Google Analytics: Motion Charts explained
Last month, Google Analytics was upgraded with enterprise-class features; including Advanced Segmentation, Custom Reporting, Motion Charts, and the updated UI. If your account is old, the new features may have appeared by now, for new accounts, you may still have a short wait before you see these features. Also, the updated administration interface will be available in all accounts soon so keep an eye out for that, and the AdSense integration and API are still in private beta.
This post explains “Motion Charts”! You've probably noticed the new button at the top of many reports. Clicking Visualize activates Motion Charts for the report data. You can click the Play button at the bottom to see an over-time animation of your data, but you'll first probably want to experiment with your X and Y axis settings, and the color and size of the dots. You can revert back to your original report view, so don't worry about messing anything up.
So, what are Motion Charts?
Motion Charts provide a multi-dimensional, over-time analysis of the data in your report. So, if you click Visualize from the Keywords report, each dot will represent one of your keywords. If you click Visualize from the Referrals report, each dot will represent a referral. By selecting metrics to be represented on the X and Y axis and by the size and color of the dots, you plot each dot in four dimensions. Press Play or drag the slider at the bottom of the chart, and you'll see the data change over time, thereby adding Time as the fifth dimension.
Take a look at the following video - it examines each component of this feature so that you can learn how to get at-a-glance insights from the data you're seeing.
Motion Charts song;
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Epic Systems together with Beemode (www.beemode.com) have developed a Data Visualization software "Trend Compass" almost ready to be released soon. It is an extension to Gapminder which was invented by a Swedish Professor. You can view it :
- http://www.gapminder.org
It is a new concept in viewing statistics and trends in an animated way and viewing 4 axis instead of just the traditional X and Y axis. It could be used in analysis, research, presentation etc.
Here are some links :
- A project we did with Princeton University on US unemployment :
http://www.epicsyst.com/main3.swf
- US Population from 2004 till 2030 for ages 0 - 83 focus on Baby Boomers and turn the Trails off (uncheck)
http://www.epicsyst.com/Pop/Babyboomer.swf
- April 2008 Media Monitoring on Cars and Beverages TV ads (ads Duration vs Repetition per Day over time) :
http://www.epicsyst.com/ads/cars.swf
http://www.epicsyst.com/ads2/bev.swf
- Ads Monitoring on TV Sattelite Channels during April 2008. Pick Duration (Ads daily duration) vs Repeat (Ads repetition per day).
http://www.epicsyst.com/ads3/allchannels.swf
Next one is my favourite it covers a lot (change the X and Y coordinates) and it accumulates his earnings too, 43 Million USD :
http://www.epicsyst.com/sampras/sampras1.swf
I hope you could evaluate it and give me your comments. So many ideas are there.
You can test the software by uploading data on our website and getting the corresponding Flash charts. This is for a limited number of users.
Regards.
Ossama Hamed
http://www.epicsyst.com