Mobile Web Analytics

June 17th, 2008 by Lars Johansson

Some recent blog posts about mobile web analytics:

The challenge of mobile analytics, Part 1 (Phil Kemelor)

The challenge of mobile analytics, Part 2 (Phil Kemelor)

Sunday Night Thinking on Mobile Analytics (Judah Phillips)

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New Version of the Omniture Implementation Toolkit

June 17th, 2008 by Lars Johansson

Semphonic has announced a new version of its Omniture Implementation Toolkit. I decided to ask Phil Kemelor a few questions about it.

Have you seen a big demand for migration help from HBX users? Is that the main reason for the updated version?

Phil: We actually started thinking about doing the HBX to SiteCatalyst migration guide when the acquisition was first announced, so this has been in the works for awhile. But we also wanted to get some client work under our belts to inform what we already knew conceptually to be issues that s HBX customers would be dealing with, such as developing reports with ReportBuilder, a different page naming convention and dealing with link coding, for example.

We’ve also gotten some excellent feedback on the first version of the Toolkit, and this led us to adding a Coding Standards and Best Practices Guide and a guide to tagging AJAX, Flash and DHTML.

What is your most successful selling point for the toolkit?

Phil: We find that people who are managing implementations are finding the Toolkit to be a great resource; just getting straight on all the terminology and being able to have a good basis for planning their projects, and knowing when to involve stakeholders and development teams.

Are there any popular requests you have yet to cater to?

Phil: We think for right now we’ve gotten most everything covered…at least based on the feedback we have through current subscribers. We encourage all subscribers to give us feedback on other topics they’d like to see addressed.

We expect to update the Toolkit a couple of times a year to make sure that the information is current and valuable.

What do you think is the biggest challenge when implementing SiteCatalyst?

Phil: Omniture is a complex product, which is both the good news and the bad news. The good news is that you can do a significant amount of customization in the product to do very comprehensive analysis. The bad news is that you can’t just slap on a global tag and expect to get all of the data that you want, and report on it in the way you want.

To really take advantage of the tool, you need to do quite a bit of custom variable and event coding. That takes some thought and planning; really understanding how business questions map to the reports you want.

If you’re new to SiteCatalyst and doing and implementation for the first time, you may miss this simply you don’t understand how propVars, eVars and events relate and translate into reports in the interface. Without that understanding, it’s pretty much impossible to do a good job with the customization.

The new Best Practices section was really an outgrowth of feedback we had that people were struggling with how to understand those constructs and use all that customization effectively. This clearly helps time HBX customers who are migrating to SiteCatalyst, as well as those who are new to the product.

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Eric T. Peterson Answers Questions About X Change

June 17th, 2008 by Lars Johansson

The program for the web analytics conference X Change has been released, so I decided to ask Eric T. Peterson a few things about it.

What in the program are you most excited about?

Eric: Since I was largely responsible for lining up conversation leaders it would be pretty hard to point to any one topic since I think we have a ton of great content. You can actually see all of the conversation descriptions at the Semphonic site now.

Personally I am pretty excited about the technology sessions we have on mobile (Bob Schukai from Turner Broadcasting and Michael Wexler from Yahoo!), video (David Cronshaw from MSN/Microsoft) and all of the “people” and “process” huddles facilitate by thought-leaders like Steve Bernstein from PayPal, Bob Page from Yahoo!, Marston Gould from Classmates.com, Linda Hetcher from Avaya, John Rosato from IBM, Dylan Lewis from Intuit, Rachel Scotto from Sony Pictures, and many more!

I’m also excited about the keynote session we have with Megan Burns from Forrester, Bill Gassman from Gartner, and John Lovett from JupiterResearch. The “town hall” format I think will be a refreshing take on the conference keynote and we hope to make it very participatory. You can read more about the keynote in this press release:
http://www.semphonic.com/resources/releases/pr080519.pdf

I left last year’s conference amazed at how “un-conference” X Change was and how nice it was to be surrounded by so much expertise and so many great practitioners. We’re very much on our way to duplicating and even improving on the first conference with commitments to participate from our conversation leaders, the analysts, and industry experts like John Squire from CoreMetrics, Aaron Gray from WebTrends, Eric Hansen from SiteSpect, Josh Manion from Stratigent, the great Jim Sterne, and even Europe’s own Aurelie Pols from LBi/OX2!

How did you select the location for the conference?

Eric: Angel at Semphonic and his partner Joel basically set out to find the nicest possible hotel in San Francisco for the event based on quality of conference facilities, rooms for participants, and that elusive je ne se quoi that leaves attendees thinking “man, that conference was amazing!” We had that early on at the eMetrics Summit when Jim invited us all to the Four Seasons Biltmore hotel in Santa Barbara but it has been elusive ever since …

Based on people’s feedback about the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco — usually starting with “Oh man, that hotel is amazing” or “I have ** always ** wanted to stay at the Ritz!” I think Gary and Joel hit the nail on the head. Heck, it even has a fantastic looking lobby bar, something prerequisite for web analytics conferences and the late-night party crew!

Of course we were able to get an unheard of rate for conference attendees.

If someone only has the money and time to attend one conference, how should she choose between industry “default” event eMetrics and challenger X Change?

Eric: Good question, and a very difficult one to answer but I’ll try. eMetrics is an amazing event as you’re well aware, the grand-daddy of them all in our industry and now the official conference of the Web Analytics Association. eMetrics serves an incredibly valuable purpose for the industry as a whole by providing us a central gathering point around the globe where everyone can come together — thought-leaders, vendors, and practitioners regardless of their level of experience or specific interest. Big announcements are made there (Avinash, a full-time Google employee!), big parties happen there, and really big names in the industry deliver keynotes (Tom Davenport!)

In short, eMetrics is more than the “default” event, it’s a great place to be, a great community event, and one of the best run shows going today.

X Change is different, specifically and purposefully. X Change is working to be the conference for those folks in our industry who have already been to eMetrics a few times and who are looking for something different, something deeper, and something more directly relevant to the challenges they face day-in and day-out on the job. At eMetrics most of us sit and listen; at X Change we will all sit and converse, and the conversational format ensures that everyone’s voice can be heard. Gary and Joel designed X Change to be for expert users by expert users and focused on pretty advanced topics.

The thought-leaders that are invited are hand picked, as are the vendors, based on their overall contribution to the industry. There are no booths, no vendor pitches, no goodie bags full of stuff you don’t really want — just highest-quality content coming directly from the people whose success depends on making web analytics work inside their organization. It is our firm belief that there are individuals out there who are looking for a conference that is more focused, more intense, and more personal than eMetrics can possibly hope to be with 600+ attendees: that is what have made X Change.

Put another way, eMetrics is “Conference 1.0″ and is great if you’re looking to listen and learn; X Change is “Conference 2.0″ and is great if you’re looking to participate.

What made you join forces with X Change?

Eric: Funny story. I was so impressed with the first X Change conference (see my blog post) that I more or less called Gary and begged him to let me participate in this year’s event. I think I said I would do anything — advertise, make phone calls, open doors for people, clean tables, whatever — simply because after years of presenting at conferences all around the world I was more or less blown away at how cool X Change was.

Well, Gary and Joel came back and offered to make me a full partner in the event. Wow!

Given that Web Analytics Demystified is a pretty small organization (at least for now) I jumped at the chance to work more closely with an already great business partner to put on this great conference. As I got to know Gary and Joel better I was even more impressed with what they were doing!

Case in point: Despite the obvious potential for making money off conferences, Gary, Joel (and now I) run X Change as a break-even proposition: All the money we make from participant fees goes right back into the conference to ensure the best possible experience for everyone! How cool is that?

While I’m looking forward to your IMC event in Vancouver this Fall, Lars, and while I will always attend eMetrics events when I am able, I very much look forward to helping Gary, Joel, and the entire team at Semphonic continue to make X Change a great event, regardless of whether we continue to partner on the event in the future. I think our industry is large enough for a few events like this, especially when they are so complimentary and well differentiated.

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Mobile Web Analytics

New Version of the Omniture Implementation Toolkit

Eric T. Peterson Answers Questions About X Change

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