Microsoft just announced that they don’t want to play in the FREE Web Analytics Market. A statement which immediately brings forth the question; what is the future of free web analytics?

We are finally ready to migrate all legacy clients and partners to Yahoo! Data Centers. This is a process that starts over the next few weeks and will be executed during the coming months. You will not only be moved to faster data centers, but even more exciting, you will soon get the opportunity to use the updated version 5 of the tracking code.

Predictive Analytics World turned into my new must-go-to conference, especially for those of us who attended Emetrics over the last couple of years and are looking for a positive and perhaps a bit more hardcore supplement!

In 1999, Seth Godin taught us that opt-in is the right way to treat people regarding email. At the core of opt-in is notification and choice. Now that the public is becoming more aware of passive tracking technologies, the Web Analytics Association believes that there needs to be a clear, visible way for site visitors to make the choice to opt-out of web analytics tracking. Transparency as to what information is being tracked and how the data is being used is a must. It is simply an inevitable future privacy requisite from visitors on your website.

We finally made it! or we at least made a very decent first step towards something bigger. Today, 8th October, we announce the final integration step of IndexTools into Yahoo! and the re-branding of the IndexTools product. From today on forward we will be known as: Yahoo! Web Analytics. This is exactly 5 months after we closed the acquisition and I think that is a tremendous accomplishment.

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo Web Analytics Dashboards are, at worst, unfortunately just a report collage – and, at best, an aspiring opportunity for tail users to have an easy ascent towards true Dashboards. Yahoo is proving the best flexibility in what data to show and how to visualize it, but Google provides the best understanding of how to visually communicate quantitative data, where the Microsoft Dashboard lack both data flexibility and understanding of how to visualize it.