Monitoring what people are doing as they interact on your websites is one thing. Launching a chat application to talk to them as they browse is quite another.
TechCrunch today has details about Woopra, an analytics provider that lets you chat to your users in real time as they browse your site.
The implications are pretty huge, you know that they arrived at the site by searching for “blue widgets” so you can ask them if they found what they are looking for and direct them to the right page if they are having trouble with the search form. The only problem is do people like to be watched in this way?
I know that webmasters can watch my every move online but most people think that browsing the web is a fairly anonymous affair.
As Arrington says in the comments: “Someone opens up a chat window on me while I’m visiting a website, I never come back.”
It’s kind of stalky isn’t it? I guess on some sites it might be helpful, but I would turn it the other way around and ask for a help request instead of somebody watching my moves if I can find the article I’m looking for.