New Google Analytics comes with Flash flavor

This week Google Analytics subscribers will notice big changes. Google spent a year working on the new update, and, finally, it's out.

One of the biggest additions is new graphs made in Flash. They are auto-resizable and take the full screen width. I say, it's about time. Seriously, it isn't too difficult to implement something like this in Flash. But the difference is huge - I found it very handy on my widescreen laptop. Compare the old and the new Flash visitors graphs (actual proportions from my screen):


Now you see the difference. It's like trying to watch a movie through a keyhole and then getting a HDTV!

The sole fact of Google using Flash is worth mentioning. I'm not going to give a big propaganda speech on Flash. But there are some things this technology is good for besides web games and "flashy" animations: data visualization and interaction. Google graphs are packed with nice features: rollover hints, draggable timeline range picker, overlapping graphs and more. It's light, fast and informative.

I don't even know why you wouldn't do such things in Flash. Still, I find other companies trying less obvious paths. For example, Yahoo Pipes pushed javascript to the maximum. The same solution made in Flash would be much more "native". I think it's about the skills range in such companies. There is historical alienation of "pure" developers from technologies like Flash. It's still more on designers side. Macromedia, now Adobe, is changing things through Flex, but it still needs time to become mainstream.

When companies embrace Flash for what it's good for, the results are amazing. Check, for example, Digg Labs with their BigSpy, Stack and Swarm tools. Those things are not developed in-house, which is not surprising. But their partnership with stamen design has proven very productive.

Sure, development and design is not about the tools. The results are what matters in the end. At the same time, some tools are just better at some things and when taking advantage of it, the outcome can be very rewarding.

-Sergei

The Book of Google

Remember those “Choose You Own Adventure” books? You got to choose where your story would go next, usually at the end of the page. It was pretty cool back in times…

Google today is a lot like a big gamebook – you can browse in infinite paths and build your stories.

I don’t talk about some meaningless internet browsing on a Friday afternoon. The one that starts from a link your friend forwarded to you, some random news headline or just a shiny banner that caught your attention. Then you just jump subjects in an ADD–manner, ending with a mesh of information on global warming, fondue recipe, newest i-gadjet, whale conservation program, and the weather forecast. Anything to kill time.

I’m talking about a real Story. The one that just grabs your attention and makes you dig into it. And, as with a gamebook, you never know where it will bring you.

One day, a couple of years ago, I was googling on the most addictive games of all time. Tetris is the best selling computer game ever, so I ended up checking some details on it. What grabbed my initial attention is the history of Tetris creation.

It starts back in the 80s, in the backwaters of the Soviet Union. Two men and a teenager are killing their spare time at some academy labs by developing small games. I google on and click on, and the story just takes off from there. What follows is the uncontrolled game popularity, international legal battles and soviet government involvement. The story continues all the way through the fall of the Iron Curtain, with some of the original creators moving to United States and more legal battles. It ends up in Pal Alto, California with a double-murder suicide and the “I’ve been eaten alive…” note. What an incredible chain of events. A great story about moral corruption...

You can find all the bits of that story on the internet and google your way through it. Don’t just go through a single article with somebody’s aggregated version of it. Because web today is an infinite gamebook, and you can read any story your own way.

-Sergei