Thanks for your post.

Of all the systems I have used the most advanced is Visual Sciences and even they do not have any predictive analysis built in. To do this you need a Business Intelligence system which is well configured and as we know you’re usually looking at solutions in the 10′s of millions to get working correctly.

The tools are getting more sophisticated all the time as you say and companies like Omniture and Visual Sciences currently lead the pack in terms of the multi-source functionality they have. In fact VS is truly a multi-channel application, you can add data from any source to it. So the tools are good already.

However I think we’ll only see predictive analysis in tools when the market completely understands web analytics and pushes the vendors in that direction.

Till that day…. ;o)

I guess you´re not barking up the wrong tree.
I´d really like that question answered too.
Most of Web Analytics tools and Vendors were initially focused on the technical issues of getting it logged, getting it tagged, getting it tracked, etc…
But, the “recent” launch of some tools had lead me to think that the time of improving web analysis cientifically, with advanced math and statistics is coming! Take as example the Google Website Optimizer, the Visual Sciences Tools and the Webtrends Marketing Lab2. They are little more sophisticated tools. And more is coming! (I hope)

Did you notice that the Turing, or Markov and even Grafos theories had been created almost at least half century ago and despite of applying that, we see just the basic math operations in web analytics?

But I think that, somehow, it´s our fault too. How many mathematicians or physicists do you know that are working on internet analyis? We need to break the academic/corporative barriers. Otherwise we will stay in the middle age of the simple web analysis.

I work at an Internet Ad Agency in Brazil (http://www.agenciaclick.com.br) in a department called “Data Intelligence” and we are experiencing great results with a multidisciplinar team. We have physicists, mathematicians, engineers, business administrators, and advertise professionals analysing web and non-web data. The mix of skills and of knowledge is great!

Well, your posts are very inspirers. Congrats!

Best,
Leonardo Naressi