Microsoft Analytics

First remarks on Microsoft Adcenter

2008-01-11T08:18:00.000-08:00

I've been test driving Microsoft Adcenter, Analytics or Gatineau (why can't the even be consistent throguhout their own site) for several weeks now and here are my remarks on the system.

Each time I go and have a look, and that's often because Microsoft Adcenter, appart from Google Analytics, updates my stats several times a day, I have to type in my password again. Eventhough I have ticked the box remember me. I imagine this is for security reasons, but Google doesn't do it, why should Microsoft (don't they want to copy everything Google does?).

Then when I'm logged in most of the time I get an error, telling me to try again later. It's getting better but it seems as if they can't handle the server load. Eventhough they are only letting a small number of people join the Beta each time. It probably has to do with the fact that they update stats more often, which I like, but if this disables the system, why not get more servers or lower the refresh rate.

Then when I eventually get to see my stats I finally begin to enjoy what Microsoft has put together for us. Viaully everything is tiptip and the month-week-day overview takes a little getting used to, but provides easy navigation, and just looks damn nice.

But then when I want to see what keywords my visitors use to find my site, I need to dig deep within referals->inbound referals->view contents of group search->select a search engine and view it's content->view the content of the group 'phrase'->select the contents of whatever domain was used for searching->and then I'm finally there.
And then I can't even see all searches done, by all search engines and all search engine domains. If I'm doing this the wrong way, please let me know (I know you could also use Browse, but describing this isn't as dramatic). If there is no other way: Microsoft, rethink your navigation and get your priorities straight.
Everybody using web-analytics wants to see what keywords users are using to find their site. It's almost the most important thing.

That's all for now. But more reviews are to come.

Microsoft Adcenter can't handel traffic

2008-01-09T18:40:00.000-08:00

The last couple of days Microst Adcenter doesn;t seem to be able to handle allthe requests as i keep getting the following message:

We're sorry, but adCenter is experiencing a problem that prevents it from continuing. Information that can help resolve the problem is now being sent to the adCenter site maintenance team. You can return to the Microsoft adCenter sign-in page now, or sign in again later. We apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for your patience.

The were planning to open the system to Beta tester gradually to avoid the same problems Google had with their anlaytica launch, but problems keep arrizing.

Some times I am kicked out while viewing my stats, but most of the times I can;t even get in. I hope they resolve this.

Accepted to Microsoft Analytics Beta

2007-12-05T15:17:00.000-08:00

Today I've been accepted to participate in the Microsoft Analytics Beta. I set up my websites and although it still was a little slow all went well. No I'll have to wait a day for my stats to become active.

Very soon i'll start reviewing Microsoft Analytics and posting my findings on this blog.

Keep coming back!

Interview with Ian Thomas

2007-09-18T07:53:00.000-07:00

After the presentation on Friday Robin Wauters interviewed Ian Thomas about Microsoft Analytics.

The interview can be read here:

One of the new features of Microsoft Analytics will be the incorperation of demographic data through Microsoft LiveID system. Weather this will have concequences for privacy was answered by Ian whith:

“Believe it or not, but Microsoft and myself are very much aware of the privacy concerns, and we do everything in our power to act according all privacy regulations. The data we collect, although linked to a Windows Live account, is related to an anonymous ID and remains anonymous at all times. We can’t, and won’t extract any identifiable data from the samples we use for socio-demographic data mining; rest assured that we take this very seriously. We don’t want to follow other providers when it comes to privacy, we want to lead the way.”

Also as Microsoft has learned from previous mistakes made by Googles Analytics they will probably increase user numbers slowly to not overrun the system. Make sure you sign up for the Beta now to be one of the first.

Ian says:

“We’ve been collecting e-mail addresses from early adopters who want to test-drive the beta release on our project website for some time now. I can’t give you an exact timing, but we will be sending out the first beta invitations before the end of this month. We need to be careful and ramp up the sign-ups in a measured way, so we can take our time to test the software’s performance and scalability, and test the support.”

Microsoft Analytics Video

2007-09-17T09:50:00.000-07:00

Last Friday the Web Analytics Day 2007 was held in Brussels. Microsofts Ian Thomas provided the visitors with a short (19 minutes) presentation of the New Microsoft Analytics (project Gatineau).

Have fun viewing the video!

The video of this presentation can also be seen here.

Not only the Analytics tool is ellaborated on but also Microsofts view on targeted advertising. They empasize their ability to provide Gender Targeting (ie. Girl or man mobile phones). But also their view on how several ads/emails or SERP results seen by the same user can lead to this user buying the product, not imediately, but after several days. How do you track a conversion of this kind when the ad/email or link the that lead to this conversion can't be distinguished.

BUT, also some long expected screenshots are presented.
Some thing I liked:
-The overview of month week day: for easy acces to reports on certain periods.
-The ability to descriminate between: age, gender & occupation in the report, to see what kind of people you are recieving. (this information is gathered from Microsofts LiveID and they claim it still is conform privacy rules.)
-The campaign visualization, showing a timeline and activity of you different campaigns.

-The path visualization and the most popular pages visualization justed seem to have been rethought and presented differently. THis may be easier to read, but might lack detail for most users.

Note, earlier I said (two posts back): that the Funnel visualization data screenshots (provided by Dave Naylor) is using weird mathematics. Ian Thomas explanes this is fake data in this video.
-

Gatineau Page seems down

2007-09-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

The Gatineau login page: http://gatineau.adcenter.microsoft.com/Gatineau/

Seems to have suffered an Server error for quite some time now. I don't know if it has moved, but I do know Beta testers are logging in through Microsoft Adcenter website.

Sloppy to leave this old Gatineau page like this!

More links about: gatineau

Microsoft Analytics Screenshots

2007-09-17T08:49:00.000-07:00

A while back a Gatineau Beta tester leaked some Microsft Analytics screenshots. Dave Naylor posted them on his blog here.

Here are the previews:
navigation & activity breakdown:

Funnel visualization:

Gender visualization:

The screens look great and everything has gotten a cool but totally useless 3d look But this can be toggled in the options tab above a graph. Plus other graph visualizations can be chosen here.

It's cool they provide funnel visualization, but I guess Google does too, so they had to. The new Gender tool seems to be working on data Microsoft collects from users logged into MSN (or any other micorosft service) while visiting your page.

Also DaveN claims Microsoft Analytics will be able to track your Adwords advertisement data just like Google does. But I'm still wandering how they would do that. They can't probably know about your campaigns & ads. Or would they request your Google password for this and steal the data from Google Analytics.

Also, some wierd stuff can be observed when studying the images carefully.

-In the Activity breakdown The '% of visits' bar misses it's end graphic.
-In the Funnel visualization there's something weird with the math 187% & 97%, while there are as many visitors at the end of the Funnel as there are at the beginning: 693,918.
-In the gender visualizations it's wierd there are more Entry or Exit pages than pageviews. This just doesn't seem logical.

I know they are still in Beta, but I hope I'm either wrong or these issues will be resolved.

Beta Code Looks Promising

2007-05-27T02:27:00.000-07:00

Not only Ian Thomas has stated that the reactions to the pre-Beta code were pretty positiveE-metrics Event in San Francisco, but also René Dechamps Otamendi of the Belgian OX2 confirmed his excitement about the Beta. Microsoft, clever as they are, made everybody that saw the code sign an NDA and nothing can be revealed.

The best bet to get a pre-launch look is to sign up for the Beta-testing squad by sending an email to: gat-beta@microsoft.com

Microsoft Analytics: Job descriptions

2007-05-27T01:51:00.000-07:00

As I was doing more research into the Microsoft Adcenter Analytics project I found out that Reeves Little like Ian Thomas
has confirmed the project and are working in Ireland.

Most Microsofts Gatineau developers are based in Redmond, while some other components are being buildt in Ireland. The funny thing is that the specifications of the jobs based in Ireland are still online: http://ajaxian.com/jobs/

They were looking for a Software Design Engineer, a Senior Development Lead and an Ajax Senior Developer, all with C++ experience. In the job describtion Microsoft states the following:

We are looking for a senior developer for adCenter analytics development in the
Windows Live Europe team in Dublin, Ireland. This is a unique opportunity to
make a significant impact on Microsoft’s global product development in Europe.

adCenter is part of the MSN Monetization platform and is dedicated to
creating a high end, innovative advertising platform to enable advertisers to
reach users. As part of the essential tools that we will be offering advertisers
and site owners are very powerful visualization controls to help advertisers and
site owners better understand the effectiveness of their campaigns and their
site usage.

Just something I thought I'd share, nothing special!

Microsoft Analytics tracker code found!

2007-05-25T03:25:00.000-07:00

I recently came across this piece of code on Ian Thomas' website.
As he is on the Project Gatineau team and is probably already testing the Microsoft Analytics tool, I figured he must have a piece of code on his webpages.

And he did:

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://x.live.com/analytics/analytics.js"></script>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
msACA.ProfileId = 'X123';
msACA.TrackPage();
</script>

I've never seen a code snippet like this and as it links to x.live.com/analytics.js which is a Microsoft domain it's probably the code Microsoft Analytics will use.

The javascript file itself contains a copyright statement: '// Copyright 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.'
And a quick scan through the file reveal a javascript class called 'AdCenterAnalytics'. Several function names create an idea of the features Microsoft Analytics will be providing: AddCartItem, TrackPurchase, SetView & SetGoal.

Please note, I'm not sure about this, but it all seems logical and searching for pieces of the code return nothing. Please let me know if this is from some other tracking system!

Microsoft Analytics look and feel!

2007-05-22T16:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a error message you can get when trying tot log into Project Gatineau. It displays the look and feel Microsoft will probably go for.

Google Analytics Update

2007-05-22T16:21:00.000-07:00

As Microsoft is showing more and more signs of being very very serious about their new Analytics Tool Google jumps in with an update before them.

Google strives to make the transition as simple as possible and therefore provides current users with an option to choose the old interface for another month. Google states that no changes in your personal settings have been changed (only the new Dashboard is not very compatible), and I’m still waiting for the first complaint.

So what’s changed?

First of all Google Analytics hosts a new design that looks a lot cleaner and easier to understand.
You can now email personalized reports at pre-scheduled moments.
You can export personalized reports in PDF format.
You can customize your Dashboard or mainpage to show your most used reports.
This Dashboard can also be emailed to others.
There are new graphs for trends in certain periods. You can compare short-term trends without loosing track of long-term data.
A extensive Help system displays context sensitive tips.
A new Conversion University is available from within every report.
New links in reports make Google Analytics easier to navigate.
The new version works best with Flash 7 or higher.
Google Analytics now uses the same geographical information used in Adwords. This is useful for better Geo targeting.

Also, Google provides several sources that contain information about the new Google Analytics update: Product Tour & Help centre

Microsoft Project Gatineau Survey

2007-05-22T15:18:00.000-07:00

After subscribing to a mailing list some time back I recently recieved this email from Microsoft (the link to the survey has been removed because of privacy):

Thanks for your interest in participating in the beta test of Microsoft's
Project Gatineau -- our free Web analytics service. The Gatineau team wants to
know more about how to best serve customers like you.

Upon completion of the survey, you will be added to the roster for the
Gatineau beta later this summer.
To help us know a little more about you and
your Web analytics needs, you must complete the survey to be added the beta
list. Your answers will be used for research purposes only -- you will be
invited into the beta regardless of site size, business purpose, etc. With your
help, we can build the best free Web analytics service for your needs.
You
will also be added to the list for our Thank You giveaway - one lucky respondent
will receive a Zune digital media player. The survey should take no more than 10
minutes to complete and closes May 31, 2007.

Thanks for your participation,

The Project Gatineau Team

The survey asks about my wishes for a new Analytics Tool but seems a little too short for gathering real usefull information.
Maybe this survey is just to find legitimate Beta testers for Microsoft Project Gatineau.

Could-be Preview!

2007-05-22T15:12:00.000-07:00

No previews have leaked yet but this is what DeepMetrix LiveStats.biz looks like:
(Microsoft Analytics will probably be using the DeepMetrix software as Microsoft bought the company last year.)

Microsoft Analytics: Code Name Gatineau

2007-05-22T14:52:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Adcenter and Adlabs is testing a Free Analytics Tools. It's name is project Gatineau. Just like Google Analytics, Microsoft is going to launch it's own project that let's users analyse their websites for free.
What it does and how it works isn't clear yet, but the project has been confirmed by a microsoft employee, Ian Thomas. He stated the following:

Microsoft Web Analytics Facts:

The project is going to be based on the technology provided by DeepMetrix. DeepMetrix was stationed in Gatineau and provided website analysis software (DeepMetrix was bought by Microsoft last year). The actual name of the product is still not known (Microsoft is probably brainstorming about it now)

A preview of the inlog screen can be seen here: Gatineau Analytics Page. It's still an Alpha version and is being tested on stability and proof-of-concept purposes. A lot of interface changes a are still underway and will be very different in the final version. As you can see the secure login even shows a missing link to the Gatineau logo!

At this moment only Beta-testers are invited. These are probably veteran Adcenter users and have been invited by Microsoft.

The Microsoft Analytics Center will probable be released during 2007. But users will probably be allowed access gradualy to avoid overrunning the system and to provide a good user-experience and good performance.

Although Google Analytics users are part of Microsofts target audience the exact functionality of the Google Analytics System will not be replicated.

The development team that DeepMetrix used for their tool has been greatly extended and their seems to be a lot of resources to make this a great project.

DeepMatrixs' LiveStats.biz is a good example of what Code Name Gatineau is all about. The same functionality will be tried to achieve if not improved.

The Microsoft Analytics project will be mainly optimized for Advertisers, but there are plans to add Publisher functionality.

Code Name Gatineau is looking for Beta Testers. Email Ian Thomas

Microsoft Web Analytics Interpretations:

Microsoft Analytics will probaly use the Windows Live Id system or Microsoft Passport (same as Hotmail.com) to allow users to login.