“Pathtraq” -- Share access records and find out what other people are watching

Tokyo-based company, Cybozu Labs. launched a new service called “Pathtraq”[jp]. It tells you what sites other people are watching based on the access data. Wow, we are now sharing the access records.

Access data is gathered by a feature users install to their web browsers (installation is optional).

When a user accesses websites with the software installed, access data is collected and analyzed by Pathtraq.

Alexa has been doing similar thing using tool bars to generate rankings.

In either case, you must be aware that the results are biased since the data is gathered from users who installed their software, but still, it’s fun to know what other people are watching.

It tells you the sites people accessed, not the sies they bookmarked. The next challenge for the company would be to expand the user base.

When I first accessed the Pathtraq site, I was shown a dialogue window (see below) again and again and urged to install the software‥‥

… but now once you close the dialogue, it will never show again. As a Safari user, I'm glad they fixed it.

I first tried the search with my blog URL.

The entry I posted in the morning came to the top.

Pathtraq has three kinds of rankings:

- At-the-moment ranking
- 24 hours ranking
- All-time favorite ranking

I guess the last one – All-time favorite ranking -- would become more and more interesting over time. You might find out the entries that contribute to the traffic to your blog.

These rankings can be embedded to sites/blogs as a widget. I generated one myself and it was easy and quick.

Preview, and if it seems fine, copy & paste the source and you are done.

The feature I found even more interesting was “Navigation”. It shows the page people came from, and the page people went next.

You might be able to find that that more users are coming from RSS readers or things like that. In short, this feature shows you the entry to your blog and the exit from your blog at one view.

You can also compare results among web sites and refine search results by permalink.

For those who love access log analysis, this is a hot place to go. Just remember, the results are biased. I want to know how many users are using this service right now.