I ran across the following story -  “I’m Feeling Lucky” Button Costs Google $110M Annually

Google exec Marissa Meyer wants us to believe that the only reason they keep this costly button is because Google doesn't want to be considered "too dry, too corporate, too much about making money".  I beg to differ.  I'm sure that little sucker is making up the difference.  You better believe that some web analyst provided strong enough evidence that enough of those folks wanting to get lucky become addicted to Google search, thus becoming part of the ad revenue torrent.  That $110M is not a loss, it's an investment in user base growth.

So here's to the unsung hero or heroin!  Your one piece of analysis is probably paying your salary many times over.

OK, so it's a bit harsh and totally unvalidated.  However, I find it quite interesting that Omniture tracks their blogs (blogs.omniture.com) with FeedBurner.  For a long time now, we have pushed for this feature within Omniture and our own engineers finally had to develop a solution which is basically an Omniture band-aid.  I just don't understand why Omniture decided to ignore tracking this technology just because someone's already doing a good job.  Even if it's not as fully featured as FeedBurner, wouldn't it be great to have the data within Omniture instead?  Ah, the analyst's dream - All my data in one place!  I'm very curious to hear other Omniture user's opinions!

A while back I noticed a blog post by Avinash Kaushik titled after Eric Peterson's book, Web Analytics Demystified.  Today, I noticed a blog post by Eric Peterson titled after Avinash Kaushik's book, Web Analytics:  An Hour A Day.

Do you think there's some keyword marketshare competition going on here?

The Federal Government Sanctioned Spam Trap (6/26/07, Linux Journal)

The basic premise of this article is that there are hardly any laws regarding building an email list.

Adelstein believes that Credit Bureaus are on the prowl to purchase web analytics vendors, much like Experian purchased HitWise.  Of course, we all know that web analytics tools allow us to track email campaigns.  Is it web analytics vendors fault that shady email campaigns are being driven by their tools?  The attack of the Web Analaytics Association is not outright, but a quick read reveals his train of thought..

Last night I attended Avinash Kaushik's web analytics presentation for the SF Bay ACM Data Mining.  First of all, Avinash is an engaging presenter and humor is always on hand.  If you ever have an opportunity to hear him speak, do yourself a favor in attending.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around Avinash's Trinity concept of web analytics.  I strongly suggest subscribing to Avinash's blog.  He definitely thinks outside the box.

Here are a couple of notable acronyms from his presentation:

• HITS = "How Idiots Track Success" - Jim Sterne
• HiPPO = "Highest Paid Person's Opinion" - Avinash Kaushik?

Avinash strongly stressed using A/B testing and multivariate testing.  It is simple and extremely valuable.  These are the best ways of putting HiPPO's to the test.  Of course, we all have opinions and we should test them rather than implementing them as fact.

Another interesting point that he made was that you should measure with the intent of knowing what to ask the customer.  And most importantly, what customers to ask.  It is very crucial to walk in the customers shoes.  He has found survey results to be extremely effective, especially in moving change forward.  Being able to use the customer's words is as close as you get to the customer.