Clifton leaves Google; Coremetrics gets $60m; Webtrends gets new CEO

Well, it's been a busy Web Analytics weekend. First I read an interview with the recently departed heard of Google Analytics in Europe, Brian Clifton, over on Mel Carson's blog. Brian is returning to his roots at Omega DM (the analytics/marketing consultancy he founded). Mel has captured Brian's thoughts well in his post, so I won't attempt to recreate them here. Good luck, Brian.

Next to cross my desk was the news on Friday that Coremetrics has secured a series E (I didn't know the letters went that high, to be honest) funding round of $60m, courtesy (principally) of 3i. Joe Davis (Coremetrics CEO) is tight-lipped about exactly what he's going to spend the money on, but takes the opportunity of the press release to assert how bullish he is about the outlook for the company. $60m is a decent chunk of money and does change the dynamics of the industry, allowing Coremetrics to potentially pursue an acquisition-led strategy to build out the breadth of offerings that it has. It still won't give it the deep pockets of Omniture, but it could help it compete more effectively with Webtrends.

Speaking of Webtrends, the final piece of news to hit today is that Webtrends has found itself a new CEO - Dan Stickel, former head of syndication at Google. I know next to nothing about Dan Stickel (I know that he has a beard, and that he used to run Macrovision and served a spell at AltaVista); I'm slightly wondering how his experience is going to be directly relevant to Webtrends's business, but it speaks well of the company that they can attract a senior Google exec. Good luck, Dan.