(I’m making the connection in the headline, even if no one else would.)
The blog measurement service Measure Map craaawwwwllllssss. I know… I’ve been using it for months, even before Google acquired the project from Adaptive Path.
Today, I read that FeedBurner bought BlogBeat, expressly to beef up their analytics. And I say to myself… Measure Map is going to have to change radically to pull a rabbit out of this hat.
Jeff Veen is one savvy guy, but he and any other folks working at Google on Measure Map have been well-nigh invisible for a long time. The acquisition was in mid-February, 2006, five months ago. Since then… zip.
I’ve been pondering a blog post about Measure Map’s performance issues for weeks, and on June 22, I decided to complain in the forums, first, before I blogged about how disappointed I’ve been. Veen replied five days later with
Yeah, we’ve certainly been experiencing some performance issues lately as part of some migration work we’re doing. There are fixes coming relatively soon, and we’ll post updates when they happen.
I’d hope for more from someone who gets it like Veen. (He helped build the original Hotwired, for crying out loud.) But Veen’s “lately” translates to “forever” for me. Truly, since the first day I started using Measure Map, it’s been slow, and it’s gotten worse. Also, Veen promised “relatively soon” for fixes and updates, but we’re coming up on one month from my original post. Look at the ghost-town that is the only public feedback forum those of us currently using the service are encouraged to use, a Google Group. And, as others have pointed, where’s the blog?
Why have I put up with this pokiness for so long?
First, the visual architecture engaged me. Measure Map was developed with blogs in mind. Over time, I’ve come to miss some of the more traditional ideas, like pageviews, but from first glimpse (at a TechCrunch party last year, when I asked nicely for an invite), I’ve appreciated the simplicity and focus brought to the task.
Second, my blog is not my job. It’s a hobby, which alternately consumes and frustrates me. I know quite a bit about how to make websites better, and my blog feels to me like the shoemaker’s children: painfully un-shod. So, I care about the numbers and the audience, but not enough to spend time trying every service out there (yes, Scott, my to-do list include MyBlogLog as an alternative).
I’ve mused at length before into web sites already, so why not merge analytics across the platforms?
Note: in writing this blog post, I tried to load my Measure Map statistics, but got the all-too-familiar warning
Sorry, I’m having issues. Please try again later or contact [email protected].
That’s… (deep breath) …unfortunate.
I’m not going to pull Measure Map from clock yet, but I am going to add another service in the near future. BlogBeat doesn’t appear to be an option at this time, during assimilation, so we’ll see what’s available when I get around to it.