It was during WordCamp Dallas where I first heard of this upcoming revolutionary web analytics tool called Woopra and though it was still in a beta stage, it took me slightly over a month to get my lazy ass down to registering. During this stage, only sites with less than 10,000 page views a day may apply. Due to the high demand of incoming websites, it took over a month for my site to get approved.

What is so special about Woopra? In a nutshell is about live tracking, chatting with a visitor on your site and a whole new delicious interface. Did you know that you could check your site’s statistics on your desktop as well as on the Woopra site? I can never describe their features better than the developers themselves. So why not check it out yourself?

Settings to note when installing Woopra on Mac OS X

Apart from keeping one eye on Woopra’s installation guide, be sure to take a look at how to install Woopra on OS X. Once you are done, you will encounter some problems launching the application.

To get that out of the way, ensure that you have set your Java preferences to use Java SE6 and drag it to the top of the list so that it is the most preferred version for your Java applications like so:

Java settings to install Woopra on Mac OS X

A working Woopra

A working Woopra

If you had followed Woopra’s installation guide and the fixes I have listed carefully, you should have a working Woopra client just like I have. The desktop client provides a more in depth breakdown of your site’s incoming data as compared to the web admin. Having a desktop client for a web analytics tool is a very good approach, I really like the idea of just launching the application and I get to see my site’s incoming data live. Gone will be the days in Google Analytics where data will only be populated twice in a day.

Out of the many outstanding features Woopra has, it is missing a major enhancement. It is not able to exclude hits from the logged in admin. Apparently there are works underway but let’s be patient shall we?

The pressing issue is that many analytics tools do not have the capability to track AJAX events. My entire site was AJAXed up till I found out that Woopra was not detecting activity on my AJAX requests. Now, only the non data-crucial parts of the site are AJAXed (paging and commenting) until there is a clarification on how to get Woopra tracking my AJAX events.

The most exciting feature: being able to converse with your visitors depending on circumstances can make or break your visitor’s impression of your blog. A visitor to your blog may not enjoy the intrusive approach of interaction Woopra provides or he could just be interested in getting to know the author of the blog he frequents better. Exercise the use of this feature with caution.

Google Analytics will be running concurrently with Woopra. Woopra is giving a whole new meaning to analytics, it is no longer just about raw data anymore. Interaction is finding its way into the whole setup. I will be eagerly watching by the sides as Woopra eventually comes out of beta and releases the final product.

What are you waiting for? Join the queue and get your own account at Woopra, or if you have an invitation, you get immediate access.