Just reading my Web Analytics Yahoo Group mail today and Eric Peterson mentions a few good books on Web Analytics coming out early and mid 2007.
"....Wow! I was talking to Phil Kemelor, author of "The Executive's Guide to Web Site Measurement and Testing"
(http://www.pkwc.com/exec/bio.php) and he mentioned that he'd seen that both Avinash Kaushik and Jason Burby were writing books on web analytics due out early next year.
Check it out!
Avinash's book:
http://www.amazon.com/Web-Analytics-Hour-Avinash-Kaushik/dp/0470130652/sr=8-13/qid=1166033334/ref=sr_1_13/104-5787954-3839922?ie=UTF8&s=books
Jason and Shane's book:
http://www.amazon.com/Actionable-Web-Analytics-Business-Decisions/dp/0470124741/sr=8-12/qid=1166033334/ref=pd_bbs_sr_12/104-5787954-3839922?ie=UTF8&s=books
Plus, just in case you're new to the space, there will be a "Web
Analytics for Dummies" book around the same time:
Dummies:
http://www.amazon.com/Web-Analytics-Dummies-Pedro-Sostre/dp/0470098244/sr=8-6/qid=1166033334/ref=pd_bbs_sr_6/104-5787954-3839922?ie=UTF8&s=books"
Well I just wrote the other day regarding making products and services a commodity:
"....Many of the best of us moved up the value to chain to Web Analytics - because that's much harder to Commoditize - and way more interesting.
But if, if 5 years from now - there's a book called Web Analytics - one hour a day ..... like there's one for SEO, and everyone wants to be a Web Analyst of their own data - it will be time to move on to something else. "
Well...I don't have to wait 5 years because Avinash is writing the book right now! And I'm not going anywhere - but I do want to point out there's two forces that need to be constantly balanced.
On one hand, as Web Analytics progresses what was difficult yesterday becomes easy today. Yesterday (pre Google Analytics) - it has hard for the average person to afford to use high powered analytics for your average website - now it's open to everyone and many people are flying with it. They're flying with it so much that other companies like ClickTracks are having a harder time making a value proposition to buy their products because Google Analytics has offered a powerful product with a cheap price ...free.
Google Analytics is not the end solution for large corporations - there' s a lot of things that you need powerful enterprise solutions for - but clearly - the bar was lifted much higher with GA entering the market.
But... with the popularization of Web Analytics comes the very real possibility of making it a commodity. The only way to keep ahead is to reinvent the field of Web Analytics continually and offer services beyond what can be done cheaply and easily - And truthfully, one the main challenges of our time is to keep ahead of the curve - or else your skills become obsolete.
So all the books about Web Analytics in 2007 and beyond - that's great - but when it gets to the point that everyone is an expert (like what's happened to SEO) the bar will be moved much higher and much more will be expected - things individuals and companies don't have the expertise to do easily by themselves.
Naturally, I'll buy all three books when they come up.
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