Blog Stats Software Reviews – MeasureMap

Despite not even being officially released yet, MeasureMap from AdaptivePath has been building buzz for a little while. I was lucky enough to get an invitation to check the product out. Here are some initial thoughts …

Signup

I can’t be sure the signup process I saw was what the final version will be. I can’t say that for any of it really. What I experienced was very easy though. Unlike the other packages in these reviews, MeasureMap does care what blogging system you are using. The choices are limited and right now there is only support for Blogger, MovableType, Typepad, Typo and WordPress. This is because there are three different scripts you need to place in your footer, post and comments templates. If you have a different blog system then you will need to follow the instructions in the help and work it out for yourself. I feel confident they will sort this out so it is as painless as possible.

As my blogs were not officially supported I set up a new WordPress blog to test this system. Following the WordPress instructions was very straightforward so I believe you will have no problems either.

Appearance

You might think it a little unfair comparing a preview version of a system against the mature software in these reviews. Thing is MeasureMap doesn’t feel like a product that is under development. While the stats are a little lagged and the display is a little buggy in explorer, it seems pretty complete.

Design is straight out of the Web 2.0 branding guidelines. It’s all curvy boxes, big text, flash and AJAX. It does look lovely.

This product is the first I have seen that properly caters to the blogger in terms of what you see, ease of use and appropriateness for purpose. Unlike the generic webmaster or advertiser oriented services, MeasureMap is very much just a bloggers tool.

Reports

One look at the homepage dashboard and you can gather what you need to know about visitors, links, comments and posts, clicking around allows you to delve further into the detail. A little bit of blurb explains how many of each metric you have had and how this number compares to your averages. You can set the timeframe or just look at today.

After the other statistics packages you might be forgiven for thinking this looks lightweight, and I suppose it is in some ways, but there isn’t anything missing that most bloggers would be upset about.

Apparently they are working on tracking RSS feeds, custom events and search engine traffic. I am also very interested to hear plans for a public API..

Fees and Service Levels

Right now MeasureMap just says it is free, I don’t know if there will be further service levels or what the restrictions will be. With Google Analytics being free the pressure will be on to have a free service or at least to justify any costs so I imagine it will stay free.

Summary

Initial impressions are very favourable. Any criticisms I have I can pretty much say are probably down to the service still being worked on. In terms of depth, Google has this beat, no question. Having said that, many bloggers will be put off by Googles complexity. This is where MeasureMap shines, the package is squarely aimed at bloggers and AdaptivePath are all about user experience which does show. Because of this MeasureMap comes tops.