Applications of Google Analytics real-time (or any other real-time web statistics package)

Around late September 2011, Google added real-time capabilities to their already stellar Google Analytics product.

What you may wonder is how exactly having access to real-time analytics useful?

Here are a few scenarios/examples:
1. Online Magazines
Promote one or more among many articles that are getting a lot visitors to a prominent place on your website.

2. Online Stores
See immediately which product is getting a lot of interest and take pre-emptive action.
For example a “Black Friday” sale can result in a product selling out. Looking at real-time stats can make an online store decide whether to re-order a certain product immediately or make some arrangements to tell customers that deliveres may be late. Assuming that the purchase behavior online mimics that of a purchaser at a brick-and-mortar store, a vendor can make advance assumptions on product display and stocking decisions.

3. Impact of time sensitive news on your audience
See how many people immediately react to say a Twitter posting on something.

4. Checking whether a Google analytics installation is working correctly

Now its imporant to note that the entire Google Analytics reports is not  available real-time. Just a small sub-section of visitors statistics.

Its a start for Google and in time it will catch up with other vendors in the real-time marketplace because Google has the engineering talent and the money.