Bolero Takes the Guesswork Out of Web Tracking and Analysis
EveryWare Development Corp. announced the immediate availability of Bolero, the most complete Web logging, analysis and reporting system for the Apple Macintosh, with Windows and Unix versions shipping in the fall. Bolero helps management identify the activity and user demographics that can justify a site's investment. It shows not only how many visitors are using a site, but where they are coming from, what attracted them, and what they are doing once they get there.
"Companies are investing thousands of dollars to maintain a Web presence, yet all they know about activity is the number of hits," said Dan McKenzie, president of EveryWare Development Corp. "Using Bolero is like hiring a survey team to uncover the underlying trends in Web site usage. It substitutes long-range trends and solid statistics for the hit-or-miss analysis of Web site management."
With Bolero, for example, a company can determine if there are some areas of the Web site that are unvisited, or whether an external link is justifying its cost. The system can determine the most popular pages; the number of new and repeat visitors; the paths most frequently traveled; and which external sites are directing the most traffic your way. Bolero demonstrates what works, what doesn't, which elements need to be improved, and which success should be emulated elsewhere.
Bolero logs a Web server in real-time, providing up-to-the-minute accuracy with no post-processing required. Even hourly reports reflect the latest Web site activity with absolutely no lag time.
Bolero is the only census product on the Macintosh to log to a SQL database, enabling users to analyze the data using any standard database tool. Bolero comes with its own SQL database--EveryWare's Butler SQL. A high-end version of Bolero supports direct connections to Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. The package is highly scalable, monitoring a single server or compiling data from multiple servers simultaneously. Apple Computer, for example, is currently using Bolero to capture and analyze data from several different Web servers. Apple is one of 70 beta sites currently testing the package.
"Bolero is a real breakthrough from batch processing Web server log files," says Alex Sirota, Database Engineer for Apple Computer. "It is the first Internet application that logs Web server activity in real time into an SQL database and summarizes on the fly. Bolero makes effective use of MacOS multitasking to collect and aggregate a multitude of raw and summarized web access information from one or more web servers. The SQL engine allows easy access to this valuable data across any span of time using just about any client/server tool. EveryWare's implementation of Bolero on the MacOS makes for a winning combination."
Bolero is also bundled with three data analysis tools. EveryWare's Tango provides both on-line, interactive, drill-down reporting, as well as several pre-defined reports. Users can use Tango to view their Web server statistics and reports remotely using a Web browser. CLEAR:Access, from Sterling Software, provides data querying for more than 70 databases. Voyant, from Brossco Systems, is an integrated tool set for data analysis and decision support that presents information as multidimensional charts.
Bolero is highly customizable. Users can run reports on an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basis or for any user-defined period. These reports are structured so that different members of management can routinely view different kinds of information. A marketing communications manager, for example, might review inventory traffic coming from a particular link, whereas a product manager could see the number of visits to a product description.
Bolero also improves Web server performance by off-loading the task of domain name resolution, whereby a numeric IP address is translated into an English language domain name. Domain name resolution is a processor-intensive task that can dramatically effect the Web server's performance. Bolero improves server performance by turning off Web server logging.
Bolero is available in three version. Bolero Bronze, priced at $995, supports a single WebSTAR server (Quarterdeck's Macintosh Web server). Bolero silver, priced at $1,795, supports unlimited WebSTAR servers. Both work with EveryWare's bundled Butler SQL database. Bolero Gold, priced at $4,995, also supports unlimited WebSTAR servers and offers direct links to an Oracle or SQL Server database.