October 8, 2008

IndexTools is now Yahoo! Web Analytics

We finally made it! or we at least made a very decent first step towards something bigger. Today, we announce the final integration step of IndexTools into Yahoo! and the re-branding of the IndexTools product. From today on forward our new name is; surprise: Yahoo! Web Analytics. This is exactly 5 months after we closed the acquisition and I think that is a tremendous accomplishment – which actually includes me relocating to New York. :-)

The re-branding also includes the launch of a new website and changes to the analytics product itself. It also includes a few enhancements to the tool, beyond making it scalable and compliant with the Yahoo! stack. From a user perspective, the first most noticeable fact is that we are moving to a single sign-on provided by Yahoo! and your account will be tied into your overall Yahoo! account.

As part of this announcement, we are also opening up further access to the tool and are now actively supporting:

  • Yahoo! Store
  • Yahoo! Developers (Y!OS)
  • Yahoo! Head Advertisers (Microsites)

And for these, this is not just random access as in handing out 15000 logins, but well thought through integration with the platforms themselves. If you e.g. are a Yahoo! store owner you can enable enterprise-class web analytics by simply ticking a box and we then automatically inflate the correct tracking script variables at runtime. You are of course allowed to turn this off and take control yourself if needed. If you are a developer you will probably not even notice that it is us, as we fully instrument on the fly and create reports through the YWA API. All very exciting stuff I will elaborate on in future posts.

As you can read, this is not a free-for-all-come-and-get-it launch, but a carefully planned controlled access launch, which will keep all of our functionality in place and even enhance it. There is no dumbing down of the tool in any of the engagements above – and we will be working hard to add to the list of customers who can get access. So expect the above list to grow rapidly over the course of 2008. Anywho; The official PR message is:

Yahoo! Web Analytics will be released in stages to various business units and eco-system partners!

yeah yeah. – but when can YOU get access? From me, not today, unless you are part of the groups above or one of the groups we are about to engage with in Q4. But stay tuned! If you befriend Yahoo (e.g. become an advertiser) I am most sure you will end up with this tool. There is also a very active partner network, but more about that later though.

For those of you, who are yet to see how the Yahoo! Web Analytics actually looks, find a couple of random screenshots below.
Questions? – write a comment, send me an email, give me a call or come by the Yahoo office in NY and I’ll buy you a Diet Coke to celebrate.

Cheers :-)
Dennis R. Mortensen

Appendix:

Yahoo! Web Analytics – Dashboard

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Yahoo! Web Analytics -Compared ad-hoc scenario

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Yahoo! Web Analytics – Sales Summary

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Yahoo! Web Analytics – Path Analysis

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Yahoo! Web Analytics – First time visitors vs. Returning

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Yahoo! Web Analytics – Dashboard Visualizations

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Yahoo! Web Analytics – Custom Report Wizard

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Yahoo! Web Analytics – Conversion Summary

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Yahoo! Web Analytics – Segmentation Wizard

Dennis R. Mortensen
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