"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics" – Mark Twain
You might imagine that after seven years in the web analytics industry I would have worked out what a third-party cookie was. But it turns out that my thinking on this is fuzzy (like so much in my life), or at least incomplete. Let me explain. When asked what a third-party cookie is, most people … Read more
Further to my previous poll question, here’s another. Overlay reports: an innovative way of visualizing traffic data, or pointless eye-candy with no analytical usefulness? You be the judge. Results once I have enough responses not to be too embarrassed. If you have other thoughts about overlay reports, I’d love to hear them – comment away.
My fragile ego is salved by the news that a full sixty-two people responded to my poll question about whether power or simplicity was more important in a web analytics product. Here are the results: So the power-hungry outnumbered the simpletons by nearly two to one. I think this reflects the relatively sophisticated nature of … Read more
If you read this blog regularly, you may know that my wife runs a online retail business in the UK called mirrormirror (since Valentine’s day is coming up, and I know that the overwhelming majority of my readers are male, this may be a good time to go over there and earn some brownie points … Read more
Apologies for the lack of blog posts of late… has been a little busy round here. In the meantime, here’s another humorous site which warmed the cockles of my geeky heart. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
So it transpires that Microsoft has offered to pay someone to update a Wikipedia entry about open source software standards. Since Wikipedia’s whole foundation rests on the fact that its contributors are doing so out of the kindness of their heart, and the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has explicitly stated that paying for Wikipedia content is … Read more
I’m always amazed by the economic niches that grow up around the periphery of big companies and industries. It’s a great demonstration of the Darwinian roots of capitalism. So I was delighted to discover (in a purely academic sense, of course) via GoogleWatch that a little industry has grown up around the business of managing … Read more
The latest news from the carnivorous world of web analytics is that Omniture has snapped up Instadia, a Scandinavian web analytics firm. Instadia’s main claim to fame is that their web analytics solution features integrated survey capability – a lead that the rest of the industry has been slow to follow, perhaps for fear of souring … Read more
In an effort to add a little interactivity to this blog (and now that I have a reasonable number of visitors, following last week’s kiss-and-tell revelations), I’m going to be running an occasional poll on this site, for my (and hopefully, your) edification. Today’s inaugural poll asks the time-worn question: in a web analytics tool, … Read more
Amusingly, some of the blogs and newswire services that are reporting on our Gatineau alpha have the project name down as Gastineau. Perhaps the confusion is caused by a hankering for the glory days of the New York Jets and their legendary defensive end Mark Gastineau. Or perhaps it springs from a deep and abiding … Read more