It’s the web 2.0, people are living and breathing the web all over again. You, the entrepreneur, investor, website manager, designer, need to be in control. You need to know what people are seeing, when they’re seeing it and why. You have profit margins, conversion rates, ROIs to attend to. You need to tame your statistics (and, indirectly, your users).

Web offerings

Developers are increasingly aware of your problem (they’re smart guys, you’ll admit). They’ve been hard at work giving you the tools to look at your numbers easily, so you can react as you see fit. They’re also a big bunch - you see analytics tools pop up on every corner of the web. Let’s look at them and get the critical eye on the offers.

• Measure Map - The super talented folks at Adaptive Path are rolling out their statistics package specifically for bloggers, and I must say that as an early user (and someone that works in the same area they do), they’ve done a terrific job. It’s blog-specific so they’ve invested in 4 or 5 kinds of things you may want to see and made them stellar.
• Mint - Shaun Inman, who I admire for his design and development skills has developed Mint with your everyday website manager in mind. Mint allows you to keep track of everything happening on your website - in a very neat package. Information Design-wise, it could be better, but if you know what you’re looking at, you’ll find Mint to be a good product.
• Google Analytics - Previously a paid service (and not really cheap), Google’s take on Analytics is powerful. It is specifically for the professional-grade manager, who thinks conversion rates when he sees webpage hits. It has the google look and feel, and if power’s your cup of tea, you’ll love it.
• Visitorville - A little crazy in the head? Got the taste for 3D visualizations of visitors literally viewing your page as if it was a building? You may be up for Visitorville, that I personally never tried but seems to be a good replacement for a quasi-real Simcity-like analytics tool for… funny people.

Picking the right tool for the job is ultimately a decision that requires some trial and error. However, my recommendation is to go with Measure Map if you’re a blogger - because it’s built specifically with your problems in mind -, Google Analytics if you’re an ecommerce guy who wants control over every single detail, and Mint if you need your eye candy even when thinking about numbers on your company website.

Now, finishing up, as an OSS advocate I should also say that even though the aforementioned products are great if you’re looking for the quick and easy approach, there’s great (opensource) tools out there that give you good control over your numbers and require little effort to install and manage. If you have the time to test them out, do so.

Ultimately, it’s all about the level of control you’re looking for. Pick the right weapon and start pleasing your users by reacting to your stats.