Web analytics, web metrics, and how to use them to track and improve conversions

Earlier I noticed the  Web Analytics One Hour a Day with Eric Peterson - Webcast looked as if Kaushik and Peterson were taking swipes at each other) but then, Sebastian Wenzel wrote about it in Web Analytics Demystified vs. Web Analytics An Hour A Day and thought the whole thing was/is funny and amusing - so maybe it is:

"...Maybe a funny marketing trick of Eric and Avinash, maybe some web analytics blogger “payback” for breaking the unwritten rule.  I think it is hilarious !"

 Also Mymotech picked up on the conflict and wrote -Eric Peterson Equips his WebCast of +7 to Irony and noted:

"...Like a small child quivering alone in his dark bedroom while mommy and daddy yell at each other in the den, I have marked with concern the recent blog posts coming from Eric Peterson and Avinash Kaushik.

To be fair, it would appear that the first blow was struck by Avinash in his post entitled “Web Analytics Demystified“, which is of course the name of not only Eric’s book but also his consulting business.

And then today I notice a post over one Eric’s blog entitled “Web Analytics: An Hour a Day” which of course is the title of Avinash’s book."

I know Avinash and Eric, neither all that well, but well enough - I don't think they're particularly close friends with each other - I would tend not to think they'd drum up a conflict just to drive more traffic to each other's blog posts and sites - but maybe I'm wrong.

Mymotech goes on to attribute three possibilities here:

"...Well, what goes on here? is what I want to know. Here are some possibilities:

1. We have seen the first rift in two distinctly different schools of thought as they relate in approach to web analytics. Making way for the inevitable fulfillment of Chris Grant’s prophecy.
2. Eric and Avinash are experimenting with being a Fred?
3. Eric and Avinash are pulling some sort of friendly joke on each other, and forgot to tell me, not knowing that my world collapses when people I look up to start fighting.

OK, if these are the three reasons (I don't know, maybe there are more reasons) I'd cross out the third one - I really don't think these guys get along .... all that well. They get along .... but it's really hard for me to imagine them working closely together....and coordinating a joke between them.  Look, maybe I'm wrong - but I don't think so.

Not too sure about the second reason - since I wasn't at the Emetrics Summit in Santa Barbara in 2006.

I'm much more inclined to believe what is going on between Avinash and Eric fits the first possibility - that Avinash is going one way and Eric, another.  It may be a territorial issue ... not too sure -  there are certainly undercurrents going on - that doesn't surprise me, BTW, as that's kinda how life is, in general.

But if I had to bet on one of the reasons why those posts I alluded to happened, I'd pick reason number one.