New York — Google has just announced the release of public beta version of its Google Analytics API after running a private beta program with hundreds of developers for about a year. This indicates that developers will now be able to do all kinds of fun stuff with the program.
With the launching of Google Analytics data API, indicates that Google is enabling developers to extend Google Analytics in new and creative ways by providing a standardized platform for integrating analytics data with their own business data.
Developers can now combine Google Analytics into a wide variety of their existing products and create standalone applications that they sell. An API-based client application can deliver custom reports, more refined data or new visualizations that in turn provide new ways to analyze the performance of websites and web applications.
Users could view a snapshots of their analytics data in developer created dashboards and gadgets. And users and business owners will have opportunities to access their Google Analytics information in a variety of new ways.
In a blog post by Nick Mihailovski and the Google Analytics API Team, Mihailovski said:
“The Data Export API is easy to use and provides read-only access to all your Analytics data. Any data that is available through the standard Analytics web interface is available through the API.”
The Analytics API is a Google Data API. This is the same API protocol for Google Calendar, Finance and Webmaster Tools. If you’ve used any of these APIs, the Google Analytics Data Export API will look very familiar to you.
“Large organizations and agencies now have a standardized platform for integrating Analytics data with their own business data,” says Mihailovski.
“For the JavaScript and Java programming languages, we have provided client libraries to abstract and simplify the process. We are also working on supporting more programming languages. In the meantime, for any programming language you want to use you can make requests directly to the API over HTTP and access the data in XML.”
The Google Analytics Developer Site contains numerous examples of what non-Google developers are doing with it. Google does note that it does not vouch for performance of any of the apps using it.
One such applications that was developed using the API and which is being featured on the launch website is Polaris, one of the products built by Desktop Reporting, which aims to bring Google Analytics to the desktop.
In the meantime, Google partners are supplying applications that use the API and provide users with access to analytics. For instance, Actual Metrics has released an Android application that allows users to access Google Analytics from their phones.
It is also worth to see what other third-party developers come up with now that the API is finally out there. Google already put some examples online in this gallery, but if you have anything cool to announce in the future, you know where to find us.
In addition, Mihailovski said, “MailChimp has integrated Google Analytics into their email marketing platform and ShufflePoint provides a service for adding Google Analytics data into PowerPoint presentations. See how youcalc has created apps that allow you to mashup Google Analytics, AdWords, Salesforce.com and other enterprise data.”
The company also set up a Google Analytics API Notify email group so you can get the key announcements on feature updates, code changes and other service related news that relate to the API that way, and / or you can join the Google Analytics APIs Group.
Google also suggests using the following three resources when beginning to develop using the Google Analytics API:
– The documentation at Google Code
– the Google Analytics API Notify email group
– the Google Analytics APIs Group
For more details about how the API works, you can read this blog post from Google about it. It would be very interesting to see where developers take Google Analytics now.