Feedburner acquires Blogbeat in a move that could see Feedburner make some gains in usage as it can now offer comprehensive statistical web site information as well as their present popular feed service and stats. The acquisition appears to be agreeable to both parties and the biggest benefit is to the users present and future.
The integrated site statistics will be offered to existing Blogbeat customers first followed by Feedburner users. The service is an addition to the free service level that is currently offered by Feedburner. Currently Feedburner only offers feed statistics. What this means is that people without access to or the knowledge will soon have access to comprehensive statistics about their blog including:
- Page views
- Estimated unique visitors
- Detailed individual visitor statistic; Browser, Operating System and country of visitors plus last visit time
- Incoming links including search queries
- Outbound links and counts
- Visitors by city, represented as a “cloud” (similar to “tag clouds”)
- Daily graphs as well (gotta love the graphs)
All this in an easy to read layout and look that is similar to the Feedburner dashboard that you may have seen. It looks very good. With this amount of detail in such a well presented and easy to use manner, I can see a lot of users ditching their “free” stats service in favour of Feedburner. If I had a site other than one hosted at WordPress.com I would. The main reason being is that free stats services are often confusing, consist of bad layout, visually poor requiring payment for a better service and some are associated with undesirable services and sites. From the screenshots Feedburner is offering a stark comparison.
We are fortunate at WordPress to have pretty good stats that cover most of the areas above. But for bloggers and podcasters these tools are priceless and good reason to use the Feedburner service. Smart move by Feedburner who are excited about rolling out the new features soon.
Lets face it we all love stats, they are a great tool and source of curiosity and wonder, maybe shock. Feedburner just got better and possiblly a very real challenge to other statistical services offering a free service. Current free stat services are on notice; you have been warmed and you might be burned by this one.
Rooster's Rail 