Google Analytics will change the world.
November 19, 2005 at 07:17 PM
Well, the business and consumer world online anyway. And no that's not hyperbole.
"The demand for Google Analytics surpassed even our highest expectations and as a result some customers may temporarily experience report-update delays."
That's what they told me when I logged in today. And I see why, these are supreme stats. Incredibly powerful stats. Stats that teach you how to market. Yes you heard me, the way Google has this set up, it's a quick education in online marketing. So tracking your marketing in particular is just going to completely alter the way people market online. I've long seen the need for precision tracking of marketing initiatives (tracking ROI in particular); and I'm convinced that when this information is accessible to any company with minimal effort, particularly for companies struggling to make the web work, we will all benefit. Oh sure it'll get tons more competitive (so start now if you haven't already) but with everyone having easy access to the same tools and resources, the playing field is becoming more and more level. That my friends is Google's great contribution to business (and it's why they are a zillion dollar company).
Yup, I agree. This is going to change things for Omniture, Web Story, and even those small guys. The tool is top notch, and free. Its like someone handed me a pile of cash to pay for a great service.
Posted by: Cody Lindley | November 21, 2005 at 09:37 AM
I'm just glad I got in early! I use Mint on my own site, but for a newer one that just launched, I decided to try Google Analytics, and it's been great thus far.
Posted by: Nathan Smith | November 21, 2005 at 09:41 AM
And to add insult to injury, it looks like they've stopped accepting new customers at all. Sheesh Google, did you really doubt this would be in hot demand? I'm glad I got in when I did. Wish I had set up all my sites instead of just 2 though as it also looks like I can't even add new sites with my _existing_ account. I suspect (hope?) they'll address this pretty quickly. I've got about 10 more sites I need to add.
Posted by: Carson McComas | November 21, 2005 at 09:51 AM
It makes total sense for google and its customers. google helps its adwords customers, which in turn helps google. Watching this type of market over the last few years, continuously propels me to the same conclusion: generalized software will be harder and harder to compete with in a global internet market. in other words things like, website hosting and design (e.g. microsofts new free hosting and office software service http://officelive.microsoft.com), shopping cart software (e.g. http://veracart.com vs http://zencart.com), site analytics (e.g. http://Omniture.com), email (hotmail, gmail), site search tools, payment collection (e.g. paypal.com), or any type of tool that can basically help you run your business, etc... will become "free"--as a result of the opensource community as well as monopolistic players like Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc... This will drive software developers (e.g. Omniture) into custom development for enterprise clients (e.g. Ebay), so they are not out of the count, but will lose potentially a good market share of shallower pocket clients. So my approach is quite simple, I will use urchin until I start to feel that it is not rapidly accelerating my business, then ask Omniture to do a split A/B test to compare how mcuh their program can help me, then calculate ROI (if my web business makes 10 - 100 million a year, 100 k is not much if I think it can really offer some serious benefits). This will drive software developers to focus on niche markets, and niche products. It is inevitable. I just thought a minute ago how wikipedia will probably put Encyclopedia Britannica out of business relatively quickly. Open source and community efforts are in their infancy. I should know, every year I get new free tools, which were previously unavailable to help me market a particular business of mine selling brazilian jeans online. Google even says they have a partner network to provide interpretation of data--a claimed current advantage by omniture, although omniture is just announced they are going public--are they worried? maybe, maybe not. Urchin has always been cheap or free (e.g. if you host with Verio), so I doubt much has changed here. Now google is giving away a couple hundred dollar urchin package, but essentially without premium support, so it really costs them a fraction, so whats $100 when it can help us marketers to make an extra few thousand for them in adwords spending? I will be trying omniture (site catalyst) later this week to compare. paul, can you explain some promary differences between these programs? I notice that catalyst talks about teh screen overlay in their demo--google has this too, I counted about 40-80 various reports in my new google analytics account today, and they look a lot like site catalysts (from the demo I saw). BLEW ME AWAY !!
Posted by: eran | May 27, 2006 at 07:19 PM