Google Analitics: This this is so cool

I am relatively new at blogging, having started this just a few months ago, and I have no idea if anyone is reading. That changed when I was turned on to Google Analytics when listening to a podcast from Chris Pirillo. Chris is doing some amazing things with streaming tech videos, live from his home/car, and podcasting. He is also one of the many former TechTV personalities who are really pushing the envelope of the web, user created/edited content and audio and video through IP, (see: Kevin Rose (digg), Leo Laporte (Twit), Patrick Norton and Robert Heron (dl.tv) and Alex Albrecht (diggnation, totally Rad show)) . I really like Chris' stuff, though he puts out a ton which makes it hard to get through.

Back to topic - Google Analytics is a free web application put out by Google to help web site owners get information about the traffic coming to their website. It is extremely simple to use, just add a small piece of code to your site and wait for some data to be collected. Information is presented in a number of different charts, graphs and other visualization schemes. I signed up just yesterday and I already have some interesting information.

First, yesterday I began a process to drive traffic to my blogs by harnessing the power of Facebook. I created a group and invited all of my friends, which I have quite a few of. No surprise, Facebook was my number on referring site yesterday. I had 14 unique visitors to this blog, my other blog got quite a few more visitors. I am really happy with this number as a start and I hope that this continues to grow. I also learned that anything tagged with iPhone gets hits. No surprise there either. What I did find out, which I loved, is that I got two visitors from Europe. Now since I have never ventured outside the Western Hemisphere, the fact that I have reached individuals in Europe, even for a moment, is very satisfying.

If you have a site, even a blog, take a look at Google Analytics. It can be very helpful in understanding your users, or just fun to take a look at.