Microsoft is set to release a beta version of its web analytics tool this summer, and sneak previews of the Google Analytics competitor have already leaked onto the internet.
Ian Thomas of Microsoft gave out a few details of the new tool, code named 'Gatineau', after Dave Naylor had already leaked some details on his blog.
The new tool will allow segmentation of web traffic by both age and gender, with the demographic data to be taken anonymously from users' Live ID profiles.
Thomas said that the target audience is similar to that of Google Analytics, which was upgraded back in May, though he says it won't just replicate its functionality.
The Gatineau project is based on technology Microsoft acquired from DeepMetrix in 2006, and Thomas has previously stated that Microsoft will build up user numbers gradually to avoid the kind of problems experienced by Google.
Further reading:
Web Analytics - Roundtable Briefing, July 2007
Graham Charlton is Editor at Econsultancy. Follow him on Twitter or connect via Linkedin or Google+.
Recommended reports
Online Measurement and Strategy Report 2011
An analysis of the online measurement industry based on a survey of digital marketers. The 67-page report and 29-slide summary presentation contain valuable insights into the use of paid-for and free web analytics tools. Beyond web analytics, the report also looks at a range of data sources and information requirements, and the extent to which companies are able to develop a coherent measurement strategy.
Web Analytics: A Beginner's Guide
The Web Analytics Beginner's Guide aims to be the first step in a journey that will see you become a fully-fledged expert in online analytics. A must-read for those interested in this area, free to Bronze members and higher.
11:51AM on 25th July 2007
Well, let's hope MS do a better job than Gogle has so far, especially with solving the achiles heel of all on-line Web analytics applications: you cannot apply new filters to historicall data, as they don't retain raw data logs.
Example: we discovered an internal IP address that was not being excluded from our stats for 6 months, so now have many more hits within all the reports than what it should be in reality.
I posted on the Google development forums, but never had a reply. Suggested they either keep raw data logs for 1 year, or allow users to upload their own server logs.
Anyone else agree?
- Vince
10:00AM on 28th July 2007
Hi Vincent,
I work for <a href="http://www.intellitracker.com>Intellitracker</a> which provides an enterprise web analytics platform and one USP of intellitracker is that any filter setup, there are 100s to choose from, are all fully retrospective and work over previous date periods. Therefore you can filter on custom defined key events, time of visit, seo landing pages, PPC, custom segments you upload for any previous time period, even if you define the filter today. It is a analysts dream and why Intellitracker is probably best known in the industry with web analytic experts or specialist web analytics consultancies. Anything you can think of you can filter retrospectively as the system does not truncate and only store the top 20 results etc that you will see with most vendors to try and speed up reporting and reduce storage space. Intellitracker stores all data in its entirety. As you have pointed out IP exclusions is a classic example but because of the approach of Intellitracker you are able to manage this and even replay back in all raw data into the process database. At the end of the day Google is a free tool and a very good tool it is for top line metrics but if you are serious about site optimisation and deeper analysis of your data from any perspective you are better to upgrade to a platform setup to deliver advanced capabililities.