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Tony Byrne

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Interwoven does A/B/C/D testing

22-Oct-2007

Tags: Web Analytics, Web Content Management, Marketplace at Large, Vendor Viability & Financials, Interwoven TeamSite

Last week, Interwoven acquired hosted "site optimization " supplier, Optimost. Optimost works by taking HTML snippet variants that you wish to test, encoding the various options in JavaScript that calls their servers, and giving that code back to you to put on your pages. When visitors come and click, multivariate behavior gets tracked on Optimost servers, enabling the company to generate reports where you can evaluate the effectiveness of various offers and presentations. Just to be clear, this is not traditional software, but a hosted service.

The company says "Optimost integration will not affect any existing web analytics, tracking system, or SEO efforts." I find that hard to believe: Google doesn't like Javascript-based text and links, and probably your site search engine doesn't either. Of course, you only run the Optimost JavaScript during your testing period.

In the long run, I think software-based testing has more legs, but today most Web CMS vendors still provide -- at best -- only simple A/B testing, and don't yet support the kind of multivariate analysis that Optimost offers. Metrics and reporting tend to remain quite crude in most WCM tools. Also, traditional software can't easily perform geo-targeting, leverage persona recognition, and react to cookie data that a hosted service like Optimost may have already written to your browser. That all gives me the willies, but probably excites your marketing execs to no end.

More broadly, what we have here is a traditional software company acquiring a SaaS vendor. I can't think of another precedent for this. The two business models have very different rhythms and needs. But then again, Interwoven runs kind of like a big holding company anyway. I wonder if this means they have given up finding a larger suitor. An acquisition like Optimost just makes Interwoven all that more difficult for a major player (like IBM) to digest them.

The Optimost acquisition shows Interwoven continuing to pursue the marketing-oriented WCM niche. This makes good sense, but I think the underlying TeamSite technology still has a long way to go here. And as ECM Suites Report readers know, the company's document management products are headed in a very different direction. This one will be interesting to watch.