The Google Analytics team has just released a new API ^[1], allowing developers to take the analytics data and create customized applications from them, this news is pretty exciting, since having a desktop tool to keep track of Google analytics, can save publishers a lot of time.

If you are looking for a free tool to monitor Google analytics from your desktop, a tool called Polaris can come to good use.

Polaris is a Adobe Air ^[2] application that allows you to monitor your Google Analytics account from your desktop. Polaris is a cross-platform desktop widget for Google Analytics. With 8 standard reports it’s the easiest way keep your data always instantly available. The rich interface and swift navigation make it a pleasure to use.

Polaris is free for single profile/single website usage, if you have more than one profiles or websites, you will need to shell out $15 per year.

A similar tool for Google Analytics was available earlier, however it has been taken off the shelf now.

Polaris requires that you have Adobe Air installed on your system before you use the software.

Download Polaris ^[3]