialized tool is appearing in a million niches and are enabling people of all walks of life to make interesting and sometimes beautiful things. Granted, stick figure fist fights aren’t quite high art:

Rivalry (Pivot Stick Figure Animation)

… but there isn’t anything stopping someone with a tragic and emotionally complex story to tell from picking up Stykez or Pivot Stickfigure Animator and using it. In fact, I’m sure it’s been done, and I’ll keep my eye out for just that. I’ve downloaded both of these tools and they look pretty simple to use. I’ll experiment with them and upload my rudimentary results in the future. If you’re curious, here is a basic demo for Pivot Stickfigure Animator. Try it out and maybe post a link to the video you make in the comments.

How To Create Cool Looking Stick Figure Animations On GIF

(via Smashingapps)

Independently created videogame, Spelunky

Today’s inspiration in individual empowerment through technology comes from the video game world.  I was surprised when I started looking into how much this industry is changing.  Not too long ago, to create a video game, you would need to be a part of a large development team, working under permission of console manufacturers.  In the case of PC games, designers wanting to make a game with wide appeal, and sophisticated gameplay, would need significant capital and man-power behind them.

That’s not the case today.  Check out a game called Spelunky.  This PC game was developed, as far as I can tell, by only one person named Derek Yu.  This 2d side-scrolling platform jumping game has an amazing scope and its depth and sophistication is not something I would expect to come from a single person in such a short time.  His work was enabled by a tool called Game Maker which offers quite a few tools for free, or a pro version for only $25.  Tools like this (and there are many more out there) enable people with good ideas and dedication to create interesting and innovative games, true to their vision, without the roadblocks corporations or licensing  would cause.