Peppermint
After hearing Shaun Inman speak at An Event Apart, Seattle last month, I decided to move away from my defacto-standard web stats program, AW Stats, and purchase a copy of Mint.
Mint is a very light-weight stats program. The program generally collects short range snapshots of a website vs. the monstrous monthly archival data you get from most solutions. This suits me just fine because I’m more interested in seeing and tracking what’s happening with webclique now vs. what’s been happening for the last several years. As a result, I was able to turn off AW Stats and delete the immense backlog of historical information being stored on my web server.
The real beauty of Mint, in my opinion, is the customization that you are able apply to it via a module / widget system called Pepper. Once Mint is installed and confirmed to be working, Pepper modules can be installed to customize the look and feel of the application and extend the types of data being collected. These can be turned on and off depending on your current needs; thereby allowing you to scale your information tracking in leaps.
Shaun is a fixture in the design community for a variety of his web-based contributions, which certainly includes Mint. If you’re in the market for an affordable, stylish and powerful alternative to your basic stats program then Mint could be for you.
August 6th, 2007 at 5:30 am
I recently read an article about how Google Analytics is poised to destroy the market for analytics products. Given your experience with Mint, do you see that happening or is there still a market for selling analytics solutions?
Also, do you know any good books on how to go about evaluating web statistics to optimize site design. I find analytics to be both intriguing and confusing because I haven’t really found clear guides on how to evaluate the statistics I’m being given.
August 12th, 2007 at 12:35 am
I am always willing to play the part of the free market optimist. It seems to me that every time Google comes out with a new product critics are quick to jump on the bandwagon to say that the new service will surely put all of its competitors out of business. But honestly, I have yet to see that happen with any service that Google offers. I think there will always be alternatives. I mean we still have the option to use AltaVista, Yahoo!, Lycos and others despite Google being in around for over a decade.
For instance, the whole reason that Mint appeals to me is because I have a very small window of need when it comes to an analytics program. Mint is designed for just that purpose. I haven’t looked at Google’s service, but I would be willing to bet that I would need to sift through a ton of garbage to separate out the minimal services I’m looking for. So, for a person like me Mint is the superior program. That won’t be the case for everyone, but I’m sure there are others out there who won’t need all the bells and whistles.
In the area of books, I’m really unsure. Statistics was not a favorite subject of mine at uni, and to be honest, it still isn’t. Hence the reason I have sought out a stats program that can render results without the need for a statistician.
Thanks Nick.