Eric T. Peterson wrote an open call to President Elect Barack Obama today, asking the new Chief Technology Officer of the United States, when he or she is appointed, to push for use of First Party Cookies on most Governent sites.

In much the same way that President Obama has to give up his Blackberry upon taking office next month, due to privacy regulations that are difficult to update, so is the Federal Goverment inhibited from using data analytics for insight gathering.

But there are certainly arguments for allowing data collection for insight that does not violate privacy and, I believe, it’s doable.

In fact,this is an area where The Wen Analytics Association can help, by enforcing Peterson’s Open Call (we’re on it) AND creating frameworks and guidence documentation satisfying how data collected can be used while not invading privacy issues (and we need to do that, as well).

Why now, and not before?

Because, the new administration has a much more progressive agenda, is more open and technology savvy, and is likely to try moving forward on making web technology and tracking a way of listening to what citizens want.

And I feel, as web analysts, we could support this progressive agenda by providing firepower for it, via framework documents.

Just a thought on this Wednesday in November.

BTW, this post was created on my IPhone, no hyperlinks and limmited spell/grammer checking, but otherwise a great way to blog.

Sometimes, on difficult days, like today, or was it yesterday, now, I just feel like throwing in the towel, on Social Media.

I haven’t given up, won’t. Still, there’s a lot of obstacles to overcome, and can be difficult.

Even as Barack Obama begins the first YouTube Presidency, you’d think there would be recognition of the vital role of Social Media within professional, member driven organizations. Particularly, in Web Analytics, because it’s the Web Analysts, who, by nature of our tools and focus on online and marketing data analytics, are best suited to evaluate the success of Social.

Yet, for all the potential, before us, the path to it, is too often, blocked, by ignorance.

Where would Barack Obama be, today, if he believed, and those around him believed, that social media wasn’t important? Vital.

You’d think that now, especially just now, would be the perfect time to ramp up on social media as it’s one of the least expensive and most effective ways of reaching people.

But some people don’t see it that way; it’s like, they are not on the same page.

You know, I was speaking to a friend recently about the most effective source of traffic to her site; she used Google Analytics custom segmentation and found out that Stumbleupon was 1500% more effective than any other other source of referral traffic …and it’s a well known site that gets several million visits a month.

And yet …. You’ll find plenty of organizations who believe Social Media is not particularly important. I bet John McCain did not think much about Social Media, and look where he is, today.

Actually, I’m glad McCain and Palin didn’t focus on Social Media; I didn’t want them to win.

But in other cases, you’d be surprised; I know, I was.

Recently, I asked Eric T. Peterson, author of Web Analytics Demystified, what he thinks Analytics Organizations ought to focus on.

Peterson said, an Analytics Organization, in this case, The Web Analytics Association (my question to Eric was what did he think the WAA ought to focus on regarding Social Media); in that context, Eric mentioned the WAA should focus on Social Media Metrics (which, we actually, are, and will be publishing social media standards next year).

Eric asked me to make this correction, and I am glad I did, since I left out, from my earlier writing, on this post, the WAA’s work on drafting standards, the beginnings of which, started through my efforts via the Social Media Committee, which I built, from scratch. Social Media is now the largest committee of the WAA, with 76 members, by the way , about 8% if the entire WAA membership.

I also asked him if Special Interest Groups, or SIGs, would be useful for this purpose.

By the way, I noticed the recent EMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit that I attended, in Alexandria, VA, had an entire Tract (3 solid days of Social Media sessions) dedicated to Social Media Metrics.

That had never happened before at a Web Analytics Conference; found this encourging, and the speakers were great.

Too bad that focus isn’t actually carried into the organizational level more often.

I would imagine, and suspect, Social Media, really needs more of a focus in most organizations than it gets. Perhaps, that is also true of Online Marketing and Analytics Associations.

In fact, some of the best uses of Social Media, and some of the best presentations this year on Social Media, came from Panalists who worked for or with Non-Profits.

It turns Non-Profits tend to be willing to try things they think work and won’t cost much money.

Anyway, this is a long, rambling post, written entirely on my IPhone, hense, no hyperlinks or grammer, spellchecks.

I’ll be at MobileBarCamp, over at Microsoft Headquarters, in New York City, on Saturday, along with Sebastian Wenzel, WebAnalyticsBook.com; it will be a welcome change, attending this Mobile Analytics grassroots gathering, with Sebastian, who also happens to be part of the Web Analytics Association, the same one whose Board I currently sit on.

On the other hand, this Friday, for me, was a tough but interesting, intense day; Bryan Eisenberg of FutureNowInc and Grokdotcom.com, Jared Freedman of Code4Software.com, Eric T. Peterson of Web Analytics Demystified Inc, and Jesse Harriot of Monster Worldwide, are some of the best people I connected with and spoke with, today, and Bryan, Jared, Eric and Jesse really helped me to make up for misguided individuals who also cross my path. These individuals acted like the Egyptian God, Osiris, banishing another, Seth, associated with the Underworld in Egyptian lore.

Often Myths have their basis in some fundamental truth the myth symbolizes.

And, my conversation with Bryan Eisenberg, who talked me into running for the WAA Board 2 years ago, Bryan has been particularly helpful today and he was sick as a dog, with a bad cold, yet he spoke to me, and shared wisdom and insight. Thanks Bryan!

Again, I’m actually hearing, in my mind, the lore about an Egyptian God, Seth, Replaced, by another, Osiris. One could say ….back in the day.

Perhaps, the mythology of how Seth, God of the Underworld or Nearherworld, gets removed, replaced by Osiris, relates to the month of April Where Spring begins.

What we nead is renewal and the right focus. And maybe, we need to drill for that focus, or Oil, in Texas (ops! Solar Panels and Green, Renewable energy, please).

We really nead is Wisdom focused on Social Media and Web Analytics, and, too often, it has not happened.

Yeah, Seth, God of the Underworld being replaced by Osiris, of light and renewal, in April; God Willing, the sooner, the better.

Ok, time for bed, this has been a long, long day.

I’m excited Eric T. Peterson and Web Analytics Demystified, along with ComScore and Josh Chasin, figured out a way to overlay Web Analytics Demystified Visitor Engagement Score; this is big news.

I’m on my way to Emetrics Marketing Optimization Summit DC and writing this from my 3G IPhone using WordPress; I don’t have the ability to link to Eric T.Peterson’s post today, just now, but you can check it out for yourself at webanalyticsdemystified.com, if your interested.

Here’s the thing, I work with Web Analytics and ComScore Media Metrix, quite a lot, and have read Eric’s paper recently, so I have a seasoned opinion.

I think Engagement Scoring is going to be a big improvement for ComScore, though I hope it will be provided as part of ComScore’s core reports rather than being a new product that you have to pay extra for. Based on what information I can pull out of Eric’s post, today, I am inclined think the result will be the latter rather than the former.

Why?

Look, 4 of the 7 measures in his formula are used because the other 3 can’t be pulled out of ComScore’s Audience data, and of those the formula used, the base data is already present in any core report ComScore produces.

In his post, Peterson shows the caculated percentages for each engagement index, not the raw data and an example of how he applied his calculation. That’s what leads me to think the Engagement Score will be. Paid addition to standard reports once it’s offered, if it ever is offered (hope I am wrong on this one).

However, I do understand giving away everything valuable is also, not desirable. And, honestly,Engagement Scoring does add value, so thereis some justification for adding additional cost. Clearly, this is a philosophical issue, and I don’t know what the final form of this service will be, anyway.

But, I still think it would be unfair to tack on additional charges for calculations on data to arrive at an Engagement Score based on published and paid for data the subscriber already has.

Think of it this way, some Web Analytics Platforms, as of today, don’t give you “Bounce Rate” but it’s easy to calculate Bounce Rate based on a standard report, so why charge extra for it?

The 4 Engagement Percentages being presented in Eric Petetson’s post, that make up a property’s score aren’t much more complicated to calculate than Bounce rate is.

I think the Web Analytics Demystified Engagement Scoring of ComScore Reports, is a major advance for ComScore, but it needs to be free and offered as soon as possible.

As Eric Peterson noted, there are some features of Audience Measurement that confer a distinct advantage over Web Analytics, such as the Catogorization of web properties.

Peterson quickly came up with a loyal score for any ComScore site by dividing visits to a web property by the total visits to all web properties in the same category; it’s simple, but effective, and draws on data the Subscriber already has in a standard ComScore report, which means a subscriber can do the Loyalty Calculation for themselves, if they want.

I’m looking forward to speaking with Eric Peterson, and hopefully, Josh Chasin about the resarch being presented today, in person, at Emerrics Marketing Optimization Summit.

I want to add one more point, and this is directed more at ComScore; Data that a subscriber already gets in one format (or report) should be made freely available to a ComScore data subscriber in other forms, for no additional charge.

However, if data a ComScore Subscriber already gets is manipulated with additional data the Subscriber doesn’t have (hasn’t paid for) then ComScore, I feel, is well within their rights to repackage the data as a new product.

Examples where ComScore does not appear to be following my advice is their Cross Visiting reports, these are simply a recalulation of data a customer already paid for in the Core Reports.

On the other hand ComScore Segment Metrix adds considerable extra data to Core Reports, improving them; ComScore is entited to market Segment Metrix as an additional product because of all the additional information contained (unlocked, would be a better term).

So, from that point of view, Web Analytics Demystified Engagement scoring ought to be a free enhancement, a gift to ComScore Subscribers, who pay hand over fist for the ComScore offerings, in the first place.

What does Eric Peterson and his brand get out of it? More people know who he is, his brand spreads, which is, by all measures, a good thing.

And now my fingers tire and I’m almost in Washington DC now.

Hope there’s not too many typos and misspellings here, tried my best to avoid that.

Recently a  little tit for tat has been going on between Avanish Kaushak and Eric T. Peterson on weather Web Analytics is Easy or Hard.  I think it's more a matter of style than substance and the audience your trying to reach.

But if we were to summarize the positions of each writer - Avinash would be more like "ER" while Eric's style is more like "House".   

Question is, which one would you want to be treated by? 

Eric Peterson is going to be in Manhattan this Thursday, February 7th, at the Heartland Brewery and I'll be there.   Anyone interested in Web Analytics and Eric's work on Web Analytics Demystified should come - just click on this link to invite yourself and anyone else you want to - the more, the merrier.

Heartland Brewery

Web Analytics Wednesday will be held in New York on the following dates.

Eric Peterson, Web Analytics Guru, author of Web Analytics Demystified, The Big Book of KPIs, Web Site Measurement Hacks, moderator of the yahoo web analytics user forum and CEO/Founder of Web Analytics Demystified Inc., will be in midtown Manhattan Thursday (2/7/08) and is available for an impromptu WAW. The location is to be determined, as we are making arrangements. Let me know if you have any questions (JoelCollymore@hotmail.com)

There's a lot more people in NYC into Web Analytics - this is a free event and free drinks - and maybe some food too.

Besides, I'll ask Eric T. Peterson about Visual Sciences - as I'm working with it now at Monster.com.

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. 

Some people are the "Rock Stars" of any field, and Eric T. Peterson has "Rock Star" status in Web Analytics Circles.  Turns out Eric's Rock Stardom world tour for Web Analytics Demystified has just been announced in Web Analytics Demystified World Tour starts tomorrow!

And guess where Eric will end up at XChange!  Well… I knew he'd be there but now …you know …. and if you want to see Eric T. Peterson (and the rest of us who are in Web Analytics (not sure I'd qualify as a "web analytics rock star" since I don't do World Tours - not yet, anyway) you can catch him at XChange:

"…Thursday, September 20th I will be giving the keynote presentation at SEMphonic X Change in Napa Valley, California.  I am hugely honored to have been asked to present the keynote at this event, especially considering the rock star lineup that will be on hand to run “huddles” and help make X Change a unique event in the web analytics community.  If you haven’t already decided to go to X Change and would like to join us, send me an email and I’ll gladly help you save 15% off the cost of attending.

If you have any questions about how to hook up with me at any of these presentations, please don’t hesitate to write".

I wrote about the Path to xChange at BigGreenBlog recently and on the WAABlog in The Road to XChange - WAA Well represented at Symphonic XChange Conference in Napa Valley.

If your thinking you need what this conference offers, it's not too late to attend - Act now and sign up for XChange.

Is Google Analytics the Killer App? No, according to Eric Peterson.  I did write earlier this week ( Is Google Analytics killing off the rest of the Web Analytics Industry?) that on the low end, yes, but on the high end, no.

"..I think the answer is Yes and No.  Certainly, on the low end, the answer is YES, the low end is, effectively won by Google - ClickTracks, for example, is dead (for better or worse - and I would not be surprised if that's why John Marshall quit ClickTracks a couple of months ago)."

All the solutions that Eric Peterson talk about are for companies that invest (at least, we hope) in Web Analytics Process and have needs way beyond what Google Analytics can hope to offer.  But for smaller companies - or one's that don't want to spend money on Analytics - Google Analytics has, pretty much, taken over the market - even so far as to go after ClickTracks.  According to Eric:

"…Google has “every feature in every product on the market”? Really? Are you sure? Because I can think of dozens and dozens of useful features that I’ve seen in solutions like ClickTracks, Visual Sciences, Omniture, WebTrends, Coremetrics, Unica, … basically every other solution on the market today that aren’t in the version of Google Analytics I’m using. Features like:

• Real visitor segmentation (multidimensional, ad hoc, etc.)
• Custom variables at the visitor, session, and page view level
• The ability to produce custom reports for automated delivery
• The ability to define custom metrics and customize reports in the interface
• The ability to import metadata as an input for analysis
• Commerce-related reports like browse-to-buy ratios
• A browser-overlay that can be customized

(This list goes on and on and on, and has been discussed a great deal by folks like Judah Phillips and Phil Kemelor.)

Right, and most of these things will not be important to most of the people that want Google Analytics.  On the low end, it has taken over, but on the high end, it can not hope to - nor would you want Google crawling and owning a Companies Web Analytics data.

But if anything, Eric's post proves that people who want Google Analytics probably aren't thinking process - don't make any investment (overall) in Analytics and probably don't have anyone really who "owns" analytics.  I know even that generalization is not true - but more or less, as a matter of degree - it's probably true that people who are not really thinking this through, like many of the clients I've end up with lately - are sold on Google Analytics.

But I wrote, in detail, just how messed up Google Analytics is when you try to solve some problems in Free Web Analytics tools cost you in other ways.  To me it supports what Eric Peterson is saying - people just use Google Analytics and then look what happens - they end up in deep doo (trying to get data GA can't handle) - because Google Analytics is not an Enterprise Application - it's not been built for the demands many large, Corporate Businesses require -

"..I was engaged to guide my client's 4 travel distributor websites to greener pastures in a Faustian deal (that I should not have accepted since it was too vague) by using Web Analytics and SEO; my involvement was actually more tangential to what they were doing on a daily basis - still, the client wanted me to be in the center of all of it - and pay me based on performance with a small down payment. 

Performance was based on increase of travel bookings over the last year's (2006) bookings.

As it stands, last year their sites were being redone (but not the commerce pages - figure that one out)  and there was not that much I really needed to deliver; this year, it's another story - with a great deal of information they say they need they hoped would come from the Analytics - information, unfortunately, that's not forthcoming.   Here's the story why it's not happening for them:

When a business that is in a state of unawareness of Analytics - they just want answers - they know nothing about how to make it happen…in other words, you have a business with no process - just a mess of software that does not work too well and is really hard to track.  Just owning that mess takes a full time headcount, you can't do it well unless you invest on having a specialist on board to manage the analytics.

Probably won't be my client much longer (that's a good thing - it's way more of a headache having clients like this than what it's worth) -they  had WebTrends (old version) and I told them to get ClickTracks Pro last year (I was influenced by Avinash Kaushik on that one - it turns out ClickTracks did work for the client - just not at the very last step of the transaction of a travel booking) and when we installed it we found out it was not as well suited because their commerce pages (shopping cart) was hosted on another site and ClickTracks could not, at that time, track the transaction all the way though to the end point (a booking confirmation page). 

The client, angry that Clicktracks did not work as well as they hoped or expected it to,  blamed me for not knowing Clicktracks limitations upfront, and decided to go with Google Analytics in June (because it's free instead of the 4000 bucks - then - it's now 9,000 for the same thing). 

They asked me if Google Analytics would work and it seemed to be tracking the commerce pages once the JavaScript variables were passed to Google Analytics (IE: step 1 page, step 2 page ….. step 7 page … we accomplished that part well enough).

But.. The free "Google Analytics" ended up not being able to show the ultimate source of the web traffic whereas the "paid" Clicktracks did! (once labels were set up for it - a tedious process, but it worked)"

There's probably a hundred stories just like mine - well meaning people who don't understand, don't want to understand - don't have the money or are now willing or able to spend it on a solution that would provide metrics - flock to Google Analytics and get caught in the bright glitzy interface and forget the product doesnt do all the things companies need and is still a limited tool that Google gave a face lift to .. but that's pretty much it.

As far as Brandt Dainow’s recent iMediaConnection piece on “Google’s Killer App.” - his statements seemed somewhat "odd" to me.  I'm glad that Eric brought us up to date on what is really going on there.   If Brandt Dainow wants to see the world as bei
ng taken over by Google Analytics, that's OK, but ours is not a community were you can express that kind of opinion and get away with it - there are people who know better that will call it.  I'm sorry I didn't .. all I felt is that it's kinda odd for Brandt Dainow to be giving up his business for GA and he did have some interesting ideas on how to use it.

But I began to suspect something was up as I read the whole article and he seemed to be leaving out the big "why"….why was he writing his article …what had really happened.  

As much as I like IMediaConnection and ClickZ as places where you can get good information, I also notice more often, the articles are just jump pages for authors to sell their own platforms and solutions.  That's fine - as long as they're honest about it and own up to some of the other solutions and occasionally refer to them - so they, at least, appear to have a balance view (we can't hope for true unbiasness in journalism, it probably doesn't exist).

But Brandt Dainow was not as upfront as he could and should have been - and I recall reading that article last week and wondering …why? Why is he writing this - what's really going on.

Just wish I voiced it then.  However, I still do believe that Google Analytics took over the low end of the market - but certainly not the high end and the mid tier, is up for grabs.

I was having dinner with Gary Angel yesterday and would have asked him about the just announced partnership of Semphonic and WebAnalyticsDemystified - but I did not know about it till tonight - now. In the SEMphonic partnership and the kinds of problems you want to have … post Eric T. Peterson announces the partnership - which is a sure bet.

"…Under the terms of the partnership, clients can engage Peterson and his firm to develop a web analytics strategy and then seamlessly engage Semphonic to execute on that vision; while clients currently working with Semphonic can engage Web Analytics Demystified to help build better processes to support their web analytics efforts. For clients, this means a range of services from customized training in real-world analytics to the actual hands-on analysis of data by world-class experts. "

SemPhonic does not actually run Paid Campaigns - they do pure Analytics - teaching companies how to get the meaning behind the data; once companies come to WebAnalyticsDemystified to get the "map" of what to do next, Semphonic can take over and implement. 

I don't say any of this is easy…it's not..but implementation is probably the hardest part.  It's one thing to come up with strategy and another to actually fulfill it - often things don't go smoothly and you have to make adjustments and workarounds.

In my own experience - there's not enough people, positioned correctly, in corporations to implement Analytics as well as it could be.  For all the talk about Web Analytics - it's often incorporated after everything else is planned - and often too late.  Companies don't tend to listen that much to the Web Analysts they have.

On the other hand, when a company goes to an outside vendor, like Semphonic - they are often ready to listen - and that's the leverage that an analytics vendor, from the outside can have, that in-house web analytics often lack (along with the specific expertise needed to carry out the mission).

It's another sign the Web Analytics Industry is maturing, with businesses ready to listen to what the data says, platforms and tools in place mature enough to handle most of the data , along with the right people and processes in place to execute on all of this - that's my take on it.

I had dinner with Gary Angel, his wife and daughters before returning to NYC Friday morning, and Gary also drove me to airport - and we discussed Emetrics on the way over to catch my plane. 

I left Gary with a thought about a problem I'm seeing with large sites that replicate their structure across several countries - what I've found is that countries like China, Japan, Korea, India, have very different needs, from a task based navigation standpoint, than G9 (US and Europe, mostly). I wanted to know how Gary would solve that problem (if it's a problem at all).  The large savings in replicating task based navigation may be cut down by the lack of applicability to the local country audience and their needs.  If anyone can figure out the right approach to this problem, Gary Angel can.   And then I got on the my Jet Blue flight back to NYC and slept the whole way - but it took me till tonight to recover fully from the activity this week generated - which engaged all my energy on many levels.

Gary wrote up his own impression of Emetrics here.

Referring to the combining of Functionalism (Gary came up with this system) and Persuasion Architecture (Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg) Gary had this to say:

"….I’d love to see the two approaches seriously combined – with Functionalism providing a measurement overlay and the Persuasion Architecture providing a creative overlay on the same site. It seems to me that combining the two would be deeply interesting and truly state of the art in the world of web analytics and marketing!"

I was impressed with Functionalism and having seen Persuasion Architecture over at Future Now offices in Brooklyn, recently, I think they could both be merged.

Earlier this week Gary blogged on Emetrics while it was still going on:

"..What’s the biggest news out of eMetrics? Is it the new version of Google Analytics or the fact that Eric Peterson is striking out on his own and setting up a strategic web analytics consultancy? For once, I’ll agree with Avinash’s 90/10 rule and pick the people side of the equation."

But here's the gem - the thing I relate most to:

"…Frankly, I prefer to keep our focus on being the best in world at deep-dive analysis. What makes a great analyst isn’t what makes a great process consultant."

Gary Angel brought up a point that was frank and bold about Peterson's announcement:

"..Honestly, when I heard the news from Eric, my biggest reaction was "Damn – why don’t you come work with us!" Sadly, I couldn’t talk him into it. I wish he had, and I hope we get a chance to work together going forward! Because while companies need expertise like ours, I’m realistic enough to know that they sometimes need other things as well. Frankly, I prefer to keep our focus on being the best in world at deep-dive analysis. What makes a great analyst isn’t what makes a great process consultant.

So is Eric competition to Semphonic? In a way he certainly is. But this is a big space with lots of room and lots of different needs and not anybody who’s really all that big. I think Eric has been and will be good for this space. Making it easier for companies to understand and use the value that only companies like Semphonic can deliver will help, not harm us. Does a rising tide really raise every boat? I suppose it might make it too rough for some. But if we do our job well, then I think having Eric driving businesses to be more serious and more committed to web analytics process will be all to the good. "

It's an open question how many analysts can go out and be independent consultants - like Avinash just did.  However, Avinash, while he did strike out on his own - has an office in the GooglePlex (wish he invited me over there to take a look).  I think Eric Peterson, because of his name, writings and industry connections, will be sought after.  But I'm not so sure that this path is right for everyone in the field.  Avinash and Eric are very well known, that's partly why it works … at least, that's my opinion.

Finally, Gary blogged about the Google Analytics announcement - the interface update was kinda expected, and needed:

"…Not that Google’s release isn’t pretty big news. If Google was any other vendor, a release like this wouldn’t cause a ripple. But it’s Google and it’s free. And the growing threat of free software at the lower end of the market puts enormous pressure on the mid-range solutions and at least some pressure on the high-end solutions. Till now, I really wouldn’t have recommended GA to any company that actually wanted web analytics (as opposed to traffic reporting – in fact, I wouldn’t have recommended it even if you wanted convenient traffic reporting). The tool was basically unusable for serious work. Has that changed? To be honest, I don’t really know. Once we get a chance to work with it a bit I’ll have a better opinion. They certainly addressed some of the biggest weaknesses in the product – which can only be bad news for all the other vendors. Unless somebody can really trump GA in terms of usability, it’s beginning to look like there are only two options for vendors – play at the high end of the market or die."

I don't think it's changed, Gary.  Google Analytics is a great, free tool, but for serious work on large sites, it doesn't cut it and probably never will.  The main limitation of GA is the inability to compare more than one thing to another - whereas higher end analytics does give you the ability to make custom segmentation.

However, 99% of sites don't need custom segmentation - and that's the audience Google Analytics is for.  

I suppose it does not hurt to bring up Eric Peterson's study again, and say that many companies, who are not process oriented, will fall on free tools and end up with ad-hoc reports that don't really move the business forward … and very often, what these companies will use is Google Analytics - because it's free and it's powerful - if you don't need custom segmentation.

At the end of the day, Google Analytics is best used in conjunction with more powerful analytics platforms - and I have heard this - which are based to costs per pageview - Google Analytics can cut down the cost for ownership by collecting some metrics that are not dependant on segmentation which is a win-win for everyone.