(Disclaimer: I'm a proud founder at http://ducksboard.com)

1) It's pretty transparent because we're a small team (of 3) :) We have a large 37' screen with general information (leads, support tickets, milestones, active users...) and also all of us are using it individually for tracking other metrics (f.i. I'm tracking mainly marketing metrics, while Jan is an addict to PostgreSQL performance).

2) We have a set of predefined widgets, but we mainly push data through a REST API. It's so easy to set up, that even a VC can do it :P

Next week we'll open up the invites floodgates (a.k.a. "public beta"). If you want to try it, please sign up for an account in our site and then sent me an email (diego_at_ducksboard.com) saying that you read this comment on HN. There's a priority line for HN users :)