In this post I will focus on my reflexions and my personal classification after having tested 5 different tools : Geovisite, Neoworx, ClustrMaps, Maps.among.us and Feedjit.
- GEOVISITE
It's the only one that I've used for a long time. And I already expressed my opinion several times. When I started using it it was free, I don't know if that still holds true.
I still think they offer really pretty tools and that it's a pity the follow-up is so badly carried out, making them unreliable : one gets the feeling they are amateurs who use a tool that exceeds their abilities. But I will test it again one of these days to see where they are at.
Geoglobe and others ...
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- NEOWORX
Neoworx extremement semblable à Geovisite, exactement le même type de produits, disposés pratiquement de la même façon sur leur site, avec globe, map, tableau qui défile, la liste de tous les abonnés sur le côté droit. A croire qu'il s'agit des mêmes que Geovisite, mais avec un produit payant. Sinon il s'agit presque de plagiat et je doute que dans ce domaine s'il y avait plagiat, on ne le saurait pas avec un petit procès à la clé.
J'ai aussi vu qu' ils avaient le même problème de "service après-vente ".
Déjà que, quand il s'agit d'un produit gratuit, à quoi bon le mettre à disposition si on n'est pas capable de faire face aux problèmes qu'il pose, mais alors quand c'est payant, là on n'a plus droit à l'erreur. Et sinon, il vaut mieux changer de métier. A bon entendeur les gens de Neoworx.
Leurs outils sont très jolis aussi ( les mêmes concepteurs que Geovisite ? ).
Puis-je suggérer à Neoworx pour le globe, de permettre de changer la couleur du fond pour avoir la possiblilité de faire ressortir le globe sur un fond clair.Mais ce produit est payant et vraiment trop cher pour ce que c'est et c'est dommage.
Et quand on passe la période d'essai, le résidu gratuit est une véritable horreur. Particulièrement NeoEarth. Le globe n'a pas de version gratuite, peut-être qu'il vaut mieux ...
Un conseil ! Ne proposez rien plutôt que proposer ça.
En revanche, le Neocounter dans sa forme gratuite, ultra simple, c'est presque ... Geocounter ( à une lettre près et pas seulement ). On a là le nombre de visiteurs et d'où ils viennent : ça c'est très appréciable.
NEOWORX
Neoworx is extremely similar to Geovisite, it's exactly the same type of products laid out practically similarly on the website, with a sphere, a map, an unraveling table and a list of subscribers on the right side.
Almost as if it were the same company as Geovisite, but with a subscription product. If this is not the case, then it looks awfully like plagiarism and I seriously doubt that : in this matter, if it were the case, we wouldn certainly be aware of it by the lawsuit that would follow.
I also observed they had the same problem with customer support.
It's bad enough for a free product when it's offered to everyone without support for the problems generated by its usage, but there is simply no room for errors for a subscription based service. If you can't offer the support, better change trades. Good luck to you, Neoworx people.
Their tools are very pretty too ( same creators as Geovisite ? ).
If I can make a suggestion for the sphere, please allow the user to change the fill-in color in order to emphasize the sphere as compared to the background.
But this product isn't free and really too expensive for what it does, and it's a pity.
And once the trial period is over, the remaining free program is truly terriblly poor. Particularly neoearth. The sphere doesn't have a free version, which maybe is better...
One piece of advice : you're probably better off not offering anything for free than that.
On the other hand, Neocounter in its free, ultra-simplified form, is almost exactly like ... Geocounter (after all there is only one letter difference). This will give you the number of visitors and their origin which is very useful and appreciated.
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- CLUSTRMAPS
Je n'ai pu tester que le produit gratuit, qui offre une petite carte avec les visiteurs représentés par des cercles qui grossissent en fonction du nombre à un endroit donné.
Quand on clique sur la petite carte on a accès à une carte plus grande très agréable et qui permet de visualiser dans le monde entier les visiteurs. Avec le nombre total de visiteurs depuis le début de l'utilisation de Clustrmaps et le nombre de visiteurs du jour.
C'est gratuit certes mais moi personnellement j'aurais aimé en passant le curseur sur les points rouges avoir le lieu réel écrit. Ce n'est pas le cas. Et on ne sait pas s'il y a des visiteurs au moment où l'on y est. Dommage, un peu trop bref.Je sais que la version payante donne tous ces renseignements ...
- CLUSTRMAPS
I've only been able to test the free product, which offers a small chart where visitors are represented by circles the size of which gets bigger according to the numbers of visitors from a given place.
Clicking on the small chart brings about a very pleasant larger chart which makes it possible to visualize the visitors worldwide. You can also get the total number of visitors since you started using Clustrmaps and the number of visitors of the day.
Of course it's a free product, but personnally I would have appreciated if rolling over the red dots displayed the actual location's name. This is not the case. Also, there is no way of knowing if there are other visitors on the blog in real time.
Alas, just a bit too ... short. I do know that the subscription version provides all this information ...
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- MAPS.AMUNG.US
Outil totalement gratuit et de grande qualité.
On a le choix parmi plusieurs moutures, plusieurs couleurs, cartes etc. Une carte petite, moyenne ou plus grande s'affiche d'abord.Avec un grand choix de modèles de point d'impact des visiteurs. Un grand choix de couleur aussi.
Et l'affichage est en temps réel , c'est-à-dire que s'il y a des visiteurs, l'endroit où ils se trouvent clignote.
Lorsque l'on clique sur la carte sur le blog, la carte s'aggrandit et lorsque l'on passe le curseur sur les points, les villes et pays s'affichent.
Autant dire que de très loin c'est ce produit qui à mes yeux emporte la mise. Nul besoin de faire appel au "service après vente" ( même s'il n'y a pas de vente ). Il est au point et efficace.
- MAPS.AMUNG.US
A completely free tool of great quality.
One can choose among several grids, colors, charts etc. First a small, medium or large map is displayed.
There is quite some choice for the different "impact points" of the visitors. There is a great choice of colors too.
And posting is done in real time, i.e. if there are visitors online, the place where they are located flickers. After clicking on the chart in the blog, the Chart itself enlarges and whenever your mouse cursor rolls over the dots, the actual cities and countries are displayed.
Suffice it to say that this is by far the product which, in my opinion, tops the bill. No need to call customer service ( and without any buying involved ). It's efficient and rolls like a train.
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- FEEDJIT
Excellent outil aussi, gratuit, avec une grande variété de possibilités. Il permet de savoir d'où viennent nos visiteurs. Et il permet d'afficher sur quelle page les visiteurs arrivent et vers où ils partent.
Et en cliquant sur Options, on a encore d'autres possibilités, comme une carte très détaillée, avec possibilté de se déplacer et de zoomer. Vraiment formidable !
- FEEDJIT
Also an excellent and free tool, with a large variety of possibilities.
Feedjit allows you to find which link your visitors followed to land on your blog and also from what page they leave your blog where to. When customizing the Options, there are still more possibilities, like a very detailed chart, the ability to zoom and to change sizes. Really amazing !
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Donc mon conseil, pour le moment : usez et abusez de MAPS.AMONG.US et de FEEDJIT, les seuls que je vais conserver
Et si d'autres produits existent, je serais ravie de les découvrir.
Thus my advice, for the time being, is to use and abuse of MAPS.AMONG.US and FEEDJIT, the only geolocalisation tools I will keep.
And if other products exist, I would be delighted to discover them.
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2 comments:
As a member of the ClustrMaps Team, I have to say that I am very impressed with the style and content (and motivation!) of your report.
There are just three comments I wanted to add in the way of clarification:
1. ClustrMaps is aimed at a very specific niche, namely we are all about speed and scalability... so we can show "an impossibly large number of dots in an impossibly small area, impossibly fast". The overall "gestalt" is what is important to us, which means right now we omit other features and statistics -- but it means we can handle millions of visitors to a particular site, and display the results instantly.
2. Our customer service is widely acknowledged to be the best around (heh, but as you rightly say, you shouldn't ever need it for any tool)... on the other hand here we are, scouring the web and looking for user's opinions! See comments on our review site, e.g. the 4th one down from Marshall Kirkpatrick about awesome customer service.
3. For a better comparison, of course you need to look at ClustrMaps+ , and since you are such an enthusiastic reviewer and commentator, I have just upgraded you for free to ClustrMaps+ . The better zoomed-in maps will appear within a few days, and the ads will disappear right away. There are no conditions or 'strings attached'... a fair analysis is the best we can ask of anyone. We respect the competition, and feel we can coexist by emphasizing our unique strengths in terms of the gestalt, speed, and scalability of our approach.
Many thanks for your care and attention. Constructive comments are of course always welcome, and we will always strive to improve our capabilities - as you can imagine, many of those capabilities, such as mouse rollovers, already exist in experimental versions.
All the best,
-CJ on behalf of the ClustrMaps Team
Je vais suivre vos conseils alors. Je vais tester ses outils et ne manquerai pas de revenir avec un complément d 'info ;)
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