Web Logs Finally Meet Sim City

l0rd writes "A good piece on wired says : A few games of Roller Coaster Tycoon don't usually translate into productive work, but for one developer the diversion planted the seed for making website analysis more intuitive. Several years after playing those inspirational games, Robert Savage came up with VisitorVille, a website-traffic analysis package that essentially crosses the DNA of SimCity with that of the traditional chart- and graph-centric tools businesses have long been using. Screenshots included."

SimDisaster

[zenetik]

It's all fun and games until a SimTornado comes and wipes out your city.

Slashdot

[Venner]

They could do that. Just put a big slashdot logo inside the tornado.

Slashdot Effect?

[protolith]

Would it appear as a swarm of locust?

Just like RCT?

[Fiz Ocelot]

But Can I pick up visitors and toss them in the water just like roller coaster tycoon? That game is awsome, I certainly hope they make another with full 3D environments.

Re:Slashdot

[lpangelrob2]

They could do that. Just put a big slashdot logo inside the tornado.

And start blinking a "Run Siren" button... the only thing different from the game is, after you click the button, the people slow to a crawl instead of running for shelter.

the city that never sleeps

[GillBates0]

A company's entire Web presence is seen as an urban or suburban neighborhood, with each individual Web page presented as a building. The more visitors on a site, the taller the buildings, and the brighter the lights on each floor.

Visitorville [visitorville.com]'s sure in for some real skyrises and bright lights today...here we come :)

What I'd like to know...

[Queuetue]

Is if this is just useless, or if it's expensive, as well.

Damn Kids!

[Dorf on Perl]

Get those damn kids off of about.html's grass!! Get outta here, you whippersnappers! Why, when I was your age, we more'd through NSCA logs by hand and we liked it!

Re:Slashdot Effect?

[daniil]

A rain of whales would be cooler, though.

demilitarized zone

[dfn5]

VisitorVile is telling me my web site has turned into a getto. Time to install the police station apache mod and upload more parks.

SimDisasters!

[Xaroth]

Obviously a single page that gets overloaded should be represented by the Riot or Fire events.

Slashdotting would be, what... the Tornado? Maybe the giant Godzilla! Rawr!

Re:Just like RCT?

[ack154]

But Can I pick up visitors and toss them in the water just like roller coaster tycoon?

So would that be an IP denial?

Re:Just like RCT?

[aerojad]

Pick them up and toss one by one? You're so inefficent! See what you do is delete the path leading out the park. Wait a while, thousands of people stand by the gates not being able to get out... then you lower the land under the remaining path until it's water. Then delete the path as the people still stand on it :D

vulnerability scans?

[jabella]

i wonder if someone scanning for the newest webdav worm of the week shows up as a little bank robber running around the town, checking every door....

My favorite new running metaphor!

[teamhasnoi]

"That's the 15th 'Slashdot' bus I've seen this morning! Is there a Fat Virgin Convention in town? I have to get my ass to work!"

"I know, not only have they plugged all the streets, but they're filling every coffee shop. I tried to get a biscotti this morning and I couldn't even get to the counter! They were just pushing and shoving to get to the counter, and then they'd just read the menu and leave. Bastards who did order just got a cup of coffee, then dumped it on the floor. Bastards."

"Yeah, the Mayor ought to do something, maybe put up signs for Slashdot tourists that send them to TubGirl town, or Goatseville. One sight of those neighborhoods would get their asses out of here..."

"Who lives there, anyway?"

"Trust me, you don't want to know..."

Slashdot representation

[thatguywhoiam]

So have they programmed this thing to show a frothing, bloodthirsty mob with pitchforks and torches, to represent the Slashdot effect?

I can just see it... there would be a spotlight that comes out of the sky, and then the zombie users would descend, burning everything in their path and reducing the building to rubble. Then little clean-up crews and such afterwards.

zerg

[Lord Omlette]

Until they give it a name on par w/ "spinning cube of potential DOOM", it's not gonna cut the mustard.

Speaking of which, ever since I read that article, it's been pretty much downhill for everyone else's project names too. Hm.

Re:Just like RCT?

[Xaroth]

Bah. Set up the launcher ride (you know the one - it goes straight up and back down) at maximum height and maximum force. It will quickly become the most popular ride at the park, so make sure you have a big queue for it. In fact, it's *so* popular, that people will keep coming back, even after multiple explosions.

The people will LINE UP FOR HOURS WAITING TO DIE.

What's more, if you put the ride on land that's high enough, it will clip off the top of the game world and your people will be counted as leaving the park twice. Kill everyone and watch as the park population actually goes into the negative!

VisitorVille traffic as of today

[luxuryluke]

and the VisitorVille.com analyzer reports:

"SimCopter 1 reporting heavy traffic!"

Re:Slashdot

[mackman]

Actually, in the Wired screenshots you see people arrive from askjeves.com in a bus with the askjeves.comlogo on the top. I would immagine /. would look more like that scene in Troy of the 10,000 boats arriving full of angry soldiers.

Floor Wax

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

It's an intuitive design that uses visuals to display what even the best log-analysis tool could never display.

But wait! There's more! It's a desert topping AND a floor wax, too!

Nah.. rioting.

[Otto]

A much better metaphor for the /. effect.

Thousands and thousands of buses with "/." on top pour into the town. They all dump 50-60 passengers each and the streets suddenly become full. It's so packed that there's rioting in the streets and fighting. Everyone pours out of the buildings to join in the looting, and every building in town goes dark as people make for the exits. The streets are so packed that the /. buses are just plowing through the people in town, leaving bloody corpses strewn in their wake. As the looting continues, people start making off with the foundations of the buildings and, one by one, they start simply collapsing and filling the area with rubble and dust.

After you yank the network cable, the dust slowly clears and all you find is countless corpses, destroyed buildings, and smashed busloads of people from where the buildings fell on them.

If that isn't the perfect metaphor, what is?

Re:Slashdotting represented by reactor meltdown

[sakyamuni]

Time to file that patent application, eh?

Lies!

[Mr. Spontaneous]

Please note: We are currently experiencing an extremely heavy server load due to the Wired article. Some images may not load. Thank you for your patience.
-From the visitorville website

Wired article my ass... its because the article got /.'d

Where's the love?

Slight Graphic Tweak

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it would strengthen the metaphor a bit if the AOL bus was a short bus instead of the full-length one they're using now.

Re:Slashdot

[mikael]

According to kiddofspeed [kiddofspeed.com], being /.'ed was similar to being invaded by a horde of mongols.

Wouldnt browser type be more useful than TLD

[lifebouy]

I mean, its all good to know whether the visitor is from .com or .edu. But really, what you should be after is whether you need to optimize for IE or Mozilla/Netscape/FireFox.

Maybe if your site fails to properly load for a browser, the visitor should burst into flames with associated noises. That way website owners would not remain oblivious to broken websites. It would be uncomfortable explaining to the boss why avatars are screaming and dying whenever they enter your site.

I propose an unwashed heathen for IE users, a cool looking guy for the various incarnations of Netscape/Moz with associated logos on the shirts, a blind person with a cane for lynx users and a mad scientist for Opera. As alternatives, you could use a person in a wheelchair or stait jacket for IE and, hey, an opera singer for Opera. I want Bender for web spiders, its not negotiable:)

If you include mail servers in there, you could use mail trucks to deliver the mail, with the brown UPS trucks delivering from non-spam sites and the USPS trucks delivering from sites that are known spam havens. I know Im more excited to see the UPS truck than the USPS truck. Nobody sends junkmail through UPS.

You forgot a Simpsons reference

[joggle]

I was thinking more along the lines of 10,000 Canyoneros.

We need more things like this.

[thatguywhoiam]

You know after thinking about this product for a bit (and reading the near-instantaneous consensus about what a Slashdot effect would look like) I think there should definitely be more work into things like this.

I could easily see how a few real world metaphors can be used in a sort of 'stretchy' fashion, the way the buildings get bigger and smaller in this thing based on how many people are 'in' it. I wonder how it handles the fact that people change locations pretty much instantly.

Of course the next step is full on Grand Theft Router with little armed PacketPeople who can actually fight for bandwidth! Yeah! Or maybe capture the flag, but the flag is actually a P2P connection. And moderators would be huge silent golems striding through the city, rearranging things as they see fit, stepping on some but lifting up others, and never telling us why... and of course the Ancient Editor Gods, resplendent in their ivory towers floating above, casting down both wisdom and duplicate stories in equal measure. Ah, what a sight it would be.

Almost perfect

[joggle]

Thousands and thousands of buses with "/." on top pour into the town.

Shouldn't those be Canyoneros with /. on top? Not only would they drop off passengers, they'd get involved in nocking down the buildings and running over the corpses and other vehicles as well.

Re:Yes

[jdray]

Yeah, a Post Office in the city with a huge truck that makes regular runs to the city dump. :^)

Re:Slashdot

[Anne_Nonymous]

If they're coming from askjeves.com, they're probably riding the "short bus".

Sim City Visuals?

[darkpixel2k]

So when your site gets slashdotted, how does it show up? A giant lizard attacking your city?