woopra

The Woopra WordPress Plugin has been updated to 1.4.2 and will resolve the issues that have been reported in the Woopra Forums and to @woopra on Twitter. Thanks everyone for your input and help in identifying the problems.

The Woopra WordPress Plugin allows you to add Woopra to your WordPress site automatically, as well as adds customization features and options set from the WordPress Administration Panels.

In this update, we’ve added the following:

• Auto-Time Out Option: Set by default and max at 600 seconds, allows you to determine how long to track an inactive visitor.
• JavaScript Improved: JavaScript convention in the Plugin has been changed to the standard layout.
• Tagged Visitors SuperTab: Added a “SuperTab” for Tagged Visitors. Currently, we offer only aggregate information by name, with more options on the way.
• Improved Error Checking: We’ve improved the Plugin’s error checking so you will get the information you need to know, and bring us to the Woopra Forums for checking and testing.

The benefits of using the Woopra WordPress Plugin over the manual installation method include the ability to track registered users and use Gravatars, as well as the ease of installation.

To upgrade, go to your WordPress Administration Panels > Plugins and update the Woopra WordPress Plugin automatically. If you want to use the manual method, download and install the Woopra WordPress Plugin to your Plugins directory.

Much thanks goes to Shane of BugsSite for the incredible work he’s put into this WordPress Plugin. Check out his site for more WordPress Plugins and WordPress goodness.

Auto-time Out Option

Due to recent discussions about visitor tracking issues with multiple tabbed browsers, we’ve added an auto-time out option which can be set within WordPress on the Woopra Options. The default and maximum is 600 seconds.

However, this brings up a new issue. If a visitor opens a page on your site in their multiple tab browser, but doesn’t take action on the site within the allowed time, their visit will “time out” and they will not be visible within Woopra. If they then take action, change a page, move the mouse over a trigger, or hit a key while on that page, it will record a new visit.

We’re exploring this and are eager for your feedback so we can tweak this to meet your needs, and we all learn to live with the impact of multiple tabbed browsing.

A few people have pointed out a little anomaly in their statistics that we’re going to call “stuck users” for lack of a better term. This perplexing behavior can be quite confusing, so I thought it would be useful to explain exactly what we are seeing, as its not exactly intuitive.

The Bug is NOT a Bug!

How many of you have noticed that sometimes you might have a visitor who appears to have been on your site for hours, or sometimes even days? I know I have. At first I could not understand what was going on.

No other web analytics provider shows you this behavior (mostly because they aren’t really LIVE, but that’s another story) for two reasons:

1. They have decided, for you, that this information is irrelevant. They figure if a visitor is idle, then they are not really a visitor any more. I heartily disagree! But we’ll get to that in a minute.
2. It uses valuable system resources on the tracking servers to keep track of long time visitors.

The reality is that every visitor that Woopra is reporting as being on a page is absolutely still viewing that page.
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Folks, let me just take a moment to show you what I love so much about Woopra…

For those of you who don’t know, I have a little blog over at OneMansBlog.com. I also happen to have a little post entitled, “Bubble Shooter – The Most Addicting Game of All Time“.

Now I originally created that title because to me, that game was really addictive! But was it really the most addicting game of all time? I had no idea. And frankly, using pretty much any other Web analytics I still wouldn’t know!

I mean, sure Google will tell me that the page gets a lot of traffic. That’s nice.

Of course it won’t be as informative or beautiful as Woopra…

But what good does that really do me? I mean, the real magic comes from understanding the individual user experience. And that is the information that Woopra delivers! I mean, with Woopra I can actually see the people returning, both in real time and historically, and it offers me proof that indeed Bubble Shooter IS the most additive game on Earth!

I mean just look at that rich user data: 152 visits and 335 hours spent on the site! But wait… there’s more! We’re only one click away from looking up the user’s history.
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We’ve completely revamped the Woopra Members area of our website, a first step in helping you get to the information you need to help setup and manage Woopra.

In the video below, I’ve highlighted most of the new features of the new Woopra Member area.

To access the new Members area on our site to see the changes and make modifications, sign in and go to the Woopra Members page to see a listing of the registered and shared sites you are tracking under My Websites. Click Edit on the site you wish to make changes.
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Woopra 1.3.2 Beta has been released, a fast follow up resolving some issues with our hottest release ever.

To automatically upgrade, log out and back into Woopra.

For those who still have not upgraded:

• If you have been using Woopra 1.2, log out and back into Woopra to automatically upgrade.
• If you have been among the brave testing the Woopra Release Candidates, please uninstall the old versions of Woopra and Download the latest version and install it clean. Old versions carry a notice that says “Requires Upgrade.”

We’re preparing articles, screencast videos and tutorials on the new version of Woopra. Until then, check out the announcement on “Woopra 1.3.1 Beta Out and In the Wild.”

We have approved over 3,000 new random sites with more on the way in this current round of approvals for beta testing Woopra. Not a member? Please sign up to join our beta testing crew and your site might be lucky enough to be approved in the our random batch. For more information, read “How to Help Woopra and Woopra Members on the Forums.”

We’re looking forward to your feedback on the powerful new features of Woopra in the Woopra Forums. Come join the party!

Wow! It’s party time. Woopra 1.3.1 Woopra 1.3.2 Beta has finally released and the list of new features and improvements is long, so hang on!

Woopra has been totally rewritten from stem to stern. It is faster, tracks more, and is on the path towards helping you understand better who is visiting your site and how.

The desktop client has been completely revamped, the Live Chat feature updated with customization features, segmentation added for deeper analysis of your site’s traffic, custom reports, and you can now “design” your own Woopra interface per website monitored.

Since Woopra 1.2, we’ve released the Woopra Web Analytics app so you can track your site’s traffic via the web, featuring a live map view using Google Maps.

We’ve also come up with better solutions to keep you informed on what is happening with Woopra. In addition to tracking us on Twitter though our @woopra account, you can now track the status of Woopra and servers through @wooprastatus and the Woopra Status page.

The most visible improvements have been in the Woopra desktop client interface and new features. There are so many more than I can cover here, so this is just a sample highlight list. We’ll cover more of these in depth over the next few weeks.
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Woopra 1.3 RC5 RC6 Beta has been released for testing.

UPDATE: Woopra 1.3.1 is now out. If you are using Woopra 1.2, you will be asked to sign out of Woopra and log back in to automatically install the new version. If you have been using a release candidate, it will advise you that you a new update is available and you will have to download it manually and install the new version.

We’ve never worked so hard on a release – it’s that exciting. We knew Woopra was special when we first went public last year, but we never expected it to be so popular and so much in demand by so many. We’re serving up millions of stats to over 80,000 websites! With this new version, Woopra is hotter than ever!

We know you’ve been very patient with us during the long stretch of this version’s release as we’ve totally rewritten all the code of Woopra. The final release is coming very soon. Trust me, it’s worth the wait.

Information on the latest release candidate can be found here and in Things You Need to Know About Woopra Release Candidate [Updated] on the Woopra Forums. We’ll be publishing the new feature list, screencasts and videos, new documentation, and more as soon as we finalize them.

When the final version is ready, all current versions of Woopra will automatically be updated.

What You Need to Know to Prepare for the Next Release of Woopra

We’ve made drastic changes to Woopra visibly and under the hood. It will be faster, more efficient, flexible, and easier to use. We’ve incorporated a lot of your feedback over the past few months into this version – very excited about it.

Our Woopra Members are important to us and your feedback has been incredible. With your tremendous help, we are making Woopra better than ever.

This version of Woopra has been completely rewritten from the ground up, therefore, we have some backwards compatibility issues that many of you are reporting in the Woopra Forums. Accordingly, during the next short time period (specifics are always welcome), expect downtimes and some features to discontinue or misbehave if you are using an older version of Woopra. The changes impact the Woopra desktop client and the Woopra Web Application.

While Woopra will upgrade automatically, we’ve made such changes and improvements, there are a few things you can do to prepare for the upcoming version of Woopra.

Update the Woopra JavaScript

To prepare for the next version of Woopra, please check your websites to ensure that the Woopra JavaScript you are using matches the new version found in the Woopra Members panel.

All third party scripts, including those listed in the Woopra Installation Guide, must be updated to the new JavaScript. Please check the code to ensure it has been updated accordingly.

Woopra WordPress Plugin Status

If you are using the Woopra WordPress Plugin, we are upgrading it to work with the new server codes and improvements in Woopra. Testers are needed. Please check “Woopra WordPress Plugin 1.4.1.1 Release – Bug Reports Only!” for news and downloads of the test versions.

WordPress users will be automatically notified through the Administration Panels when the new version of the Plugin is available for upgrades. Until then, if you are using one of the release candidates, please use the manual method of installing Woopra on your site and not the WordPress Plugin.

Monitoring the Status of the Next Woopra Update

We will be reporting on the status of the next release on:

• @woopra
• @wooprastatus and the Woopra Status page

For more recent Woopra news and updates, check out “Woopra News: Sneak Previews of Woopra 1.3, Live Chat, Approvals, and More.”

Approvals Closed Until After the New Release

As John Pozadzides mentioned, we have closed approvals until we release the next version of Woopra.

If you are not yet a Woopra Member, please sign up to join our beta testing crew and your site might be lucky enough to be approved in the next random batch. For more information, read “How to Help Woopra and Woopra Members on the Forums.”

Download Woopra 1.3 RC5

Do not install a Woopra Release Candidate unless you are willing to report on bugs and technical topics here in the forum to help us improve Woopra. It is not for the timid, weak of heart, or impatient. :D

For those participating in testing release candidates, your input is welcome and necessary as we move into the final stages of the release of the next version. Please review the following posts for the issues already reported and please add your own feedback to them.

• RC5 issues
• RC5 issues part 2

Downloads

• Woopra FINAL 1.3 RC6 for Mac
• Woopra FINAL 1.3 RC6 for Windows
• Woopra FINAL 1.3 RC6 for Linux

The Woopra development team has been working hard on segmentation, the task of breaking down the data into different segments or sections to evaluate.

In web analytics, there are many different types of segments you can analyze on your site that will help you learn more about your visitors and how they use your site. As web analytics has evolved, there are now many specializing in some collective areas of segmentation analysis such as Audience Segmentation (analyzing your demographics), Behavioral Segmentation (the behavior of the visitor), Geographic Segmentation (geographic analysis), and Traffic or Referral Segmentation (where are they coming from and who is sending them).

Just as each site is unique, so are their needs. Not everyone needs to study or use all the different segments of data. But what data do you need?

Do you know what information you need to study in order to help you make decisions about your website?

While it is critical to know what your audience wants and needs, it’s important first to clearly establish your end goals. That will then point you towards the data you need to monitor.

For instance, if your site is new, much of your focus is on getting traffic in the door, so your goal is on providing content that attracts search engine traffic and encouraging others to link to your site, thus driving traffic your way. The stats of most interest are going to be traffic and referral information, closely followed by search terms and keywords. The search terms and keywords help you track what your audience is searching for, giving them what they want, and the traffic and referrals help you track who sent them.

This is just the surface of the information. Ask yourself the following:

• Where is my audience really coming from?
• What are they really looking for? Do you have it?
• Are they coming mostly from Twitter, Facebook, search engines…?
• What country are they coming from? Does their geographical location matter?
• Which pages are getting the most attention? Do you have similar or related content? Are they finding it?
• What’s the gateway page most people enter through on your site?
• Where do they go from there?

If you can answer these and the answers match your goals, you are on the right track to narrowing down the segmentation most important to your needs and goals.

If your site’s goal is to sell product, then you have a different collection of questions to ask yourself to determine which segmentation information is important for you to track. Same if you want to just build a strong community or establish your reputation and find clients or a job. The clearer your purpose and intent, the more specific the data you choose to study.

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