Ask HN: I'm looking to get started in Analytics; recommendations?

People I trust have told me his books are great reads.

I'm self-taught on analytics and blog about it, but it is probably scattered over the last couple of years of posts. I wouldn't recommend it for an entry to the discipline.

http://www.clicktale.com/ (watch actual browsing behavior/generates heatmaps)

http://www.crazyegg.com/ (another heatmap generator)

http://ethnio.com/ (less about analytics but usability is good too — this helps recruit users for usability testing straight from your website).

http://www.kampyle.com/ (get feedback from your users from a little widget).

http://www.kissmetrics.com/ (track and optimize conversion funnels)

http://mixpanel.com/ (more of a general analytics solution)

You don't have to use all of these solutions, but start playing around with some and pulling in data.

http://www.tableausoftware.com/ Data Visualization http://www.edwardtufte.com Edward Tufte - Visual Data

I also recommend setting up the tracking code on a dev environment to get used to the interface & how it reports :)

Depending on your project scope I really enjoyed 'Programming Collective Intelligence' by Toby Segaran. Some of the web API samples may be out of date at this point but I don't consider that a deal breaker if you can find it used cheap.

http://measuringmeasures.com/blog/2010/3/12/learning-about-m...