Historical Perspective on Web Analytics at X Change

Added By Phil Kemelor at 4-Aug-2009 |

On a day-to-day basis, I tend to view web analytics through the lens of my roles as both an analyst and consultant. For me, this takes more of a “here and now” perspective on the web analytics tool set and how to get the most value on how to use the tools.

But it’s the history of web analytics that I find truly fascinating. For an industry that is about 13 years old, there’s been a lot going on in terms of technology and company evolution. In a way, the irony is that the industry evolution has occurred far more quickly and dynamically than the use of the tools themselves.

So, with this as background, I am really looking forward to the Web Analytics Founding Fathers key note presentation at the upcoming X Change conference in San Francisco from September 9-11.

This is going to be a lot of fun (if you’re into web analytics). For the first time, Matt Cutler, co-founder of NetGenesis (first generation log file analysis) and now on the management team at Visible Measures (video measurement); Bob Page, co-founder of  Accrue Software (first generation packet sniffing analysis) and now head of analytics engineering at Yahoo; John Pestana, co-founder of Omniture, and now co-founder of ObservePoint (page tag auditing),  and Brett Crosby, co-founder of Urchin, and now Group Manager of Google Analytics will be together and talking about where web analytics has been and where they think it’s going.

I’m also looking forward to some of this year’s sessions…notably James Robinson’s (from the NY Times) on  Creating a Metrics Driven Organization, and Greg Dowling’s (from Nokia) on Measuring the Mobile Internet.

If you’re thinking of coming, it’d be great to see you at the advanced training workshop I’ll be teaching on Managing Web Analytics on a Shoestring, where I’ll be talking about how you can maximize your web analytics impacts within the organization when you’re short on time, resources, and budget.

Hope to see you at X Change. CMS Watch readers get a 15 percent discount on the conference and training by using the promo code: CMSWATCH

Categories: Phil Kemelor, Web Analytics