Google Buys Urchin Web Analytics

sho222 writes "Business Week, BMP Today, and others are reporting that Google agreed late Monday to aqcuire Urchin Software Corporation. Urchin boasts that their web analytics and marketing intelligence software is used by millions of sites worldwide and 20% of Fortune 500 companies. Google's VP of Product Management explains that, "This technology will be a valuable addition to Google's suite of advertising and publishing products." The deal is set to close in late April."

Comments

Google's already been there.

[digitalgimpus]

I found this image on the website here.

Google had a decent stake for a while ;-)

Re:ok then

[lucabrasi999]

How about vivisimo? The name sucks, but the tool is great.

i hope

[eobanb]

I just hope that Google stays consumer and user-oriented instead of investing more time in arcane fields like traffic analysis, or the route IBM has gone, "e-solutions." This seems like a step in the wrong direction; it's not like Google is seeking to be recognised among high-profile companies....Google, isn't it time to start writing end-user software?

Re:i hope

[mboos]

I was actually taken back by how much Google employees will stand by the principle of meeting end-user needs.

At a information session for Google at our university, they showed us how they could make graphs of frequency statistics for certain search words. Sort of the stuff you'd find in the Google Zeitgeist but as a graph for a particular word over time. For example, they showed a graph for a search on 'Summer Olympics' which spiked during the most recent Winter Olympics.

I asked them if Google had ever considered selling some of these statistics to businesses trying to analyze trends, just in bulk numbers (no privacy violations etc). I would figure it would be easy for them to implement, and another source of revenue. The presenters (who were actual engineers for Google, not just some PR folks) frowned upon that idea because they claimed that "it would not directly benefit end users." I asked how it could harm the user, but they insisted that if the user were not to benefit from it, they were not going to consider doing it.

Can they do no wrong?

[numLocked]

I feel like a should be scared of how much influence and power Google is gaining - any corporation that size just HAS to evil, doesn't it? But they keep impressing me! Like Google Maps is 100x better than mapquest. They just keep rolling out great features, so I can't bring myself to fear them.

Re:Urchin Rocks

[ShinGouki]

urchin does, in fact, rock.
i've deployed it on a bunch of systems with varying needs from 14gig logfiles to 10,000+ website environments and it has handled everything i've thrown at it, done it faster and better than any other stats software i've ever seen.

now that it's been bought by google i'm assuming it will get even better since urchin's cutting-edge approach to statistical analysis matches perfectly with google's unique approach to coding

Very smart move

[Ars-Fartsica]

You can deride it as "big brother" etc by the fact is, hyper-tracking of web activity is going to be very very big business.

Of course there is only so much you can pull out of data, and many firms will get caught up in "analysis paralysis" and over-reliance on back-looking stats instead of risk taking on new ideas, but that realization will only come after billions have been spent chasing the dream of apparently being able to mind-read consumers.

This is the best web acquisition this year.

well

[Sv-Manowar]

I know some webmasters have expressed their discomfort with Google's conversion tracking because Google gets a rough estimate on the ROI from Adwords campaigns. I wonder if they will have access to the data Urchin collects. If so this could put Google in control of some extraordinarly valuable data.

Google vs. Microsoft

[IdJit]

I can remember not so long ago when most of the X-[acquires/buys/takes over]-Y stories were almost always about Microsoft grabbing up some little company.

These days, however, it seems like Google's on the takeover shopping spree.

Would have merit if true...

[PackMan97]

...of course with GoogleMaps, GoogleSuggest, GMail, GoogleGroups and a host of other innovative best of class apps...I don't see Google sitting around picking their noses.

Google is creating kick ass products internally and buying best of breed when they see a good fit/missing expertise. Nothing wrong at all with this.

We are not Google's customers, we are product.

[refactored]

Never forget, we are not Google's customers.

We are their product.

We buy nothing from Google, the advertizers pay Google, not us.

We are merely eyeballs to sell.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again...

[Skudd]

Google is becoming too big in too short of a period of time. Sure, Microsoft probably exploded just as fast, but look at where it's gotten them: They monopolize the OS and productivity market, using claims that open source is insecure and vulnerable to attacks and source poisoning.

Yes, there will always be a smaller, less popular alternative, but that doesn't do a whole lot for the person that sees advertisements for Google all over the place. Telling people to just use Google is very analogous to Windows being pushed in classrooms and retail centers.

Pardon me while I don my tin foil hat.