Google Analytics: real time statistics

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Yesterday, I have checked some statistics for The Web Thought in Google Analytics as usual, and I discovered that the Google Team introduced a new spectacular section: real time statistics.

If you go in the home section of your web site profile, you will see, just before "Intelligent Events" a new menu: "Real-Time (Beta)". It is clear that the service is still in beta version, but as far as I can see, it's incredible.

On the right side of your page, you can see the visits flowing in a real-time panel. The overview is showing the active visitors number, top referrals, top active pages, top keywords and top location.

There's then the possibility of watching live in depth reports.

In the "Locations" section you can see where your traffic is coming from, using a map or - hurray! - Google Earth.
The "Traffic Source" section is displaying the medium, source and active visitors.
The "Content" section is showing the active page and active visitors.

All the subsections have custom filters and columns ordering for tables, making statistical analysis very simple.

It's a pleasure to see the traffic coming and going in real time. It might be just a toy - at first - but I believe it could be a valuable tool to check how things are going on and eventually take immediate action when needed.

Please, let me know your experience with the tool.