7 ms·

Review my startup: vistrac.com

67 points by endtwist 17y ago

endtwist 17y ago
Just to give you all a little background: This business originally started under another name, Tapefailure, but unfortunately, I had to shut it down due to major problems with the way the analytics were condensed (PHP caused major problems). However, I was determined not to let this idea go... So, I've spent over a year re-planning and redeveloping the entire thing from scratch. This service will analyze everything from where users click, to where they pay attention when scrolling. It takes the concept of sites like UserFly one step further and breaks down the data for you. I just launched today, so please let me know what you think.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- mattyb 17y ago
  The site and intro slideshow look amazing. The demo is nice and the FAQ is helpful. I'd sign up, but it's down now :-(
  - paraschopra 17y ago
    Any idea how the slideshow was made? It indeed looks completely amazing.
    - cl3m 17y ago
      from a quick look at the source: http://www.electricprism.com/aeron/slideshow/ http://www.electricprism.com/aeron/slideshow/
- slig 17y ago
  I liked, although I received a email from your service today and I didn't remember opting in(Of course I might be wrong!), but I had a account on tapefailure.
  - justinchen 17y ago
    yeah i was a bit confused too. a more obvious mention of the tapefailure history would have triggered a mental connection.
    - slig 17y ago
      Agreed. I almost hit the report spam.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
alex_c 17y ago
Getting a "502 Bad Gateway".
- endtwist 17y ago
  Seems the server had a little case of stage fright. Sorry, everyone! (And it should be fine now.)
nkohari 17y ago
It was looking interesting... now I'm getting 502 Bad Gateway errors. Looks like whatever FastCGI was running behind nginx went away...
- endtwist 17y ago
  Sorry about that. I'm having a few minor problems that didn't pop up during testing; nothing that can't be fixed with a process restart, but will be fixed.
irrelative 17y ago
Very nice, and very appealing. Some impressions from the demo: Resolutions appear to be backwards to what I'm used to seeing -- I'm used to 'width by height.' Demo page says I've received 0 visits. Maybe make the demo page some live data for vistrac or something -- that reads strangely. Oops, can't click around more right now... looks like your site went down. (shameless plug, I run http://sitecanary.com/ http://sitecanary.com/ -- check it out :)
datums 17y ago
Looks like an nginx error at the moment. Probably to much HN traffic ?
terpua 17y ago
Congrats on your persistence. I like the homepage - clean. I also like the freemium model packages. I have never seen the form metrics before and looks quite useful. Was that a feature based on feedback?
- endtwist 17y ago
  The form metrics feature was, in fact, based on feedback. I had some very basic form analytics in Tapefailure, but got a number of requests asking for more. I gave it a lot of consideration and came up with the current version as my initial solution.
sunilshenoy 17y ago
http://vistrac.com/register/create http://vistrac.com/register/create Got a message saying 'none'. Would have loved to try it.
jusob 17y ago
Looks good. However, I think there are a couple of features missing: * referrer: web sites, direct access, search. Make a list of website referrers (with the exact page), percentage between direct access/search/referrer, and where they land * time spent of each page * path people are taking: 60% page A, them 30% page B + 60% pace C + 10% left
vaksel 17y ago
pretty cool, you'll probably get a call from Google in the near future
- paraschopra 17y ago
  Instead, I think the next version of Google Analytics would put a lot of companies out of business
johng 17y ago
The pricing seems really high for such limited amount of sessions/users tracked.
tdavis 17y ago
Looks nice; I think a lot of people (myself included) have wanted some kind of all-inclusion analytics package for a long time. The pricing seems rather high, though.
bdmac97 17y ago
Very cool. Nice to see some other options in this field. I have used userfly in the past and was not very impressed. I am currently using CrazyEgg and think this is more of a competitor to that than to userfly. The site looked very clean and well organized. I think CrazyEgg has you one-upped a bit with its confetti view showing referrers w/different colors but I imagine you're aware of that and considering adding it. I would also like to invite you to add your app to my site, launchly. Launchly is all about getting feedback and attention for new web apps like yours. We track all aspects of your launch to help you see how you are doing and decide what changes to make. http://www.launchly.com http://www.launchly.com
mrphoebs 17y ago
Its awesome. Love the vision and execution. Wish I could afford it.
- csomar 17y ago
  Yes, that's expensive. The free version is, but a very simple demo.
there 17y ago
i signed up for a free account and saw "email (username)" and immediately just put a username. after submitting the form i just got the plain text error "bad email" with no other explanation. you may want to make the error messages friendlier and show the user the form data again, not just a white page with "bad email". also, after receiving the script code and then clicking through, i was prompted to login again. not sure if that's an error or intentional but it seemed weird. i put the script code on a couple sites and will see what kind of data it produces over the next few days. the new _vt_* cookies sent by your script caught me by surprise when loading my site. i guess _vt_* reminds me of the old microsoft frontpage extension junk (_vti_bin, etc.) which triggered some bad memories.
qeorge 17y ago
Great signup flow, incredibly fast. Very happy I could setup my account without having to confirm the email. Its running on a client's site now, looking forward to seeing some data.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
sfphotoarts 17y ago
For me signup failed. I get a near blank page (it says 'None'), however, the url shows "bad_email". I think it doesn't like email addresses of the form foo+bar@gmail.com - which is a valid email address and in common use, as in foobar+vistrac@gmail.com
weatherboard 17y ago
what kind of data portability features are there (I can't see any)? Would love to know my data can be ripped as .csv and taken with me should i choose to, especially on the paid plans. cheers.
paraschopra 17y ago
endtwist, I have been exploring pricing options for my behavioral targeting and optimization startup (http://www.wingify.com/ http://www.wingify.com/) and was wondering how did you arrive at this pricing. Did you test the pricing? Or did you took an idea from your competitors' pricing and upped it a little bit? I am curious because your competitors (ClickTale, CrazyEgg, etc.) have a more affordable pricing.
- endtwist 17y ago
  Compared with CrazyEgg and ClickTale, I think the prices are actually very affordable. CrazyEgg, while great for click analytics, does not offer scroll or form analytics. On the other hand, ClickTale does, but they price by Page Views (individual pages), not Sessions (all pages browsed by a single visitor). If you do the math (assume 2 pages/visitor @ 20,000 page views for $99/month is equal to only 10,000 sessions), ClickTale is actually more expensive. Of course, I'll have to let my potential customers decide the pricing, but I tried to choose prices that fit within the current market.
  - netsp 17y ago
    It might be a interesting idea options other then subscription. For example, many someone might want to use this to audit a site. You need a data collection period (maybe collect data on x visits and then stop) then access to the analysis tools. You could price that as a one off package.
  - paraschopra 17y ago
    You could also do A/B tests on pricing and pricing model. Like currently on Wingify, we are testing what text elicits better responses: "Free Private Beta" v/s "Exclusive Beta" or "Signup for Beta"
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
huhtenberg 17y ago
Consider using something other than Lucida family for Windows visitors. It looks rather sloppy when rendered compared to Arial or other native OS fonts.
netsp 17y ago
I can only see the summary report in the demo.
fauigerzigerk 17y ago
Sorry that I can't really add anything of substance, but I want to mention that I hate moving parts on a home page. Looks good and useful otherwise.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
MicahWedemeyer 17y ago
My first thought was: "How is this different from Google Analytics?" I imagine that's the 800 lbs gorilla you're dealing with, right? So, it might be worthwhile to just throw that in my face right when I show up. Tell me why I should pay money for something I can already get for free. (Note: I'm not saying your site isn't worth the money, just that I was unable to immediately determine what differentiates you.)
csomar 17y ago
I won't repeat what everyone said: It's great! One thing: It's not SEO optimized and uses lot of pictures instead of text
Derrek 17y ago
When looking at the pricing page, my first question was, "How exactly does this site calculate a visitor session?" If I visit a site on June 1st and then go back on June 7th is that one Visitor Session or two? Maybe put an asterisk next to the term Visitor Session and then define how you'll calculate that metric in the paragraphs below.
buckwild 17y ago
If I change the number variable in this line in the script: VisTrac.SetAccount(number); to a different number than what was assigned to me, will I be messing with other people's stats? Other than that, it looks good. I like it. I think I may use it.
shiranaihito 17y ago
Looks really smooth!

67 points by endtwist 17y ago

Just to give you all a little background: This business originally started under another name, Tapefailure, but unfortunately, I had to shut it down due to major problems with the way the analytics were condensed (PHP caused major problems). However, I was determined not to let this idea go... So, I've spent over a year re-planning and redeveloping the entire thing from scratch. This service will analyze everything from where users click, to where they pay attention when scrolling. It takes the concept of sites like UserFly one step further and breaks down the data for you. I just launched today, so please let me know what you think.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
mattyb 17y ago
The site and intro slideshow look amazing. The demo is nice and the FAQ is helpful. I'd sign up, but it's down now :-(
- paraschopra 17y ago
  Any idea how the slideshow was made? It indeed looks completely amazing.
  - cl3m 17y ago
    from a quick look at the source: http://www.electricprism.com/aeron/slideshow/ http://www.electricprism.com/aeron/slideshow/
slig 17y ago
I liked, although I received a email from your service today and I didn't remember opting in(Of course I might be wrong!), but I had a account on tapefailure.
- justinchen 17y ago
  yeah i was a bit confused too. a more obvious mention of the tapefailure history would have triggered a mental connection.
  - slig 17y ago
    Agreed. I almost hit the report spam.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

alex_c 17y ago

Getting a "502 Bad Gateway".

endtwist 17y ago
Seems the server had a little case of stage fright. Sorry, everyone! (And it should be fine now.)

nkohari 17y ago

It was looking interesting... now I'm getting 502 Bad Gateway errors. Looks like whatever FastCGI was running behind nginx went away...

endtwist 17y ago
Sorry about that. I'm having a few minor problems that didn't pop up during testing; nothing that can't be fixed with a process restart, but will be fixed.

irrelative 17y ago

Very nice, and very appealing. Some impressions from the demo: Resolutions appear to be backwards to what I'm used to seeing -- I'm used to 'width by height.' Demo page says I've received 0 visits. Maybe make the demo page some live data for vistrac or something -- that reads strangely. Oops, can't click around more right now... looks like your site went down. (shameless plug, I run http://sitecanary.com/ http://sitecanary.com/ -- check it out :)

datums 17y ago

Looks like an nginx error at the moment. Probably to much HN traffic ?

terpua 17y ago

Congrats on your persistence. I like the homepage - clean. I also like the freemium model packages. I have never seen the form metrics before and looks quite useful. Was that a feature based on feedback?

endtwist 17y ago
The form metrics feature was, in fact, based on feedback. I had some very basic form analytics in Tapefailure, but got a number of requests asking for more. I gave it a lot of consideration and came up with the current version as my initial solution.

sunilshenoy 17y ago

http://vistrac.com/register/create http://vistrac.com/register/create Got a message saying 'none'. Would have loved to try it.

jusob 17y ago

Looks good. However, I think there are a couple of features missing: * referrer: web sites, direct access, search. Make a list of website referrers (with the exact page), percentage between direct access/search/referrer, and where they land * time spent of each page * path people are taking: 60% page A, them 30% page B + 60% pace C + 10% left

vaksel 17y ago

pretty cool, you'll probably get a call from Google in the near future

paraschopra 17y ago
Instead, I think the next version of Google Analytics would put a lot of companies out of business

johng 17y ago

The pricing seems really high for such limited amount of sessions/users tracked.

tdavis 17y ago

Looks nice; I think a lot of people (myself included) have wanted some kind of all-inclusion analytics package for a long time. The pricing seems rather high, though.

bdmac97 17y ago

Very cool. Nice to see some other options in this field. I have used userfly in the past and was not very impressed. I am currently using CrazyEgg and think this is more of a competitor to that than to userfly. The site looked very clean and well organized. I think CrazyEgg has you one-upped a bit with its confetti view showing referrers w/different colors but I imagine you're aware of that and considering adding it. I would also like to invite you to add your app to my site, launchly. Launchly is all about getting feedback and attention for new web apps like yours. We track all aspects of your launch to help you see how you are doing and decide what changes to make. http://www.launchly.com http://www.launchly.com

mrphoebs 17y ago

Its awesome. Love the vision and execution. Wish I could afford it.

csomar 17y ago
Yes, that's expensive. The free version is, but a very simple demo.

there 17y ago

i signed up for a free account and saw "email (username)" and immediately just put a username. after submitting the form i just got the plain text error "bad email" with no other explanation. you may want to make the error messages friendlier and show the user the form data again, not just a white page with "bad email". also, after receiving the script code and then clicking through, i was prompted to login again. not sure if that's an error or intentional but it seemed weird. i put the script code on a couple sites and will see what kind of data it produces over the next few days. the new _vt_* cookies sent by your script caught me by surprise when loading my site. i guess _vt_* reminds me of the old microsoft frontpage extension junk (_vti_bin, etc.) which triggered some bad memories.

qeorge 17y ago

Great signup flow, incredibly fast. Very happy I could setup my account without having to confirm the email. Its running on a client's site now, looking forward to seeing some data.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

sfphotoarts 17y ago

For me signup failed. I get a near blank page (it says 'None'), however, the url shows "bad_email". I think it doesn't like email addresses of the form foo+bar@gmail.com - which is a valid email address and in common use, as in foobar+vistrac@gmail.com

weatherboard 17y ago

what kind of data portability features are there (I can't see any)? Would love to know my data can be ripped as .csv and taken with me should i choose to, especially on the paid plans. cheers.

paraschopra 17y ago

endtwist, I have been exploring pricing options for my behavioral targeting and optimization startup (http://www.wingify.com/ http://www.wingify.com/) and was wondering how did you arrive at this pricing. Did you test the pricing? Or did you took an idea from your competitors' pricing and upped it a little bit? I am curious because your competitors (ClickTale, CrazyEgg, etc.) have a more affordable pricing.

endtwist 17y ago
Compared with CrazyEgg and ClickTale, I think the prices are actually very affordable. CrazyEgg, while great for click analytics, does not offer scroll or form analytics. On the other hand, ClickTale does, but they price by Page Views (individual pages), not Sessions (all pages browsed by a single visitor). If you do the math (assume 2 pages/visitor @ 20,000 page views for $99/month is equal to only 10,000 sessions), ClickTale is actually more expensive. Of course, I'll have to let my potential customers decide the pricing, but I tried to choose prices that fit within the current market.
- netsp 17y ago
  It might be a interesting idea options other then subscription. For example, many someone might want to use this to audit a site. You need a data collection period (maybe collect data on x visits and then stop) then access to the analysis tools. You could price that as a one off package.
- paraschopra 17y ago
  You could also do A/B tests on pricing and pricing model. Like currently on Wingify, we are testing what text elicits better responses: "Free Private Beta" v/s "Exclusive Beta" or "Signup for Beta"

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

huhtenberg 17y ago

Consider using something other than Lucida family for Windows visitors. It looks rather sloppy when rendered compared to Arial or other native OS fonts.

netsp 17y ago

I can only see the summary report in the demo.

fauigerzigerk 17y ago

Sorry that I can't really add anything of substance, but I want to mention that I hate moving parts on a home page. Looks good and useful otherwise.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

MicahWedemeyer 17y ago

My first thought was: "How is this different from Google Analytics?" I imagine that's the 800 lbs gorilla you're dealing with, right? So, it might be worthwhile to just throw that in my face right when I show up. Tell me why I should pay money for something I can already get for free. (Note: I'm not saying your site isn't worth the money, just that I was unable to immediately determine what differentiates you.)

csomar 17y ago

I won't repeat what everyone said: It's great! One thing: It's not SEO optimized and uses lot of pictures instead of text

Derrek 17y ago

When looking at the pricing page, my first question was, "How exactly does this site calculate a visitor session?" If I visit a site on June 1st and then go back on June 7th is that one Visitor Session or two? Maybe put an asterisk next to the term Visitor Session and then define how you'll calculate that metric in the paragraphs below.

buckwild 17y ago

If I change the number variable in this line in the script: VisTrac.SetAccount(number); to a different number than what was assigned to me, will I be messing with other people's stats? Other than that, it looks good. I like it. I think I may use it.

shiranaihito 17y ago

Looks really smooth!