Mega Spy preview + private beta

Mega Spy has taken longer than planned to develop but I promise the wait will be worth it. We're still not quite done, but we know how eager you are, so we're releasing a beta version to get feedback before we finalize the 1.0 release.

Mega Spy will be a Pro-only feature, but during beta it is open to all users. To be eligible for the private beta (we'll open it up to everyone else in the next 3-5 days), all you need is an existing Twitter account with at least 10 followers. To apply, simply tweet the following message:

http://getclicky.com is the best web analytics service on the planet!

Or, make up your own tweet, and tag it with #megaspy. For example:

http://getclicky.com - live web analytics FTW! #megaspy

We will be monitoring for these tweets via Twitter's search engine, and will send a direct message (tonight or tomorrow) to the first 50 eligible participants with instructions for accessing the beta.

UPDATE - private beta is now closed, invites have been sent out to everyone.

Mega Spy still has some bugs, and it needs some speed optimizations, so keep that in mind! It has been tested with Firefox 3, IE7, Opera 9.5, Safari 4, and Chrome 1.0, and works in all of them. Any lesser version may or may not work. A lot more things are going on in the background compared to the old Spy, so a browser with stellar Javascript performance will enrich the experience. MSIE is pretty bad, Firefox and Opera are decent, Safari and Chrome fly. Once Firefox 3.1 comes out though it should fly as well.

Here's a couple screenies to whet thy appetite. The second screenshot shows my absolute favorite feature of Mega Spy - seeing what pages on your web site people are looking at RIGHT NOW. As people move around your site, the values update on the fly. It's a blast to watch. You'll also notice that you can filter the data you want to see by many different criteria. When filters are applied, the entire view is relative to those filters. You can also filter down to a single visitor to watch just them navigate your site, but that's not shown here.

31 comments | Mar 12 2009 2:14pm

Reader Comments

How do we sign up or use the Beta version of MegaSpy?

SuperSpy Mar 12 2009 5:42pm

SuperSpy ,

To be eligible for the private beta (we'll open it up to everyone else in the next 3-5 days), all you need is an existing Twitter account with at least 10 followers. To apply, simply tweet the following message:

getclicky.com is the best web analytics service on the planet!

I read the post Mar 12 2009 5:51pm

Looking forward to the invite ;) I think I'm #10 :) Super Ultra Mega Spy looks pretty impressive and I'm on Safari 4, so let's FLYYYYYY

Jean-Paul Horn Mar 12 2009 7pm

Looking forward to testing Mega Spy!

Rudy
Social Media Guru at Trulia.com

Rudy Mar 12 2009 7:06pm

Just started playing with it! Two words: amazingly epic.

Alex Wilhelm Mar 12 2009 8:24pm

Can't wait to see it in action. Hope to make it in the first 50. According to Twitter search, I'm good ...

xavierv Mar 12 2009 10:45pm

"signed up" :)
screens look great, can't wait

Zaam Mar 13 2009 12:14am

Just tweeted to 2400+ followers - looking forward to it :)

Nikki Pilkington Mar 13 2009 1:09am

Have Tweeted - gimme gimme!

Psionmark Mar 13 2009 2:59am

Not bad

KCFreelancer Mar 13 2009 4:36am

I twitted the message with the tag in it. :-)

Todor Christov Mar 13 2009 4:54am

I would love to try it... However I don't have so many twitter followers... So i guess I am stuck waiting..

Not Twitter Account Mar 13 2009 5:03am

Can we blog about the Beta (assuming we get in!), or do you want us to hold off 'til it's live?

Mark Avey Mar 13 2009 5:53am

I thought it was "Ultra Spy." When did it become "Mega Spy"? Is Mega Spy an intermediate version without the webcam feature?

marks Mar 13 2009 8:11am

I like your service, but to ask us to spam is quite lame.

brant Mar 13 2009 8:26am

Yeah, for a 5-day jump I'm not going to spam Twitter. Maybe 60 days. :-) We have a couple of 1,000-follower accounts, but they're sort of corporate, not personal, so it would piss people off.

How many minutes is the "online now" filter set for?

marks Mar 13 2009 8:45am

I'm a Pro user and don't think twittering about Mega Spy is spam, I love this product and it's an endorsement not spam.

If you look up the definition of spam you'll see that I'm right. It's an endorsement, I would have done it without the incentive.

Chill out people.

Dan Nedelko Mar 13 2009 9:50am

Yes you can blog about it before it comes out once you have access to it, of course.

I can understand the spam argument but if you feel like you're spamming your followers then just don't do it and wait a few extra days to get access :)

Sean (Clicky) Mar 13 2009 10:26am

PS - still have 2 major bugs to fix before I can release it to you all. I think it will be about 2 hours from now.

Sean (Clicky) Mar 13 2009 10:26am

Invites were just sent to all tweeters.

Sean (Clicky) Mar 13 2009 12:34pm

Sean,
You do realize you broadcasted the "private beta" information on twitter (not through a direct message). Anyone can see that information - I guess you one upped us...got us all to advertise clicky and then gave it to everyone anyways!

Twitterer Mar 13 2009 12:52pm

> You do realize you broadcasted the "private beta" information on twitter (not through a direct message). Anyone can see that information - I guess you one upped us...got us all to advertise clicky and then gave it to everyone anyways!

And I didn't even got my invite. Quite dissappointed (not by the missed invite, it's public now), but by the spam action. If you want an endorsement, just ask for it ...

Jean-Paul Horn Mar 13 2009 2:27pm

> We will be monitoring for these tweets via Twitter's search engine, and will send a direct message (tonight or tomorrow) to the first 50 eligible participants with instructions for accessing the beta.

I count 60. Keep your promises, Sean. This is just bad business ethics and as a Pro user on a Custom Plan I'm not really amused.

I DO like the Mega Spy though. Really thorough and speedy (Safari 4)

Jean-Paul Horn Mar 13 2009 2:34pm

I was planning to do all direct messages but I didn't know you couldn't send one to someone unless they were following you. So I had to do normal tweets. But that's why I did it from the getclicky account (which isn't used at all) instead of my main twitter account, so only people searching twitter for "getclicky" or looking at that account would find it. If a few extra people see it, so be it, but I don't think many will.

Jean-Paul, I didn't send invites to the people who deleted their tweets, which about 3 or 4 people did. These still show up in the search results but when you try to view them it says it's been deleted. That may be what happened to you, or I may have just missed yours by accident. I'm sorry.

Sean (Clicky) Mar 13 2009 4:04pm

Yes, I took a peek at Mega, even though I didn't sign up for the beta. Mea culpa!

My impression: It's really great for our sites that have 500,000 plus page views per month. It's an empty page for anything else (except for actions).

Perhaps you should show older data as an option (you could dim it down or something to show it isn't fresh).

marks Mar 14 2009 2:26am

Well that's the thing, it's still like the old Spy where you see the last 40 actions (up from 20) tha thappened on your site, no matter how long ago they occured. But all the new stuff is for visitors online RIGHT NOW. I think it's a good mix. I don't think mixing in offline visitors to that the other areas would work.

Sean (Clicky) Mar 14 2009 10:37am

One thing that occurred to me using it was that the distinction between the Spy view and the other views is a bit artificial. Ideally all the views would be updating in real time. I suppose the reason not to do that is performance.

marks Mar 14 2009 12:02pm

I noticed that when you narrow down to just one person it will say "1 visitors online. It would be nice if the visitors online part didn't change when filtered.

I think it's all pretty damn cool!

What happens when someone completes a goal? Does the whole screen flash green? ;)

Adam Mar 14 2009 11:50pm

Just spotted something that is missing in Mega, the ability to click through to the referrer. On "Spy" it's possible to click the grey arrow to see the Google search.. looks like on Mega you've missed that out. I'd hate to see that go I use that a lot.

Adam Mar 14 2009 11:57pm

Marks, yes that would be too intensive to make the entire site update live like Spy does.

Goals and campaigns aren't integrated yet but I plan to add that. I'll check the referrer thing, I didn't realize I left that out.

Sean (Clicky) Mar 15 2009 5:15pm

How do PRO users find and use mega spy?

webmack Mar 16 2009 7:32pm

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Mega Spy preview + private beta

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