Finally Joining the Blogosphere

In June of 2004, I started a blog about Web Analytics. There were almost none around. I realized then, well, that the audience was scarce, and particularly that it took a lot of work. Three years later, there are dozens of great blogs about WA, and some of them have changed the way we see the field. I have people such as Eric T. Peterson, Jim Novo, Avinash Kaushik, Gary Angel, and Matthew Roche in mind. True thinkers who are advancing the cause of Web Analytics, and interactive marketing in general. Don’t think for a minute that I cite those people because I believe I belong to the same class. I don’t. So, that’s why I strongly recommend you read everything they write, that is if you’re not already doing it!

So, you’ll say, what the heck you want to start another blog on WA for? Good question; I don’t. I want this blog to talk about the transformation of marketing, of interactive marketing in particular, before come the years when we plainly call it marketing. Particularly, I want to share with you such transformation as it is driven by Web Analytics. There is a tremendous discussion going on out there. Thousands of people are talking about Web Analytics in all its complex details: applications, business process, KPIs, etc., etc. But what will all that do to how we think interactive marketing? What will the impacts of that emerging corpus of knowledge be on how we manage Web sites?

Personally, I believe we will see the database marketing paradigm increase a lot in importance. Why? Well, first of all because it is a very powerful way of doing marketing. Second, someday we will collectively get tired of trying to make sense, actionable sense, or anonymous clickstream data. I am not saying we will stop analyzing it, but we will want to profit from engaging the customer in a dialog. I foresee a day when “Ratio of Acquired Email Addresses/Total Visits” will be one of the most important conversions.

But I don’t know yet. The whole purpose of this blog is to witness if this will, or will not, happen. Of course, I also humbly ask for your comments, because this is obviously a question that can’t be answered only with my limited intellectual faculties.

OK, this is day one. I know from friend bloggers that this is going to be a lot of work, especially since I will also have one in French, and another one, The Big Integration, which will discuss WA and enterprise systems integration.

Why do I do this to myself?…