CRASH! Did you hear that? Any idea what it was? That was the sound of the Web traffic analysis market crashing to the floor following the no-charge release of Google Analytics.
Well it was until today, when a number of people were finding that the data that should have been collected on site for over 24 hours hasn’t appeared for analysis. Google quote that data should be available after only 12 hours.
The delay in reporting will give some thin hope to charge-for analysis service. We’d imagine that it will be short lived as we’re pretty certain that Google will get the service pumping out the stats soon and suspect that the delay has been due to a huge demand.
How much? Free
The service is generally, of course, available at no charge as it is, as with everything that Google does, designed to drive additional sales for Google’s advertising.
Always remember, Goggle may look like a search engine company, but it is, in fact, an advertising company.
The only exception to free usage of the service is sites with over 5m page views per month. Hey guess what? If you have an active Google AdWords account, you’re given unlimited page view tracking. There is no mention of how much it might cost if you don’t have an active AdWords account. Do you see a pattern here?
It looks like the service is comprehensive both in the breadth of reports available and in its thoroughness of reporting. Examples are that Google enable the tracking of external links, something of great use to many media companies, by simply adding some JavaScript to the link. It even easily tracks events within Flash files.
The history
Google bought Urchin Web Analytics for an undisclosed amount back in March this year. At the time, many in the online reporting world started to tremble.
They already had a number of big name customers like GE, NBC, Procter & Gamble, NASA and AT&T. Prices they charged varied from $495 (only covering 100,000 pageviews/month) to $4,995 for their Profit Suite. Prices increased depending on the number of Websites that were monitored.
Google’s free offering is based on Urchins online reporting offering.
Pressure on reporting companies is coming from other directions like, Microsoft with their AdCenter and eBay which has just launched a subscription-based service.
That being said, Ofcom need to do a better job at handling third-party research. Some suggestions:
3. The significance (or lack thereof) of these reports should be plainly stated. Similarly, if Ofcom is not necessarily endorsing a particular report’s conclusions, it should plainly state that fact. An ‘evidence-based’ regulator should be very clear as to how it treats these findings made by third parties. If the Scientific Generics report is not endorsed by the Ofcom Board, but it is merely one of many research inputs on the issue of digital switchover costs, then Walls’ claims are clearly overstated. However, it’s hard to blame the press when reports like these are published on the Ofcom website with no disclaimers, giving them the imprimatur of Ofcom approval.
Poor old BT. Now that it’s reached a settlement with OfCom that allows it to keep retail and wholesale arms under one, some would say, severely stretched umbrella, commentators emerge from cover and say it might be better if it’d spit into two (or more) parts. The cost of 
Where does this leave BT? 
This weekend, there’s been lots of furious chat on blogs and Slashdot about the EULA that comes with SonyBMG’s audio CDs.
Many have reacted to RootKit by saying that they feel it is ‘safer’ for them to download their music from unlicensed file sharing services, as they aren’t exposing themselves to unauthorised pieces of software installing on their machines.
SonyBMG have managed to completely undo the small, patient steps that Sony, the hardware business, has been taking to gathering favour with the equipment buying public.
A project starting early next year in East London hopes to bridge the digital divide by broadband-enabling a number of housing estates.
Happily, this project is focused on the original residents, not the ones who live in the £1/2m flats – sorry, apartments.
Additional services include a Health channel allowing patients to book GP appointments, provide virtual consultations and on-line health and diagnosis information; a Consumer Channel, allowing on-line group buying of common services such as gas, electricity and mobile phone tariffs; and an Employment Channel, providing on-line NVQ courses, local jobs Websites and virtual interview mentoring.
The whole of John Lennon’s solo catalogue will be made available digitally, for the first time, on 5th December – Oooo, just in time for xmas.
Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s wife, told of her views on if John would have been an Internet fan, “New technology is something he always embraced and this is something he would have loved. I always say that he would have been very excited by all the opportunities offered by the development of new means of communication.”
Oooh, Conspiracies Abound
From December 1, all iTunes downloads will carry a new kind of Fair Play DRM, a direct negative feedback ‘watermark’ recognized by Fair Play earbuds and, ultimately, by other audio devices from manufacturers who sign up for the code, which was created under a joint SunnComm and Macrovision venture.
We thought that it was worthwhile breaking out the following information that we gain in researching two article; 
As 
A raft of HD services across Europe is likely to eat up scarce capacity on the high-power satellites that beam the programmes down to earth, making any system that duplicates services across platforms more expensive.