Overall, Yahoo! Web Analytics is a better platform than Google Analytics, but that doesn't mean it's a more accessible platform - it isn't - still .... since I know Dennis Mortensen, VP Data Analytics for Yahoo!, pretty well, and I knew of IndexTools (before it became Yahoo! Analytics) , so, it's very clear Yahoo! Web Analytics really is a much better platform - but .... to tell people how and why ... that's more problematic, since I don't have Yahoo! Analytics on any of my sites and haven't done much with it, yet.
Fortunately, I don't need to ... someone has done that work of comparing Google Analytics and Yahoo! Analytics and come up with the point score of each.
Hint : Look at slide 47 - Google Analytics scores at 53% while Yahoo! Analytics scores at 79%. Ha!
It's also clear that because a platform is better - might not mean it's more popular. Think of Yahoo! Analytics more like a upscale running shoe, like a Mizumo, still affordable, while Google Analytics is ..... say ..... low end Nike running show. You can't even buy Mizumo running shoes in most stores - same way, you can't as easily get Yahoo! Analytics - and Yahoo! itself, simply doesn't promote Yahoo! Analytics the way Google promotes Google! Analytics.
To be fair, if Yahoo! told everyone who had a Yahoo! email account, that they could also have a Yahoo! Web Analytics account and tags - and even encouraged people to put those tags on their sites and gave them a $100 Yahoo Advertising Credit, just to wet the juices, make it worthwhile (I'd go for $250 dollar advertising credit - that would do it) the way Google used to ..... it might be a different story.
But Yahoo! simply isn't into doing stuff like that ... they'd never go for it. That's the paradox here - a much better platform, Yahoo! Web Analytics, probably won't ever become a popular one (and according to Dennis, might not even need to be) because it's not about popularity - Yahoo! probably is getting enough data from users, as it is, without having to open it up to the "masses".
And there's the other thing - Yahoo! knows that for every new feature Google Analytics! adds, it's a cost in the processing power they have to provide (as Dennis likes to say it ... it's very "expensive", from a processing perspective, to do the kinds of segmentation that Google Analytics has provided over the last year, and is continuing to build on). There's even a question weather Google will start having to charge for some of the more boutique features of Google Analytics down the line.
" ....A loosely connected but collaborative group of talented, committed volunteers can produce good free software; but a corporation, even one as innovatively structured as Google, cannot build powerful software, continuously upgrade it in material ways and provide it for free indefinitely.
But is 'free' the 4-letter ' f ' word?"
....we should no longer consider GA as 'free'. Software developed without an alternate revenue stream but in the hope of donations, is free software. The Alexa Toolbar is not truly free. 'Free' does not only mean free of charge. It also includes free of funding or financial backing.
With the billions of dollars generated by AdWords, Google Analytics and related products like Google Website Optimizer that have proven to be contributing to AdWords' success and growth, payment for GA's advancement will continue to be pumped into GA and its sister products.
So, in reality, even large enterprises demanding the best in enterprise level web analytics solutions, are getting the software they need, paid for by another enterprise and by the masses of small business AdWords clients.
In the case of Google Analytics, 'free' is not the 4-letter ' f ' word. It's just a different funding model.
In this, both Google Analytics and Yahoo! Analytics are not free - and by using both, or either, your giving data to Google or Yahoo!, data they use to make their products and advertising better - data they use to study us more (hopefully, to give us better products, but also, perhaps, to use for their own profit). It's not really free, I think that's the point.
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