5 ms·

Segment.io (YC S11) Lets Developers Integrate Multiple Analytics Services

129 points by jamest 14y ago

mvkel 14y ago
The prospect of it taking _hours_ instead of _weeks_ is still too steep of an ask. Basically, if it's going to be me just checking each analytics service in its own tab vs. needing to dedicate hours of development resources to pool everything together, I'd rather just stick with what I have.
Uchikoma 14y ago
Excellent, would use it (the backend stuff), would need to be in the EU though :-(
eps 14y ago
Metalytics.
josh2600 14y ago
Congrats on hitting TC. If you guys haven't read Peter's piece on Thorium it's worth noting that these guys aren't just about analytics: http://rein.pk/thorium-reactors/ http://rein.pk/thorium-reactors/
sgrove 14y ago
These guys are onto something big with this, extremely excited to see how quickly they can move with it. Please keep sharing updates/integrations with us on hn!
- d0m 14y ago
  Mind to share your mind about how "they are onto something big"? Unless there is a hidden feature somewhere, I really don't see how it's big or why YC invested in it. Sure, it's useful. Sure, it's cool. But I'm afraid that it doesn't solve a big enough problem. Obviously, I'm saying that based on my own experience and knowledge: - As a developer, integrating the various analytic libraries is trivial. Installing it? (npm install mixpanel) is mostly trivial too. Yes, it'll take a couple hours, but it will still take several hours to set up Segment too. (One might argue that's not true, but that's wrong. Even if you include the Segment.io code, you still need to provide a bunch of options and understand very well all the other analytic libraries.) - As a manager, I don't want yet another 30$ or 150$ / month when I'm already paying that for the other analytic services. Also, I know for a fact that I can easily find a dev to set up all the analytics for less than 200$. - As an investor, I ask myself: What's their unfair advantage? It seems like everyone could do such a service and even provide an open-source version of it. So, yeah, I'm a bit lost. I feel it's a big like Grove.io. I really liked the idea and found it very useful. But I didn't see how it'd work as a business. But then, there are hundreds of huge companies that I don't even get their business model. (Twitter?) So, please don't take this comment as a rent, but more as an eye-opener for me to learn about where I'm thinking wrong : )
  - sgrove 14y ago
    I think that's completely fair. The main problem with analytics/metrics is that they're all useless - or very close to it. Each of them is horrible about getting data out in order to correlate it with other services. If segment.io can consolidate metrics data, provide uniform interfaces for getting data in/out, and can start partnering with other services that should be using this data but can't (there are several dozen), they can turn useless metrics data into immediately (possibly automatably) actionable data. Just a personal vision, and I have no idea if that's where they're goin or not, I just know that needs to happen, and the team behind segment.io has the chops to pull it off.
    - bialecki 14y ago
      You might want to check out our service, Klaviyo, and specifically https://www.klaviyo.com/features/integrations https://www.klaviyo.com/features/integrations. We do exactly what you're describing around connecting your data with data from the all services you use. I definitely think it's the future and the future is coming sooner rather than later. I also agree that metrics are not nearly as powerful if you can't tie them directly to action. Which is why we built our own, fully featured email solution so you can go from metrics, to important people to engagement automatically. That's where we think things are headed and it's going to be incredibly empowering.
    - Hovertruck 14y ago
      > Each of them is horrible about getting data out in > order to correlate it with other services. Hmmm. In what way? We (Chartbeat) provide all of our data through our API, and all of our products are built using those very same APIs.
  - justinsteele 14y ago
    The use case I have thought of so far is providers who work with multiple companies (providing web interfaces for them), and therefore are required to integrate with those companies' analytics services. When you are on boarding new clients, or adding analytics to existing ones, a service like this could be extremely useful to cut down on development time.
pbibalan 14y ago
With so many companies providing analytics services it's no wonder that a mother API would be very handy to make use of the distinctive features of each one. I was wondering which other verticals this model can be applied to? I know Zappier is integrating multiple APIs when there is an existing logical flow for example. And what happens if the third party services don't provide API access how would you approach that problem? Would you need to make a partnership with each one of them? I am assuming that all the analytics services Segment.io is using already provide API access.
- ddt 14y ago
  I think anyone who doesn't provide programmatic access to their analytics app is going to fall by the way-side so quickly there wouldn't be much demand for them to be integrated into Segment.io. I'd be interested to see an example of an analytics service that doesn't offer API access.
Kudos 14y ago
This seems like it could be a great way to get their own analytics platform off the ground.
bherms 14y ago
Seems interesting, but I was tasked with integrating several analytics packages at my last startup and it certainly didn't take months to do. All I did was write a few javascript wrapper functions and stick the various mapping in there: function track(event, category, options) { _kmq.push(...) _mxp.push(...) . . . } edit: Also, I'm interested to see how eager startups are to add yet another $150/mo to their analytics bill when nearly every service starts at that level... While it may not sound like a lot of money, a few analytics engines can add up really fast, especially for a bootstrapped company.
- bluetidepro 14y ago
  I think most startups can get away with the free plan, if you ask me... Regardless, I'm a huge fan of what segment.io is doing! I really like their service so far! :)
  - bherms 14y ago
    I do plan to give it a whirl on my next side project. I'm hearing good things.
- bradgessler 14y ago
  Google Tag Manager (https://www.google.com/tagmanager/ https://www.google.com/tagmanager/) does this.
  - ry0ohki 14y ago
    It's brutal and tedious to add non Google things to track to their Tag Manager. Feels like an engineering written tool, Segment.io's "flip the switches" is way better for the people that use these types of tools, ie marketers.
    - scottkrager 14y ago
      Hmmm...I'm not an engineer and I love Google Tag Manager. It's not the most intuitive interface, but after a few hours, I can't imagine ever managing scripts anyway else. No need to bug my CTO just to add a conversion pixel? Heck yeah.
karamazov 14y ago
This looks great - I'll be trying it out.
ricardobeat 14y ago
Why not push for an interoperable standard from analytics vendors?
- snprbob86 14y ago
  Because standards are where innovation goes to die. I'm not saying standards are a bad thing, I'm saying that it's likely counter productive for most vendors at this point in the marketplace.
- ceslami 14y ago
  Segment.io is, in a way, creating one. That said, an interoperable standard would not make it any easier to .push to all of your analytics vendors. The (hosted) product seems especially useful to non-technical staff, who don't necessarily care about standards and protocols.
  - swalberg 14y ago
    I'm reminded of the engineer that saw 20 standards that did almost the same thing, so he created one standard to unify them. And then there were 21 standards.
    - damncabbage 14y ago
      It's good to know http://xkcd.com/927/ http://xkcd.com/927/ has reached parable status.
  - swalberg 14y ago
    I'm reminded of the engineer that saw 20 standards that did almost the same thing, so he created one standard to unify them. And then there were 21 standards.
iomike 14y ago
would love to see it for enterprize-level tools, like webtrends and omniture.
- disgruntledphd2 14y ago
  The article states that they already have omniture integration on the paid plans.
- ianstormtaylor 14y ago
  Shoot us an email at friends@segment.io we've working on support for these types of big guys, and are looking for users to test them out for us.
codydjango 14y ago
Waiting for it to supports gaming analytics like flurry and Apsalar. Awesome support service, too!
jameshart 14y ago
Am I missing why anybody would want to use multiple analytics services? Isn't this just creating a challenge for yourself to integrate the analytic data to understand end-to-end behavior?
- pkrein 14y ago
  there's a surprising variety of tools available, and they each accomplish different things. for example: mixpanel and kissmetrics are great for tracking custom events and learning deeply about engagement and conversion inside your app. but you're still going to want hittail or google analytics to analyze your referrers. and you probably want customer.io, vero, mixpanel or klaviyo to do targeted email marketing, which is great for improving activation and retention. so i'd say why wouldn't you want to use multiple analytics services? maybe our definition of "analytics" is just broader :)
  - jameshart 14y ago
    I already have too many places where analytic data lands up. I can see a business case in building tools to help me consolidate the data in my facebook engagement stats, my SEM referrals, my email clickthrough rates, my ad impressions, and my page level analytics.... but I don't see why I want to reflect single events into multiple analytic services. Maybe it's because I work with an analytic solution that just captures arbitrary events so I can just log everything in one place, so I'm missing the problem with working with services that are less flexible.
irollboozers 14y ago
congrats on the launch! i wonder if they will be able to fix the leakiness problem across all analytics platforms... somehow none of my analytics reports are ever accurate.
bravura 14y ago
What is the correct way to instrument SCALABLE website analytics if you have a massively-trafficked (almost facebook-size) website? Are there any resources on this topics?
- alexatkeplar 14y ago
  We built SnowPlow for exactly this: https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow Worth checking out if you're too big for e.g. Google Analytics free tier (10m pageviews+events a month)
- noelwelsh 14y ago
  I assume the issue is building the backend to store all the data. I don't see why instrumenting a popular site is any different to instrumenting an unpopular site. This is vastly different problem, which is mostly about distributed systems and algorithms. Alex Smola's Hokusai paper is good place to start for analytics on truly massive traffic: http://www.auai.org/uai2012/papers/231.pdf http://www.auai.org/uai2012/papers/231.pdf
- chaz 14y ago
  You can sample, too. Cookie the user with a random number, like 0-1023. If you want a ~1% sample, wrap the analytics call in a Javascript if() statement where it's executed iff n < 10. You can do this server-side, too. Record all of the data, but skim just a small percentage for a high level view of what's going on. You can always dig into the data later for a more in-depth question.
DanielRibeiro 14y ago
Seems amazing, but I'd not love to see some screenshots of the product.
jamesdeer 14y ago
We use Segment.io at GatherContent and it works really well. Using it with * Intercom * Mixpanel * Vero * Errorception
adambratt 14y ago
Love what you guys are doing. Crazy quick turnaround on customer/developer support too. I found an issue in the python API and it was fixed and pushed within a couple hours.

129 points by jamest 14y ago

mvkel 14y ago

The prospect of it taking _hours_ instead of _weeks_ is still too steep of an ask. Basically, if it's going to be me just checking each analytics service in its own tab vs. needing to dedicate hours of development resources to pool everything together, I'd rather just stick with what I have.

Uchikoma 14y ago

Excellent, would use it (the backend stuff), would need to be in the EU though :-(

eps 14y ago

Metalytics.

josh2600 14y ago

Congrats on hitting TC. If you guys haven't read Peter's piece on Thorium it's worth noting that these guys aren't just about analytics: http://rein.pk/thorium-reactors/ http://rein.pk/thorium-reactors/

sgrove 14y ago

These guys are onto something big with this, extremely excited to see how quickly they can move with it. Please keep sharing updates/integrations with us on hn!

d0m 14y ago
Mind to share your mind about how "they are onto something big"? Unless there is a hidden feature somewhere, I really don't see how it's big or why YC invested in it. Sure, it's useful. Sure, it's cool. But I'm afraid that it doesn't solve a big enough problem. Obviously, I'm saying that based on my own experience and knowledge: - As a developer, integrating the various analytic libraries is trivial. Installing it? (npm install mixpanel) is mostly trivial too. Yes, it'll take a couple hours, but it will still take several hours to set up Segment too. (One might argue that's not true, but that's wrong. Even if you include the Segment.io code, you still need to provide a bunch of options and understand very well all the other analytic libraries.) - As a manager, I don't want yet another 30$ or 150$ / month when I'm already paying that for the other analytic services. Also, I know for a fact that I can easily find a dev to set up all the analytics for less than 200$. - As an investor, I ask myself: What's their unfair advantage? It seems like everyone could do such a service and even provide an open-source version of it. So, yeah, I'm a bit lost. I feel it's a big like Grove.io. I really liked the idea and found it very useful. But I didn't see how it'd work as a business. But then, there are hundreds of huge companies that I don't even get their business model. (Twitter?) So, please don't take this comment as a rent, but more as an eye-opener for me to learn about where I'm thinking wrong : )
- sgrove 14y ago
  I think that's completely fair. The main problem with analytics/metrics is that they're all useless - or very close to it. Each of them is horrible about getting data out in order to correlate it with other services. If segment.io can consolidate metrics data, provide uniform interfaces for getting data in/out, and can start partnering with other services that should be using this data but can't (there are several dozen), they can turn useless metrics data into immediately (possibly automatably) actionable data. Just a personal vision, and I have no idea if that's where they're goin or not, I just know that needs to happen, and the team behind segment.io has the chops to pull it off.
  - bialecki 14y ago
    You might want to check out our service, Klaviyo, and specifically https://www.klaviyo.com/features/integrations https://www.klaviyo.com/features/integrations. We do exactly what you're describing around connecting your data with data from the all services you use. I definitely think it's the future and the future is coming sooner rather than later. I also agree that metrics are not nearly as powerful if you can't tie them directly to action. Which is why we built our own, fully featured email solution so you can go from metrics, to important people to engagement automatically. That's where we think things are headed and it's going to be incredibly empowering.
  - Hovertruck 14y ago
    > Each of them is horrible about getting data out in > order to correlate it with other services. Hmmm. In what way? We (Chartbeat) provide all of our data through our API, and all of our products are built using those very same APIs.
- justinsteele 14y ago
  The use case I have thought of so far is providers who work with multiple companies (providing web interfaces for them), and therefore are required to integrate with those companies' analytics services. When you are on boarding new clients, or adding analytics to existing ones, a service like this could be extremely useful to cut down on development time.

pbibalan 14y ago

With so many companies providing analytics services it's no wonder that a mother API would be very handy to make use of the distinctive features of each one. I was wondering which other verticals this model can be applied to? I know Zappier is integrating multiple APIs when there is an existing logical flow for example. And what happens if the third party services don't provide API access how would you approach that problem? Would you need to make a partnership with each one of them? I am assuming that all the analytics services Segment.io is using already provide API access.

ddt 14y ago
I think anyone who doesn't provide programmatic access to their analytics app is going to fall by the way-side so quickly there wouldn't be much demand for them to be integrated into Segment.io. I'd be interested to see an example of an analytics service that doesn't offer API access.

Kudos 14y ago

This seems like it could be a great way to get their own analytics platform off the ground.

bherms 14y ago

Seems interesting, but I was tasked with integrating several analytics packages at my last startup and it certainly didn't take months to do. All I did was write a few javascript wrapper functions and stick the various mapping in there: function track(event, category, options) { _kmq.push(...) _mxp.push(...) . . . } edit: Also, I'm interested to see how eager startups are to add yet another $150/mo to their analytics bill when nearly every service starts at that level... While it may not sound like a lot of money, a few analytics engines can add up really fast, especially for a bootstrapped company.

bluetidepro 14y ago
I think most startups can get away with the free plan, if you ask me... Regardless, I'm a huge fan of what segment.io is doing! I really like their service so far! :)
- bherms 14y ago
  I do plan to give it a whirl on my next side project. I'm hearing good things.
bradgessler 14y ago
Google Tag Manager (https://www.google.com/tagmanager/ https://www.google.com/tagmanager/) does this.
- ry0ohki 14y ago
  It's brutal and tedious to add non Google things to track to their Tag Manager. Feels like an engineering written tool, Segment.io's "flip the switches" is way better for the people that use these types of tools, ie marketers.
  - scottkrager 14y ago
    Hmmm...I'm not an engineer and I love Google Tag Manager. It's not the most intuitive interface, but after a few hours, I can't imagine ever managing scripts anyway else. No need to bug my CTO just to add a conversion pixel? Heck yeah.

karamazov 14y ago

This looks great - I'll be trying it out.

ricardobeat 14y ago

Why not push for an interoperable standard from analytics vendors?

snprbob86 14y ago
Because standards are where innovation goes to die. I'm not saying standards are a bad thing, I'm saying that it's likely counter productive for most vendors at this point in the marketplace.
ceslami 14y ago
Segment.io is, in a way, creating one. That said, an interoperable standard would not make it any easier to .push to all of your analytics vendors. The (hosted) product seems especially useful to non-technical staff, who don't necessarily care about standards and protocols.
- swalberg 14y ago
  I'm reminded of the engineer that saw 20 standards that did almost the same thing, so he created one standard to unify them. And then there were 21 standards.
  - damncabbage 14y ago
    It's good to know http://xkcd.com/927/ http://xkcd.com/927/ has reached parable status.
- swalberg 14y ago
  I'm reminded of the engineer that saw 20 standards that did almost the same thing, so he created one standard to unify them. And then there were 21 standards.

iomike 14y ago

would love to see it for enterprize-level tools, like webtrends and omniture.

disgruntledphd2 14y ago
The article states that they already have omniture integration on the paid plans.
ianstormtaylor 14y ago
Shoot us an email at friends@segment.io we've working on support for these types of big guys, and are looking for users to test them out for us.

codydjango 14y ago

Waiting for it to supports gaming analytics like flurry and Apsalar. Awesome support service, too!

jameshart 14y ago

Am I missing why anybody would want to use multiple analytics services? Isn't this just creating a challenge for yourself to integrate the analytic data to understand end-to-end behavior?

pkrein 14y ago
there's a surprising variety of tools available, and they each accomplish different things. for example: mixpanel and kissmetrics are great for tracking custom events and learning deeply about engagement and conversion inside your app. but you're still going to want hittail or google analytics to analyze your referrers. and you probably want customer.io, vero, mixpanel or klaviyo to do targeted email marketing, which is great for improving activation and retention. so i'd say why wouldn't you want to use multiple analytics services? maybe our definition of "analytics" is just broader :)
- jameshart 14y ago
  I already have too many places where analytic data lands up. I can see a business case in building tools to help me consolidate the data in my facebook engagement stats, my SEM referrals, my email clickthrough rates, my ad impressions, and my page level analytics.... but I don't see why I want to reflect single events into multiple analytic services. Maybe it's because I work with an analytic solution that just captures arbitrary events so I can just log everything in one place, so I'm missing the problem with working with services that are less flexible.

irollboozers 14y ago

congrats on the launch! i wonder if they will be able to fix the leakiness problem across all analytics platforms... somehow none of my analytics reports are ever accurate.

bravura 14y ago

What is the correct way to instrument SCALABLE website analytics if you have a massively-trafficked (almost facebook-size) website? Are there any resources on this topics?

alexatkeplar 14y ago
We built SnowPlow for exactly this: https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow Worth checking out if you're too big for e.g. Google Analytics free tier (10m pageviews+events a month)
noelwelsh 14y ago
I assume the issue is building the backend to store all the data. I don't see why instrumenting a popular site is any different to instrumenting an unpopular site. This is vastly different problem, which is mostly about distributed systems and algorithms. Alex Smola's Hokusai paper is good place to start for analytics on truly massive traffic: http://www.auai.org/uai2012/papers/231.pdf http://www.auai.org/uai2012/papers/231.pdf
chaz 14y ago
You can sample, too. Cookie the user with a random number, like 0-1023. If you want a ~1% sample, wrap the analytics call in a Javascript if() statement where it's executed iff n < 10. You can do this server-side, too. Record all of the data, but skim just a small percentage for a high level view of what's going on. You can always dig into the data later for a more in-depth question.

DanielRibeiro 14y ago

Seems amazing, but I'd not love to see some screenshots of the product.

jamesdeer 14y ago

We use Segment.io at GatherContent and it works really well. Using it with * Intercom * Mixpanel * Vero * Errorception

adambratt 14y ago

Love what you guys are doing. Crazy quick turnaround on customer/developer support too. I found an issue in the python API and it was fixed and pushed within a couple hours.