Website Analytics July 29th, 2007
I've just completed doing some research on Microsoft's 'soon to be launched' website analytics software, which is being called "Gatineau" during its beta testing.
In 2006 Microsoft purchased 'DeepMetrix Corporation' and has been working very diligently to improve and customize the software package so that they do not experience the same issues that Google had when it rushed to launch its Analytics package. (then called Urchin) Ian Thomas, the lead for the Gatineau project, and a member of the Microsoft’s Digital Advertising Solutions team wrote on his blog, "We hope to release this product during 2007; however, we're extremely keen to avoid a repeat of Google's experience with Google Analytics, so we will be ramping up our user numbers gradually to make sure everyone has a good experience from a performance perspective.”
Gatineau will be a direct competitor of Google Analytics, but have stressed that it will not be a duplicate of the service. It will offer some things that make it distinct. Thomas went on to say, "The target audience for this project is broadly similar to the target audience for Google Analytics – though it's emphatically not our intention simply to replicate the functionality within that product."
The new analytics from Microsoft will offer some detailed analysis including reporting on gender differentiation, and age demographics. This information will be sourced (rumour has it) from Bing Live information. Microsoft has stressed that this will not come from the 'personal identifiable information' that Messenger gathers.
Since I know this is what you are most interested in, here is your opportunity to see some sneak peaks at the Gatineau Analytics product:
Page Activity Summary
Gender Differentiation
Web Analytics Funnel
Microsofts Analytics package is slated for release at some point in 2008. If you would like to become involved in the beta release for the product you can apply by going emailing Microsoft at gat-beta@microsoft.com.
DJ has been a high profile Internet Marketer since 2001. He is the CEO of TechWyse and as a passionate member of the internet marketing industry is a key contributor on the 'Rise To The Top' Blog.
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The images you have included look appealing. I like the fact that the graph does not look like the one featured in Adwords.
I do not think that I was aware that Microsoft had its own analytic tool before today. In fact, I do not remember seeing this tool in Adcenter. I wonder if this functionality has been kept after yahoo and Microsoft ads merged into Adcenter.
In the long term I wonder if it will become necessary for an ad network to own a social network. It seems to me that social networks can permit to have a lot more details about searchers. Effectively, if people are not logged into Google, this search engine may not know about their age, and gender for instance.