Yesterday, Marc Hendrickson over at TechCrunch reported on the recently launched Adobe AIR-driven desktop application for Google Analytics, created by Nicolas Lierman from Schelle-based agency BoulevArt. I caught up with Nico for a chat about the application.
Since there isn’t a public API for Google Analytics, Nico spent about a year building his own by tapping into the public resources from GA’s AJAX version. After months of intense documenting and testing, he ultimately came up with a client-side API and developed an application with Adobe AIR (the cross-operating system runtime formerly known as Apollo) which was released in beta version 1 last week. The result is awesome, if a little buggy at times: Google Analytics stats can now be accessed with a much improved user interface and usability.
Both Adobe and Google have already been in touch with Nico and will support him with future releases, although Nico declined to comment on the details of the collaboration. Regular bug fixes are pushed and installed automatically, but a next version is already under way.
BoulevArt has decided to fully support Nico, which means he’ll be busy building the second beta version fulltime. The next version will be released alongside the next version of AIR, projected for this fall, and will be featured in Adobe’s Showcase. The final release will remain free of charge.
Kudos to BoulevArt for supporting someone who’s only been with the company for 2 months. Prior to BoulevArt, Nico worked for Telenet,VMMa, Jones Day, MPAA and These Days.
Bonus link: Nico’s Google Analytics WidgetÂ
September 25th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
After all the famous food from Belgium, finally something interesting
It’s nice to see that BoulevArt enables Nico to build a second beta fulltime. That shows they have vision and belief. I think more companies should have that kind of guts! But I think the contacts with Google & Adobo helped Nicolas to get that status @ BoulevArt
Anyway, keep up the good work, Nicolas! All the best!
September 26th, 2007 at 9:10 am
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