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  • Comparison shopping: web analytics packages

    I am often asked the differences between paid and ‘free’ web analytics tools. The answers are not always simple, so why not point you to some well-written blogs which address the topic and you can begin to form your own solutions!

    First, let’s compare ‘free’ vs. ‘free’ by starting off with a comparison of Yahoo! Analytics vs. Google Analytics.

    Now let’s compare a paid solution to a ‘free’ one in this post pitting Omniture (Adobe) SiteCatalyst against Google Analytics.

    As I locate more related blog items I will return to this post and update it further.

    My take? I believe that each tool mentioned above is well-proven and offer world-class solutions for web analysts everywhere in a variety of situations and requirements. Whenever feasible, I always advise colleagues and clients to install at least a free WA package because not to do so is just a waste of data, no matter how small the site. And, as requirements change, add a paid solution to the mix.

  • SQL Server tips and techniques

    This post could become a living being all by itself…. SQL Server has seemingly endless possibilities.

    I had a need to determine the size of all the tables in a certain database, and this post floated to the top.

  • Best sites to find your next freelance gig!

    The Internsover mini-site contains many posts related to finding freelance work. Despite all these links, I’ve found that face-to-face networking and LinkedIn to be the best ways to find repeat business opportunities. In the U.S., we’re truly fortunate to live in a land of endless employement opportunities. Best of luck with your freelancing endeavors!

  • Information Architecture and IA prototyping tools

    While looking for Information Architecture (IA) tools recently, I just came across a new Firefox plugin which will be useful for User Interface (UI) prototyping and design called FluidIA. I’ve been using the Pencil plugin for Firefox off and on for a year now, so it will be nice to work with a new tool. FluidIA promises Fluid Information Architecture in the category of agile UI prototyping, which sets a high bar for usability and end results.

    Along the same theme of this post…. have a look at the Midwest User Experience 2011 conference slides from last week.  Something here for everyone, and a neat little web analytics presentation as well.  Enjoy!

  • Retro moment

    Oh, the wonders of a moment of spare time and Google…. if you happen to need some old software titles, check out EMS – they even have a selection of OS/2 software, and I saw some old Webtrends log analyzer listings. Who knows what else they have?

    Speaking of OS/2, I accidentally found the OS/2 Museum, which appears to be a rather recent development: posts only go back to mid-2010.

  • New Web Analytics Tools and updates to existing products

    Top web analytics vendors have announced major upgrades to their flagship products at Winter/Spring 2011 conferences. Webtrends and Adobe (Omniture) are no exceptions!

    In Webtrends Analytics 10, the big new features I’m excited about are the possibilities of gathering and reporting data not specifically tagged, and integration with external data sources such as Facebook, Twitter and pretty much anything with an API. With regards to gathering specifically untagged data, I’m not sure how it works, or if that is only possible using http logs, but it sounds intriguing.

    Next there is Adobe which recently announced SiteCatalyst version 15 which will allow analysts to segment visitors ‘on the fly’ and will finally provide visits and visitors measures on just about every report where those were previously unavailable. (Now if only Regular Expressions were supported!). Another caveat: upgrades to SC15 won’t happen automatically and will have to be scheduled with support.

    (Side note: Douglas Karr at Marketing Tech Blog puts in a quick comparison of Webtrends Analytics 10 and Omniture SiteCatalyst 15.)

    Couple these upgrades with ShufflePoint, a new business intelligence (BI) tool which can aggregate data from multiple sources and push it to various destinations and report formats. Right now ShufflePoint only supports pulling data from Google Analytics (but that covers a lot of web analytics users!), however many other sources will soon be added, including Webtrends, Omniture, Facebook, and Twitter.

    One more thing I can’t resist: this possibly creepy tool called BeenCounter (as in where have you Been?). This tool is a branded as a behavioral targeting and tracking service. If you decide to install BeenCounter, this tool can dig in to the history bar of your visitor’s browser and dig out lists of sites your visitors have visited. Imagine what you could do with this data as a marketer… you’ll be able to tell if your customers have been surfing your competitors offerings and more. Of course, BeenCounter allows that they don’t track usage of sensitive sites. But what exactly does that mean?

    Enjoy the new tools and technology!

  • Good Riddance IE6


    In a merciful move to encourage (or shame) users into upgrading browsers, Microsoft has launched a campaign including a website to begin a countdown to a world free of its infamous Internet Explorer version 6 browser. Ask any developer about IE6 and you’ll get an earful of complaints about how it breaks sites coded with the best intentions and legal html and css. Enjoy the site, and tell a friend who might still run IE6 that the time is right to upgrade. (Unfortunately web developers still may need to keep a version around for testing purposes.)

  • Regular Expressions: a web analyst’s best friend

    Ever heard of Regular Expressions? The first time I read the term I thought, “Hmm, so what’s the difference between a regular expression and an irregular expresson?”

    Ha ha. 🙂

    Since that day I’ve used regular expressions to save time and to cover a lot of ground really fast when searching through large text files (http log files), for text parsing in programming, and when confiiguring web analytics tools.

    So, what are regular expressions, anyway? First, you might see them referred to as Regex. Regular Expressions are short, rather cryptic patterns used for finding text within large files. If memory serves, Regex originated in the Perl programming language. Anyway, regular expressions are fast. And handy. (And why on earth aren’t they more widely supported in Omniture?) Many widely used tools such as text editors and many programming languages support various implementations of Regex. Take the time to learn them and you’ll save a lot of time combing through large files trying to find all occurrences of a certain text string.

    Web analytics consultancy Lunametrics has kindly released a nice little ebook about Regular Expressions and how they can be used in Google Analytics. It’s a free download – check it out! Your web analytics will be better for your learning effort.

    One fantastic tool I use which supports Regex is AstroGrep (available from Sourceforge.net). I frequently use AstroGrep as a programming tool and as a http logfile utility. So useful for finding all log entries for a certain site visitor (sessionalizing a user’s clickstream), etc.

  • Hot topic: opt-in / opt-out of cookie tracking

    I feel this is a topic to watch – that of web tracking opt-in / opt-out. Many in the web industry are watching this closely. Optincookie.com is one site which will help you keep apprised of developments and how they can affect the web analytics community.

  • Facebook integration with Omniture SiteCatalyst…. some assembly required

    Everyone wants to tag along with Facebook’s popularity and grab some traffic there. If you’re running Omniture SiteCatalyst web analytics, this blog post discusses some integration options without giving away the store. There’s a lot of good info here – I hope to have some time soon to test the techniques demonstrated.