Free to Be...You and Me

It just keeps getting better. Today, Dennis Mortensen of IndexTools announced that Yahoo! will be offering the Web analytics services for FREE. There’s an agreement that will go out to existing partners and clients regarding the change in service level, but they will have exclusive access while Yahoo! prepares for the next rollout.

For those of you who recall 1970’s pop culture, one of my favorite Free to Be…You and Me skits involved the voices of Marlo Thomas and Mel Brooks as two bald babies trying to figure out their identities. Well, it didn’t take long for the babies to figure out who they were and apparently “Yahoo! Tools” didn’t spend much time deliberating either. The new alliance will threaten Google Analytics’ substantial market share as the current free tool on the market – AND – challenge commercial analytics offerings from larger vendors such as Omniture, WebTrends and Coremetrics.

I am truly excited to be engulfed in JupiterResearch’s 2008 Web Analytics Constellation report. IndexTools agreed to participate in this year’s review back in February, providing me the opportunity to assess the marketplace of free and commercial analytics tools on a level playing field. The completed study is scheduled to publish this summer and will include an evaluation of the following vendors: Coremetrics, Google Analytics, IndexTools, Lyris HQ ClickTracks, Nedstat, Omniture, Unica, WebTrends and WebAbacus.

This is an exciting time for Web analytics and I welcome your comments or questions about the direction of our evolving marketplace.