Well…. no. Okay, that’s not true. Just fancied writing a sensationalist headline after a day at E-metrics London.
But Gatineau did get a mention at the recent WebGuild event on Web Analytics at Google’s offices in Mountain View. Paul Botto, head of enterprise sales for Google Analytics (and formerly of Urchin), said that “the race would be on” when we release Gatineau later this year. Google is (naturally) planning to release some enhancements to Google Analytics – likely to include the ability to track non-page-level events (i.e. DIV changes and Ajax calls) – to coincide with the release of Gatineau.
There’s something faintly nerve-wracking about being in Google’s headlights – though I feel considerably more comfortable being in this position as part of the Microsoft behemoth than in my former life at wee little WebAbacus. And it’s nice to be talked about, at least.
But the Google comment has me thinking: when Gatineau comes out, will you give it a try? Answers in the box below, please – and feel free to elaborate in the comments. Come back to this post any time to see the results; voting will close after a month.
Update [4/2/07]: If you would like to be involved in the Gatineau beta (and haven’t already asked), please e-mail us at gat-beta@microsoft.com. If you’ve alread y requested a beta place, you’re in our system, and we’ll get back to you when the time is right 😉
There is nothing wrong with some friendly competition. I’m a firm believer that GM, Ford, and Chrysler would never have improved in quality had they not had the competition from Honda and Toyota. Although I’m a Google fan I can’t wait to try out Gatineau and see how it compares. Good luck Ian. As an FYI your title was very creative. When I saw it in Feedreader I instantly went to it as the first story to read.
Ofcourse I’ll try out Gatineau (I’m hoping my beta application made it across so that I can check out the service)
Although, I hope the question everyone at Microsoft is asking is if people will try out and then want to stay with Gatineau 🙂
Ian,
I was on the panel and that’s not exactly how I remember the conversation going. I mentioned the Microsoft product when someone in the audience asked what free tools were available. After we all had a good laugh about the question, given that GA was on the panel, I pointed out that you folks were working on a solution.
I don’t remember Paul being in the least concerned about your product or impending release. The conversation about “event tracking” was prompted by a completely different question.
Anyway, maybe I wasn’t paying attention but that’s my memory of the conversation about your two products.
Oh, I tried to vote but apparently you’re running an “unauthorized poll” … oops!
All my best to Emetrics London!
Eric T. Peterson
http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com
Eric,
Thanks for the extra info. Our roving reporter had it down that those remarks came from Paul, but thanks for giving us a mention!
Have fixed the poll – I’d removed a bit of the code to make the poll box neater which broke it. All working now. Thanks for the spot.
Ian
I would also love to try it out. In fact I attempted to submit our company’s info so that we could all Beta test Gatineau. Will the MSN AdCenter interface just one day have a new “Analytics” tab…or is this a downloadable software program?
Hi Ian,
The stats are at 90% and I guess that they will pretty much stay in the same level (Mmmm, actually, this is a KPI… Well done ;-)). I of course voted yes!
It has been a pleasure meeting you in London during the Emetrics. See you in a month or so in California.
Kind Regards,
René
I’ll naturally check out Gatineau. There are some shortcomings in Google Analytics and I hope that a new offering will address those, or at least make Google pick up their game. Hopefully, Gatineau is as simple to implement as GA.