The new customer segmentation, motion charts, and custom reporting features in Google Analytics are impressive (Note: these features are rolling out to all Analytics customers over the next few weeks and may not be visible in your account just yet). Apparently, Google will also soon release an Analytics API, which opens up a ton of new possibilities to better leverage site data.
I wouldn’t want to be Omniture, WebTrends, or any of the other paid reporting vendors out there. It’s tough to compete with free, particularly when Google keeps adding innovative features like this. I do marketing consulting for a number of startups here in the Bay Area and nearly all of them use Analytics instead of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a competing service. I think that trend will only continue. It’s also scary to think of all the click-stream data Google is collecting across the web and how they could use that information to further increase their lead in ad targeting, monetization, and search relevancy.
