GitHub this week is introducing its GitHub Traffic Analytics service, providing users of the popular code-sharing site with information about where viewers of particular repositories are coming from and which content they are viewing.
With the Web analytics capability, developers with projects on GitHub can find out how many viewers of their project are coming from sites like Google or stackoverflow.com; previously, developers on GitHub only had access to such information as questions being opened.
"Now, when you have a project on GitHub, you also get to see how many people are visiting your repositories everyday and where they are coming from, where they hear about your project," said Brian Doll, who heads up marketing at GitHub. "You might find your project is being talked about on a public forum, and that's interesting to you has a developer." Information provided on which content is being accessed could assist developers with prioritizing issues in their project, said Doll.
The service provides for better social interaction among developers, said analyst Michael Cote, of 451 Research. "Before GitHub, most of the community around code was pretty faceless: It was just forum posts, not really passive users and lurkers around the code," Cote said. "With things like this and GitHub as a whole, developers can get a better sense for who's interested in their work."
GitHub Traffic Analytics was implemented via a custom analytics tier built internally. In 2008, GitHub briefly had a traffic graph capability that provided information on page views, but the new service is more sophisticated, Doll said.
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