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Has Web Analytics Jumped The Shark?

Started by Craig Danuloff · 10 months ago

One morning in San Francisco last week, the happy-time morning folks on one of the TV networks interviewed the whole original cast of Happy Days. Howard Cunningham, Ralph Malph, Fonzie - all of them who aren’t now as rich as Ron Howard.
One question the penetrating journalist jus ... Continue reading »

6 comments

  • Adam

    10 months ago

    The mobile web will completely change the landscape, bringing easier and more accurate ways to collect data and most importantly, different kinds of meaningful data that the marketeers can use easily. The "PC web" analytics companies are certainly finding mobile difficult.
    •Mobile browsers are diverse & different
    –Embedded JavaScript does not work
    –Cookies are unreliable
    –mobile browsers rarely pass referral information
    –Network address of operator gateway, not the customer’s phone
    The leaders in this field are mobile internet specialists like Bango, try their analytics for free at www.bango.com/analytics
    reply
  • Craig Danuloff

    10 months ago

    Thanks Adam. But will silo'd data make things any better? Although I agree this is a trent - we're building specialized tools for PPC - users will ultimately clamor to get everything back in a single place. In any case, mobile will change everything and the current guys do seem to have been slow to fully track and support it adequately.
    reply
  • Busby SEO Challlenge

    10 months ago

    nice post!...thanks for it!
    reply
  • Avinash Kaushik

    10 months ago

    I absolutely love the post script!! : )

    As usual a thoughtful post Craig.

    -Avinash.
    PS: If making web analytics is a baseball game then we are just in the bottom of the first inning. There is a lot of game to be played, lots of different outcomes possible. Though none of the happy ones involve building around "damn customers", no matter how awesome our (Analyst's) self professed intelligence.
    reply
  • Craig Danuloff

    10 months ago

    Thanks Avinash - One point on which I wasn't clear (and I sort of knew it) - the 'Damn Customers' are the end users inside the organizations who request the reports and info from the analysts, not the analyst customers of the vendors. My unclear writing but wanted to clarify.
    reply
  • SFGreg

    10 months ago

    In no other profession I know are people continually urged to Take Action!

    At McDonald's, once they have the information they go ahead and bring me the burger.

    People love to be productive and have accomplishments. For professionals there's little need to tell them to get off the dime.

    When I was first learning analytics it seemed very odd to me that experts were continually urging people to not just look at data but to take action based on that data and improve things!

    I think the continual urging to take action is a case of The Lady Doth Protest Too Much. In situations where you really can take action, nobody talks like that.

    While analytics data if often interesting, it is also often useless. Many seem to exist in a state of profound denial, refusing to look at the facts, and instead living in a pretend world where analytics is a treasure trove of riches. Your article is accurate perception, a healthy dose of reality.
    reply

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