Stories about: NetGenesis

Web analytics -- software that tracks user behavior on a Web site -- is, in theory, not that far removed from the BI (business intelligence) products that have been around for much longer. Both aggregate data and perform statistical analyses to produce reports that tell how well or poorly things are going.

In keeping with its push to provide integrated, multichannel analysis of customer behavior, SPSS Inc. announced plans this week to acquire NetGenesis, a provider of software for analyzing Web trends.

"To pinpoint marketing and add value to Web site services, you need to attract the right people," says Mike Ragunas, CIO of Staples.com, the Web site of the office supplies giant Staples, and a member of the InfoWorld CTO Advisory Council.

The Web has become a critical online artery for many enterprise business activities, but the analytics applied to Web-based computing have not kept pace with the real world, multichannel environment of most companies.

Following in the footsteps of bigger business intelligence vendors, the niche players focusing on Web analytics are trying to reinvent themselves and bring customers the ability to analyze a variety of data sources.

Do you know how successful your e-business project is? Sure, top management is impressed, online sales are holding their own, and the site's architecture is sound. But do you really know which products and services your customers will buy online and whether shoppers care more about speedy delivery or low costs? Now more than ever, solid facts and metrics are necessary when it comes to measuring the success of e-business.

Despite the brief moment of lifting hopes on the news of rising stock indexes Thursday, all was back to gloom and doom by the time the markets closed, with the same rumbles of layoffs and financial warnings that shook the technology industry in the first quarter of the year.

In the early days of e-commerce, Web site traffic analysis usually meant nothing more than installing a counter on your home page and running a simple statistics program on an external log file to track hits. Although these figures made for great conversation around the water cooler, business leaders quickly realized that simple hit counts were both inaccurate and not nearly detailed enough for marketing purposes. Companies then began looking for more sophisticated analysis tools that would provide comprehensive information about who was visiting their Web sites and what they were doing once they got there.

The practice of determining who is visiting and buying at a Web site has evolved from a simple marketing pulse-check into the critical exercise of logistically tracking and identifying the course of a company's e-business scheme.

Application service provider NaviSite Inc. plans to break into the business-to-business arena this week with a program designed to give users a way to streamline the process of setting up and maintaining their online sites.

Online Lab of Dundee, Ill., has signed up more than 200 customers - including Virgin Airlines and Chiquita - for a Web site user feedback service launched in November.