I don't see it being asked before but is there a particular "up to date as of" statement planned? Right now I'm only assuming the stats are as of midnight on the end date??
subcats and aggregate numbers
What you have now is a major improvement already, so can't wait to see where it ends.
I'll jump on the bandwagon for liking to see stats for a category or subcategory, rather than just galleries. I often have subcats for an event, and I'm really interested in the event as a whole.
Also, I may be missing this, but when I look at the stats for a time period -- say the month of December -- I see numbers for each day but I do not see any aggregate numbers for the entire time period. I'd love to have the aggregates to trend and report to others.
I may be a little different than the norm, as I have six accounts, each with a custom domain, that I use for the company I work for and another one that I use personally.
It's nice to see stats moving forward. There's some very nice functionality here. After playing around for a short while, here are a few comments:
I'd really like to be able to select a category or sub-category rather than just a gallery. When a sub-category represents an event (like a soccer season or a theatrical production or a particular vacation, what I often want to see is the overall stats for that event and I can't see that when all I have is the ability to view a single gallery trend. This is an overall piece of feedback on Smugmug admin that nearly anywhere you present a gallery picker, let us also pick a category or sub-category. This is particularly missing in the new multi-gallery settings UI. We need to be able to apply settings by category or sub-category there too.
I'd really like it to remember my selected gallery when I go from tab to tab (if appropriate). If you're viewing a deeply nested gallery, it's cumbersome to keep having to pick it over and over again just to see different views of the same gallery.
A question I want stats to answer for me is "what in my site is getting the majority of hits in the last week or last month or last day"? When one has 1000 galleries, I don't see how I can get that question answered in the new stats page? There are probably lots of different ways to get me that answer, but I'm imagining a bar chart sorted with highest hit galleries at the left with a bar for each gallery and showing only as many as fit on the screen (I don't need to see the long tail of low-hit galleries). Also, offer the ability to see it by gallery, by category or by sub-category. This would give me a great summary or what events on my site are getting hits? I now see that the popularity tab gives me this view by gallery by number (bar chart graphical would be easier to process), but I'd like it by category or sub-category too.
Having a permalink for a given stats view is great! We can bookmark things we want to look at regularly and get to them much quicker.
Gallery Details should default to sorting by Total Views.
I can imagine wanting to see the image filename in the Gallery Details view because if you're trying to match some stats with an actual image and several images look similar, there is currently no way to identify exactly which image is which.
When you're in Photo Trends and you'd like to pick a different photo in the same gallery, it ought to be easier than having to select the gallery all over again. When not a "select different photo" button or something like that?
In the popularity tab, it lists only gallery names. As I have many galleries named "Highlights" and "Landscapes", there's no easy way for me to tell which gallery is which in the list? You have lots of horizontal space to indicate the hierarchy that the gallery is contained in.
I'd like to be able to set a default date range that is always active when I first come to stats. For me, it would probably be the last week. It would also be nice to have shortcuts for last week, last month, last year without having to manually pick month/day/year for both starts and finish.
It won't let me pick a start date earlier than Dec. 1, 2009. If that can't be fixed (because you don't have the data), please offer some UI feedback so we don't just think the date picker is busted.
Is there any way to tell how many hits are direct links and how many are images viewed in a gallery page? I have a fair amount of direct linked images in various forums and I think about those hits very differently from the hits due to people coming to view my actual gallery pages. I'd like to know which is which.
Morning,
I support all the comments above ... and especially the one about a fully qualified list of galleries. I have multiple Galleries called Overview or Beach Walk or such.
Regards, Harald
==================
My focus is on digitizing memories
I support all the comments above ... and especially the one about a fully qualified list of galleries. I have multiple Galleries called Overview or Beach Walk or such.
Regards, Harald
Great work from what I've seen so far!!
I join those asking for stats at the Category and sub-cat level. My events are also structured with an overall category (Events, Sports, etc) and then sub-cat for a specific event, with many galleries under that sub-cat.
I love where you're headed with the stats too! Vast improvement over the old stats! Are there any plans to implement traffic sources? Most of what I would suggest has already been mentioned a dozen times, so I will just suggest the point that would be most meaningful to me - "sources". It would be wonderful if we knew where this traffic is coming from - direct links, from within smugmug, from search engines, etc.
new stats i agree that it's if off to a great start, lots more info but not so easy to navigate through. Especially from photo to photo on the photo stats page, if i click on a photo, once i am done and click the back button, i am taken to the control panel and not the gallery of photos
"The Gallery Trends, Gallery Details, and Photo Trends tabs all require the selection of a gallery. If I have already selected a gallery on the previous tab that I am viewing, I'd like that to be automatically carried forward to the next tab. Why should I need to select the gallery 3 times to look at the stats for a single gallery?"
i second that motion
It would be nice to click on the day and see the breakdown of viewed photos for that day, as whole and individually.
flickr stats have a really nice setup for viewed photos including whos been looking at them ie: via search engines etc...
Stats by photo
I really like the new stats. They are quite an improvement. Most of these are by gallery. What I want to know is what are the most viewed photos, in all galleries.
I really like to see the total number of hits per gallery. If it's there I have not found it yet.
I like the new stats page a lot better than the old one.
I am pleased with what I have seen and find this way of showing stats much quicker to understand. I dunno, maybe it is because I am a visual person.
Thank you for taking the time and listening to our suggestions. It will be better for a lot of us.
Is there any way to see who is hitting our site as well? I think it would be a great way to target market to someone when you see that a specific image has been views say 40 times. One could pull from the list of the 40 and send them an email follow-up maybe offering a special. Just a thought.
Trend Options
Sorry if this is redundant to someone else's post. I couldnt' read through 8 pages of comments so here goes for mine; its a simple one.
On the Trending tab from the main stats page, how about an option that allows us to just get a direct general graphing function of all the galleries in our account; and graphically see which are the most popular; rather than having to select an indivisual gallery.
Other than that; this is a great new feature and upgrade to the website.
I'm amazed that you guys can offer so much for as little as you charge, considering that there is no advertising........Well almost no advertising.....
What is "Muench University.....Enroll Now".....Looks like an Ad!
ran into a real-world test of the new stats that it failed. I saw that over 3 hundred pictures had been viewed today in the views tab of the new stats, but in order to figure out what had been looked at, I had to go to the gallery tab and choose every single one of the galleries in turn in order to see what had been viewed!
I finally solved it by using the original stats page to see an overview of the galleries, and I could make some educated guesses and go from there. You need to show some simple relations so that we can draw meaningful conclusions from the stats!
ran into a real-world test of the new stats that it failed. I saw that over 3 hundred pictures had been viewed today in the views tab of the new stats, but in order to figure out what had been looked at, I had to go to the gallery tab and choose every single one of the galleries in turn in order to see what had been viewed!
I finally solved it by using the original stats page to see an overview of the galleries, and I could make some educated guesses and go from there. You need to show some simple relations so that we can draw meaningful conclusions from the stats!
possible bug
looking at the total views tab, today's stats default to a range from Dec 20, 2009 to today. When I tried to change the range to include only January's stats, I could only select yesterday, the 18th for the ending date, instead of today.
A few more tweaks and suggestions as I have done some looking. The first one is that there should be headers every so often. The challenge for me is that as I scroll down the headers move off the screen. I think that Flash should be able to place a static header if I remember correctly. Here is an example
I don't remember which column each one is.
Also I would like to be able to do it on keywords and RSS feeds Something else that would interest me to know is what Style the user selects if it is set to be user selectable.
Yup would still like an easy export of all the data so that I can create my own studies, perhaps as either a CSV or the ability to load custom SQL queries into the report engine (probably a security risk).
Love new stats (not that I have a lot to brag about)! On a side note glad to see others including SM developer also using Linux desktop. At home and on the go I'm totally Linux (Mandriva KDE, Firefox).
Excluding ip addresses or users
WOW HOW GREAT IS THIS!!!
I know you'll get a million suggestions and if you integrate them all you'll end up buying GA.
For me, just the ability to exclude myself and my assistant, and others as I see fit, would make a huge difference. As it is, I can't really use the SM stats, I look at the Smug stats and then say to myself, that's nice, now I have to go to GA to see what's "real".
Also, how is the view of a video counted? Does the viewer have to play it entirely, partly, or just click the thumbnail, to be counted?
More flexability in the "Popularity" tab
I like being able to get the total hits per gallery in the "popularity" tab. Now I would like to be able to get these totals into my own spreadsheet. Exporting them would be nice. If we can't have that, I would like a way to get the list in the same order that I have them in my spreadsheet so it is at least easy to enter them myself. I tried copying and pasting them into a blank spreadsheet so I could then sort them. It doesn't copy the name and totals in separate columns. Everything ends up being in the same column and that would be cumbersome to manually change them. How about giving us the option, on the popularity page, to resort by date created or alpabetically?
Great Job Brad and Crew. Getting good data was the only reason I had not recommended Smugmug more to my video and photo friends. This is a great improvement. I have 2 accounts on Smugmug - one I use primarily for video and another for photos. I do not understand how you count video in galleries. One of my galleries currently has one video. But on one day I have photo counts of 8 or more and a video counts of 1. I know from your data and asking a client that they viewed the video once. So is the thumbnails counted in your photo counts when a gallery is displayed. If that is the case the counts would be off as one gallery with thumbnails displaying 100 photos in which a user clicked on only one photo would register 101 rather than 1. So would I be able to differentiate if I had 1 visitor clicking on one photo in a 100 photo gallery or 101 visitors clicking individual photos in a 100 photo gallery. Sorry for being complex.
In other words are thumbnails counted in your photo counts? If not how do you explain the photo counts in a gallery that only contains 1 video.
Overall this is a great improvement and you can see that you have a loyal group of supporters simply trying to make your service better. Great job. I wish more of comapnies operated this way.
In other words are thumbnails counted in your photo counts? If not how do you explain the photo counts in a gallery that only contains 1 video.
Videos have preview images. We automatically take a frame from a few seconds into the video or you can upload your own. So the hits there are coming from seeing the preview image without clicking to play the video.
Thumbnails Count in Photo Galleries
Thanks for the response. But does this mean that when a user visit a gallery page with 25 thumbnails that you score 25 images even if they do not click on any image in the page.
Do thumbnails get scored in stats just for being dispayed on a gallery page?
Is there any way around this as the counts would be misleading? Unless we can identify the counts as purely thumbnail views.
It'd be great to get an overview of all photos by view, not just gallery by gallery.
I find when looking at stats I want to see which photos have been viewed the most irrespective of the gallery.
Just most views top x number and thumbnail.
Stats good...video still weak
Much improved stats info and displays. It's cumbersome to move between galleries, but several folks have provided detailed comments and suggestions so I'll move on to...
Videos. Since your video player announcement was in the same email blast as your stats upgrade, I'll take this opportunity to remind you how frustrating video is with Smugmug. Photos are great....video still sucks.
Your help page still says YouTube is 320x240. Come on...YouTube has offered HD for quite awhile, and currently offers full 1080p. The sole reason I signed up for Power status when I joined Smugmug five years ago was to be able to include videos on my galleries. You currently only offer 640x480 to power users, at a time when current P&S consumer cameras offer 720p and 1080i/p.
Yes, YouTube has the same 10 minute limit as you do....which makes both of you unusable for my kids' band stuff....but at least YouTube provides 2gb for the file, not 600mb. Vimeo and Exposureroom both offer unlimited times and match/exceed YouTube's 2gb filesize.
It really would be nice to have my friends and family find photos and videos at one site instead of having them use a photo site and a video site.
Please....please....even if you don't want to be a leader in video....please at least catch up to 2010!!
Videos have preview images. We automatically take a frame from a few seconds into the video or you can upload your own. So the hits there are coming from seeing the preview image without clicking to play the video.
Is the click of the thumbnail (which I assume is the preview image?) the only way a video is counted as viewed? Another way to put it: Do any of the SmugMug stats for videos indicate a video has been played (either in part or in full)?
So clicking a thumbnail (of either a video or a photo) counts as a view...
- Does it matter which style is used?
- Does clicking the photo to open it up (is that to lightbox view?) - does that generate a 2nd view, after the thumbnail which is the first?
Is the click of the thumbnail (which I assume is the preview image?) the only way a video is counted as viewed? Another way to put it: Do any of the SmugMug stats for videos indicate a video has been played (either in part or in full)?
So clicking a thumbnail (of either a video or a photo) counts as a view...
- Does it matter which style is used?
- Does clicking the photo to open it up (is that to lightbox view?) - does that generate a 2nd view, after the thumbnail which is the first?
Thanks!
Playing a video registers a video hit. Viewing a size of the preview image larger than a thumbnail registers a photo hit.
So let's say I land on a gallery with just videos in the default viewing style. That's one photo hit (the larger preview image on the right). If I click to two more thumbnails successively, that's two more photo hits (each time the larger preview image is loaded on the right). Then if I click to play that last video in a lightbox, it registers a photo hit of the preview image before the video is loaded and then a video hit.
Ideally we would like to somehow not count that last photo hit as it doesn't seem representative, but it currently functions in that manner.
Does that make sense? It would have been easier to just not count video preview image hits. But we think it can be a useful stat to determine how many hits are there as compared to video hits.
Comments
Lovn' the new stats though!
-Danny
dannyberryphotography.com
Facebook
What you have now is a major improvement already, so can't wait to see where it ends.
I'll jump on the bandwagon for liking to see stats for a category or subcategory, rather than just galleries. I often have subcats for an event, and I'm really interested in the event as a whole.
Also, I may be missing this, but when I look at the stats for a time period -- say the month of December -- I see numbers for each day but I do not see any aggregate numbers for the entire time period. I'd love to have the aggregates to trend and report to others.
I may be a little different than the norm, as I have six accounts, each with a custom domain, that I use for the company I work for and another one that I use personally.
I support all the comments above ... and especially the one about a fully qualified list of galleries. I have multiple Galleries called Overview or Beach Walk or such.
Regards, Harald
My focus is on digitizing memories
Great work from what I've seen so far!!
I join those asking for stats at the Category and sub-cat level. My events are also structured with an overall category (Events, Sports, etc) and then sub-cat for a specific event, with many galleries under that sub-cat.
PeterK
"The Gallery Trends, Gallery Details, and Photo Trends tabs all require the selection of a gallery. If I have already selected a gallery on the previous tab that I am viewing, I'd like that to be automatically carried forward to the next tab. Why should I need to select the gallery 3 times to look at the stats for a single gallery?"
i second that motion
It would be nice to click on the day and see the breakdown of viewed photos for that day, as whole and individually.
flickr stats have a really nice setup for viewed photos including whos been looking at them ie: via search engines etc...
Using the new format was great.
The work flow for me would be
1)Total Views - Web site
2)Popularity - by gallery
3) For each gallery
a) Trends
b) Details
c) Trends
A lot of information on photos listed on web site
samsplace
Kill Nothing But Time :clap
Leave Nothing But Footprints :thumb
http://www.samsplacephotos.com
A welcome improvement ! Always more to add, but this is a good step in the right direction.
Kent
"Not everybody trusts paintings, but people believe photographs."- Ansel Adams
Web site
I really like the new stats. They are quite an improvement. Most of these are by gallery. What I want to know is what are the most viewed photos, in all galleries.
Thanks much for the improvements.
Dan
I like the new stats page a lot better than the old one.
Thanks for the upgrade!
Washington, Missouri
www.PetPhotoKeepSake.com
Thank you for taking the time and listening to our suggestions. It will be better for a lot of us.
Is there any way to see who is hitting our site as well? I think it would be a great way to target market to someone when you see that a specific image has been views say 40 times. One could pull from the list of the 40 and send them an email follow-up maybe offering a special. Just a thought.
Thanks for all your efforts,
Bob Rolfe
RJ-Imaging
Bob R
Sorry if this is redundant to someone else's post. I couldnt' read through 8 pages of comments so here goes for mine; its a simple one.
On the Trending tab from the main stats page, how about an option that allows us to just get a direct general graphing function of all the galleries in our account; and graphically see which are the most popular; rather than having to select an indivisual gallery.
Other than that; this is a great new feature and upgrade to the website.
I'm amazed that you guys can offer so much for as little as you charge, considering that there is no advertising........Well almost no advertising.....
What is "Muench University.....Enroll Now".....Looks like an Ad!
thanks for listening.
Jeff
I'm excited about this feature. You read my mind.
I do like the idea above about tracking comments.
Keep up the good work.
I finally solved it by using the original stats page to see an overview of the galleries, and I could make some educated guesses and go from there. You need to show some simple relations so that we can draw meaningful conclusions from the stats!
I agree.
looking at the total views tab, today's stats default to a range from Dec 20, 2009 to today. When I tried to change the range to include only January's stats, I could only select yesterday, the 18th for the ending date, instead of today.
I don't remember which column each one is.
Also I would like to be able to do it on keywords and RSS feeds
Yup would still like an easy export of all the data so that I can create my own studies, perhaps as either a CSV or the ability to load custom SQL queries into the report engine (probably a security risk).
Thanks.
Pictures | Website | Blog | Twitter | Contact
WOW HOW GREAT IS THIS!!!
I know you'll get a million suggestions and if you integrate them all you'll end up buying GA.
For me, just the ability to exclude myself and my assistant, and others as I see fit, would make a huge difference. As it is, I can't really use the SM stats, I look at the Smug stats and then say to myself, that's nice, now I have to go to GA to see what's "real".
Also, how is the view of a video counted? Does the viewer have to play it entirely, partly, or just click the thumbnail, to be counted?
Thanks.
I like being able to get the total hits per gallery in the "popularity" tab. Now I would like to be able to get these totals into my own spreadsheet. Exporting them would be nice. If we can't have that, I would like a way to get the list in the same order that I have them in my spreadsheet so it is at least easy to enter them myself. I tried copying and pasting them into a blank spreadsheet so I could then sort them. It doesn't copy the name and totals in separate columns. Everything ends up being in the same column and that would be cumbersome to manually change them. How about giving us the option, on the popularity page, to resort by date created or alpabetically?
Great Job Brad and Crew. Getting good data was the only reason I had not recommended Smugmug more to my video and photo friends. This is a great improvement. I have 2 accounts on Smugmug - one I use primarily for video and another for photos. I do not understand how you count video in galleries. One of my galleries currently has one video. But on one day I have photo counts of 8 or more and a video counts of 1. I know from your data and asking a client that they viewed the video once. So is the thumbnails counted in your photo counts when a gallery is displayed. If that is the case the counts would be off as one gallery with thumbnails displaying 100 photos in which a user clicked on only one photo would register 101 rather than 1. So would I be able to differentiate if I had 1 visitor clicking on one photo in a 100 photo gallery or 101 visitors clicking individual photos in a 100 photo gallery. Sorry for being complex.
In other words are thumbnails counted in your photo counts? If not how do you explain the photo counts in a gallery that only contains 1 video.
Overall this is a great improvement and you can see that you have a loyal group of supporters simply trying to make your service better. Great job. I wish more of comapnies operated this way.
Videos have preview images. We automatically take a frame from a few seconds into the video or you can upload your own. So the hits there are coming from seeing the preview image without clicking to play the video.
Thanks for the response. But does this mean that when a user visit a gallery page with 25 thumbnails that you score 25 images even if they do not click on any image in the page.
Do thumbnails get scored in stats just for being dispayed on a gallery page?
Is there any way around this as the counts would be misleading? Unless we can identify the counts as purely thumbnail views.
I find when looking at stats I want to see which photos have been viewed the most irrespective of the gallery.
Just most views top x number and thumbnail.
Thanks,
-Dave Short
I'd like to repeat the comments requesting the ability to see from where hits are coming.
Washington DC: Where taxation without representation thrives.
Much improved stats info and displays. It's cumbersome to move between galleries, but several folks have provided detailed comments and suggestions so I'll move on to...
Videos. Since your video player announcement was in the same email blast as your stats upgrade, I'll take this opportunity to remind you how frustrating video is with Smugmug. Photos are great....video still sucks.
Your help page still says YouTube is 320x240. Come on...YouTube has offered HD for quite awhile, and currently offers full 1080p. The sole reason I signed up for Power status when I joined Smugmug five years ago was to be able to include videos on my galleries. You currently only offer 640x480 to power users, at a time when current P&S consumer cameras offer 720p and 1080i/p.
Yes, YouTube has the same 10 minute limit as you do....which makes both of you unusable for my kids' band stuff....but at least YouTube provides 2gb for the file, not 600mb. Vimeo and Exposureroom both offer unlimited times and match/exceed YouTube's 2gb filesize.
It really would be nice to have my friends and family find photos and videos at one site instead of having them use a photo site and a video site.
Please....please....even if you don't want to be a leader in video....please at least catch up to 2010!!
Thanks!
Be seeing you,
The Duck
Is the click of the thumbnail (which I assume is the preview image?) the only way a video is counted as viewed? Another way to put it: Do any of the SmugMug stats for videos indicate a video has been played (either in part or in full)?
So clicking a thumbnail (of either a video or a photo) counts as a view...
- Does it matter which style is used?
- Does clicking the photo to open it up (is that to lightbox view?) - does that generate a 2nd view, after the thumbnail which is the first?
Thanks!
Playing a video registers a video hit. Viewing a size of the preview image larger than a thumbnail registers a photo hit.
So let's say I land on a gallery with just videos in the default viewing style. That's one photo hit (the larger preview image on the right). If I click to two more thumbnails successively, that's two more photo hits (each time the larger preview image is loaded on the right). Then if I click to play that last video in a lightbox, it registers a photo hit of the preview image before the video is loaded and then a video hit.
Ideally we would like to somehow not count that last photo hit as it doesn't seem representative, but it currently functions in that manner.
Does that make sense? It would have been easier to just not count video preview image hits. But we think it can be a useful stat to determine how many hits are there as compared to video hits.