analytics

This one flew under my radar, but Microsoft announced earlier this month that it is scrapping an effort to develop a general purpose Web analytics program.

In a blog posting, Microsoft said it is closing the beta of Microsoft AdCenter Analytics.

"The insights you've contributed through your feedback and your use of the tool have served an invaluable purpose in shaping Microsoft's future in this space," Microsoft said in the March 12 blog posting. "You've helped us work towards making an informed decision about building a general Web analytics solution, and despite the end … Read more

Dropio has launched a new applet called Playlistio that allows users to post music to the cloud in just three clicks. According to the company, users can find the file, upload it to the cloud, and stream it anywhere they can find a Web hookup and connect to Dropio. And with the help of the company's new Apple App store application, Droppler, users can even stream their Playlistio songs through their iPhone. The free applet is available now.

Google announced Tuesday that it has launched a new skills qualification program. Dubbed Google Analytics Individual Qualification, the new feature will … Read more

Every once in a while, you read something on Twitter that's just pitch-perfect, despite (or maybe because of) the microblogging service's 140-character limit.

Today's honor is bestowed upon numbers guru and "Web Analytics: An Hour A Day" author Avinash Kaushik, currently employed as Google's analytics evangelist.

On Monday, he posted a total zinger, framing it as an "OH," or overheard, indicating that he wasn't the one who actually came up with the contents of the Twitter message (or "tweet") but didn't want to openly quote the person who … Read more

Unless you have been inhabiting the underground bunker formerly occupied by Dick Cheney, you've probably seen loads of press coverage over a "25 Things About Me" Internet meme that was spreading on Facebook. Basically, members would create a Facebook "note" containing 25 facts about themselves, and then "tag" 25 friends encouraging them to do the same.

Yes, it was a bona fide phenomenon, but I avoided writing about it, because I thought the whole thing was...dumb. Internet memes of that nature have been around since goodness knows when. Breathless press hype over … Read more

It's sort of cute, really: blogger Robert Scoble went on a nice snowy stroll with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg while the two were in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum. Of course, he wrote about it.

Most of what Scoble wrote about his conversation with the young CEO is either information that was out there already or tidbits like the fact that Zuckerberg was teaming up with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to work the coat check at the World Economic Forum's annual Women's Dinner (aww!), but there was one fairly interesting part: apparently, Facebook … Read more

Correction: Sybase reported a 13 percent increase in license revenue, based on constant currency.

Update at 7:49 a.m. PST, with comments from the conference call.

Sybase posted fourth-quarter results on Wednesday that sailed past Wall Street's earnings expectations.

With earnings driven by strong growth in its core database business, company shares jumped 7.8 percent to $27.87 in early-morning trading.

Revenues during the quarter rose to $305.1 million, up 3 percent over the same time a year ago. Wall Street was expecting the enterprise software company to make $300.3 million, according to Thomson Reuters. … Read more

There is a change brewing in information security and information management. In the early days, this discipline really came down to event detection. Security information management systems scanned a bunch of data looking for needle-in-the-haystack events that indicated trouble. All other data was considered "noise" and thrown away.

With the onset of regulatory compliance a few years ago, this model went through an initial change. The "noisy" data was now necessary information to demonstrate security controls for compliance audits. Still, event data and compliance data remained separate entities.

Now things are changing yet again. In today'… Read more

Facebook likes to trumpet the value of "trusted referrals"--recommendations and ads with the endorsements of members of your friends list. But a new study from Jupiter Research, commissioned by analytics company BuzzLogic, says that consumer purchases are more likely to be influenced by what they read on a blog versus what their social-networking rosters recommend.

Half of all those surveyed who identify as "blog readers" (people who read more than one blog per month, a fifth of total survey respondents) say that blogs are important to them when it comes to making purchasing decisions. But … Read more

Yahoo on Wednesday announced the rebranding of IndexTools as Yahoo Web Analytics (beta). Currently an enterprise product, the move brings it closer to being a consumer and small business tool, although it's not available to everyone just yet.

Yahoo acquired IndexTools back in early April and promptly made it a free service. Its big advantage over Google Analytics is that the information is updated within a few minutes of user activity. In comparison, stats from Google tend to take about 24 hours, however anyone can sign up for it. Both products feature colorful, easy-to-read charts and graphics for data reporting, deep tie-ins with each company's ad services, and a single-service user log-in that works with other company properties.

According to a post on Yahoo's blog the updated version of the service is already out to advertisers and third-party application developers, with Yahoo Small Business users to follow. If you try to sign-up on the new site, there's simply a wait list where you can subscribe to updates. Yahoo's Director of Data Insights Dennis Mortensen says the easiest way to get your hands on this before Q4 is to become an advertiser.

You can read more about the changeover here. I've also embedded a five-minute overview of what the service did (five months ago) after the break.… Read more