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"A unique site analytics tool that can peek into your users browsing history and tell you where else your market is gath­ering online." How would you peek a us

• timdorr 17y ago
  http://www.stevenyork.com/tutorial/getting_browser_history_using_javascript http://www.stevenyork.com/tutorial/getting_browser_history_u... Basically, you read a link's color in the DOM and you can tell if it's been visited. It does spot checking, not full history browsing.
• wmeredith 17y ago
  It's an old and well documented exploit that never has been, and probably never will be, fixed due to it's intrinsic nature to the web... We can't actually peek into anyone's history the way a layman might take this statement. What we can, and do, do is load up a list of links and see which one's have been visited. The freemium accounts just load up our default list of the top 100 sites online and looks for hits. Pro users can customize their check list to ad competitors and other URLs of interest.(See timdorr's response below.) A tool like this good for finding out if your users are more of a MySpace or Facebook crowd, more of a Yahoo or Bing crowd, etc... for market research purposes. If you have a PRO account and can customize your list you can ad direct competitors and see which ones get cross-shopped with your product the most online, etc... Example usage: Let's say you want to run an ad on one of the top tech blogs. You could plug 100 tech blogs into this tool for a week and see which ones your crowd reads the most. Now you know a good place to advertise to get a second brand impression. Addressing "evilness" - I don't consider it any more intrusive than any other type of analytics. And it's also completely disabled with Javascript turned off. So, as always, users are welcome to empower themselves. On another note, I've been waiting to have this conversation with an informed crowd, what do you guys think about using this for the purposes stated above?
  • mmorris 17y ago
    I'm of the opinion that it's similar to cookies from a privacy perspective. When a non-technical user hears about the concept it sounds a bit scary, and it may have potential for abuse. However, used properly I don't think it is overly intrusive.
  • DenisM 17y ago
    Personally I place high value on knowing my customers and I would really like a comprehensive solution to get that knowledge. To be comprehensive it would have to include techniques to compel users to fill out surveys, participate in usability studies and other direct interactions in addition to the passive observance that you do. And yes, knowing the visited links is helpful in my quest, it's just not the whole story. The way I see it, I want either an ready-to-use building block to roll my own, or a wholes-story thing, but I have no use for a wholes-but-different-story thing. I understand this would be a different product/service from the one you are making, but you may find this perspective valuable. Also, lose the kittens. It's the wrong kind of childish.