Great post! I am wiped out from two weeks of travel but wanted to comment that I think you’re heading in the right direction — Web Analytics 2.0 is our current problem but (my view) on Web 3.0 and Web Analytics 3.0 will be here before you know it!

Watch for a post on the subject on my blog shortly.

Thanks,

E.

> I think “WE” should be defined as vendor (me) + consultants (you Steve) + practitioners (our clients).

I already admitted in the post that it was as much my fault as any vendor for not shouting loudly enough about Web 2.0. I never said it was a vendor only problem, I just said that we’d failed to make it easy for ourselves.

Web 3.0 is coming. It’s already here in fact, but we don’t measure it at all yet. In some parts of Africa for instance the mobile phone is the primary way people access the Internet because they don’t have easy access to computers. We have maybe 12 months before it becomes mainstream in Europe if we look at how Web 2.0 has developed.

You say that you would be interested in my opinion (a.k.a. the vendor) – which, as you know, I am more than happy to elaborate on.
AND you state that you agree 100% with Bryan (which I really respect a lot) on the following quote:

>>It’s not really about reports – it’s more of a holistic view. That’s where a lot of analytics fails today. Most analytics tools today are fancy hit counters. That’s why they are having issues around Web 2.0 and Ajax.

I think your post is super interesting and smart – but I think you and Bryan might mix up the elements in question in this dialogue between Web 1.0 Analytics and Web 2.0 Analytics. That being:

- Data Collection
- Data Representation
- Data Interpretation (creating insight)

So to begin with. I absolutely agree that it is not really about reports. (I have made several public statements about how important is to understand the difference between reporting and analysis). But to say that we (the analytics vendors) are having issues is a bit off in my humble opinion. I think “WE” should be defined as vendor (me) + consultants (you Steve) + practitioners (our clients).

That said. The data collection part is doable and everyone of the enterprise vendors today operate with external data sources (e.g. qualitative data) AND on an event model (being able to collect ANY web 2.0 events). All the vendors can segment, filter and present this data any way a client wants. SO the challenge is for somebody (and I still see that as an evolution and combined effort from vendor + consultant + practitioner) to come up with a “standard” for

A) WHAT data is it that we are expected to collect (from a best practice point of view)
B) HOW are we supposed to report on this (for best possible practitioner understanding)
C) and finally how are we suppose to CONCLUDE (success, failure and impact measurement) on the presented data

Everyone of the above questions are technically possible and most of it solvable from the tools today. But WE (still vendor + consultant + practitioner) have to decide on this together.

I am only talking about web 2.0 here… web3.0 ..hmmm can this wait?

May I draw your attention to the fact that Google JUST LAUNCHED “Google gadget ads” which includes the opportunity to Receive site-by-site interaction reports tracking actions. This is actually Google taking a decision on A, B and C above and they created about 60 metrics. Perhaps we should just adapt and build on those?

LINK:
http://www.google.com/adwords/gadgetads/tutorial.html#interactionlist

Cheers Steve.

Dennis R. Mortensen, COO at IndexTools
My Web Analytics Blog