MapSurface – web page activity widget
MapSurface is a tool that tracks user activity within a web page. Its purpose is
to provide an understanding of how users find, navigate and value web pages. It
displays this information in a compact widget which sits above the web page.
If you press the “Alt” and “X” keys (try this on the Ajax Link Tracker page) the MapSurface Dashboard appears. The
dashboard contains summary information such as the number of views and top
referrers. There are two hyperlinks above the summary tables. Clicking on the
“map” link will display an overlay of link usage by percentage. The “more >”
link opens a second floating window called the ViewPlane which contains more
detailed information. Example sites that are already configured with MapSurface
include: www.glennjones.net,
www.madgex.com and
www.mapsurface.com
MapSurface is both an interface and web application design prototype. It is not yet a commercial or beta (Web 2.0) application. I was encouraged to build it by the positive response to the Ajax Link Tracker. I have posted this work to the web to get peoples views of its worth and also because I wanted to share the technical journey of building an application like this. I have used a number of interesting techniques such as JSON data transfers, dynamic script loading and module interface design pattern. Time permitting, I am hoping to write tutorials about each of these subjects.
I have numerous ideas to take this concept forward. Although the current version only displays a small about of information, it is gathering all it needs to match most current web statistics packages. The ViewPlane could be extended to include what browsers people are using etc.
But I believe the most interesting direction to extend MapSurface would be to use the social bookmarking and tagging site APIs. With some thought you could provide interesting information about the context of a page within the whole web. Measuring the popularity of the page through how many people have bookmarked or linked to it.
To help generate some feedback I have a limited number of test accounts for
anyone who is interested in trying out MapSurface. If you would like to be
considered for an account please fill-in the form on
www.mapsurface.com. To use
MapSurface you simply need an account at www.mapsurface.com and to add a
JavaScript file link into any page you wish to track. The tracking file is
currently 8K. The widget interface is loaded only when you press the key
combination.
Note
I will be developing different commercial applications from these concepts
through my company Madgex. I am unsure about the path of the MapSurface
prototype itself, if there is enough interest it could be developed into a
commercial service. So for now I am not making the code open source.
More Information
http://www.mapsurface.com/
Comments
1
Peter Bowyer
It's a shame to no longer see which links the people click on.
Posted 26 January 2006 09:09
2
Glenn
@Paul, There was a small bug that entered the code. It was not adding id’s to links which did not already have them. If you now pull up the dashboard and click the "map" link you should see which links the people click on.
I was thinks of adding a few more tracking features for forms usage. What do you think?
Posted 26 January 2006 14:26
3
M.Phillipe
Hi,
I don't understand , how people can use GPL code, and working later on for them !!!!
You can NOT make GPL code in your work !!!
Thank you.
Posted 12 February 2006 11:10
4
Glenn
@ M.Phillipe, MapSurface does not use third party GPL licensed code and I have not given it a GPL license. For the moment I wish to share the gerenal design and ideas, but keep a copyright on some of the code. I am sorry, but I do not understand the issue you are trying to put forward.
Posted 13 February 2006 20:00
5
Phillipe
as i said ,
For two things:
1 - You are using the code Prototype.js, right?
2 - why ask ideas and of the assistance on code which won't be in LPG? not very just, not ??
Posted 14 February 2006 10:44
6
Glenn
The MapSurface code does not use Prototype.js. I have shared how I built this application on the post Modular JSON On-Demand JavaScript interface, which also includes code examples. As an individual I have the right to decide how and what I share with others. I hope other benefit from the information and code on this site, but I will not be bullied into how I license things. Not everyone thinks that LPG viral licence is a good thing. I much prefer the Prototype.js license which is less dictatorial.
Posted 14 February 2006 14:03
7
Phillipe
Ok, sorry.
Within this framework,
I understand your point of view.
I present my excuse of this misunderstanding.
Phillipe
Posted 15 February 2006 13:09
8
Aaron Karp
First off, this is a great set of tools. Keep up the good work! I had a couple of ideas I thought I'd mention. First off, it would be nice if the background colors of the overlays were different shades to reflect the relative popularity of a link . It would also be nice to have an option to change the key combinations or somehow secure access to the analytics (obviously, that's more of a final version productization feature). I haven't looked at the code, but it seems like those shouldn't be too painful to add in.
Posted 15 February 2006 18:10
9
Glenn
Thanks for comment Aaron. Colouring the link overlays by popularity is a realy nice idea. I have allowed for access control within the design of the backend system, but because this is only prototype I have not added. I also wanted to see how people felt about sharing this information.
Posted 16 February 2006 13:31
10
Glenn
Aaron I have changed link overlays to be coloured by popularity.
Posted 16 February 2006 22:22
11
Nice Paul
Great stuff Glenn - the easiest way I've found to easily track outbound links, and all right there on the page!
Posted 22 February 2006 16:07
12
Clive Walker
Like this vey much. If this was used on a commercial website though, you would want to hide the data from competitors/visitors wouldn't you. Or have I missed this bit?
Posted 22 February 2006 18:21
13
Marcin
Very nice tool. It could be very usefull for quick look in the site stats. Even for "basic" user.
Great work.
Regards,
Marcin
Posted 23 February 2006 09:40
14
Glenn Jones
Clive. As part of the backend system design I have consider logon for commercial website. At the moment I like the idea it’s open and easy to use. I forget passwords all the time.
Posted 23 February 2006 09:49
15
Robert Paulson
It's a very impressive piece of work. I'm not extremely technical in my web work and am reaching the point where I need to begin watching my traffic more carefully. I'd love to make use of this tool if/when it comes out commercially.
Posted 24 February 2006 19:39
16
Massimiliano
Hello my name is Massimiliano and I manage the blog www.mondoblog.it. I'm sorry for my English but Mr Google translate in this way from Italian language. I want makes you it compliments for "mapsurface", it is an optimal one widget and I am using it for mine blog. I have published a post where I make you a lot of publicity, I hope to have made appreciate what. It continues therefore.
Posted 13 March 2006 14:46
17
Ross
Hi,
I followed to this site after the Dashboard popped up randomly on a web board I frequent. It pops up, on that site, every time I type one of various characters (!@$%^&*()_+|:?<> and every non-ASCII character I have tried), whether or not the cursor is in a text area.
I have reported this to the site owners but in the meantime thought you might want to know.
I am using Firefox 1.5.0.1 on Mac. Similar behaviour is also happening with the Safari browser (v1.3.2) but to a lesser extent; fewer characters trigger the dashboard.
Posted 14 March 2006 23:24
18
Sebastien Billard
A visitor of my blog also reported the same bug : Mapsurface appears when he is typing characters with accents. He use Firefox 1.0.7 and Mandriva 2006.
I tried in Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP and 2000, and the bug doesn't appear.
This bugs apart it is a great tool congrats :)
Posted 23 March 2006 12:27
19
Clint
Glenn,
this is definitely an interesting tool (thanks for letting me into the test group). It tends to make me think in terms of a potential solution to some questions in the current privacy flap. Sort of a 'Show me what this site is tracking about me' kind of thing.
A suggestion, it seems that script currently tracks my (site owner) visits and behavior and it would be nice to exclude myself from the data set.
Posted 26 March 2006 09:11
20
Glenn Jones
Ross and Sebastien, thank you for pointing out this issue with MapSurface. I
fixed a few days ago. If you are still having a problem please contact me.
Sorry it took me so long to answer your
comments, but I have been on holiday for a couple of weeks.
Posted 27 March 2006 15:10
21
ACI
Glenn, any thoughts towards making this app cookie specific?
In other words, wouldn't it be neato-keen to be able to switch the view between 'global', 'just yourself', and 'everybody but yourself'?
Posted 11 May 2006 01:02
22
Glenn Jones
There are a whole list of things I would love to add to MapSurface. Using cookies to stop authors visits been added their stats is high up on the list. I had not thought of a switch between a global and yourself view, this is an interesting idea. Thanks for the feedback
Posted 12 May 2006 13:02
23
PaulG
You could make the stats only appear for a named IP range. ie in an intranet situation, that would cover a lot of commercial bases.
Posted 31 May 2006 07:01
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