Kemelor Phil Kemelor

A New Day for WebTrends?

1-Feb-2008

Tags: Web Analytics, Marketplace at Large, Selecting Technology, Vendor Viability & Financials, Analytics, Omniture SiteCatalyst

Analytics vendor WebTrends announced a host of additions to their new management team on Wednesday.

But are they really new? It actually seems somewhat like a homecoming, as three of the four worked for WebTrends previously. This should assuage some customer concerns that a new team would be totally out of touch with the product, and interested only in prepping the company for sale.

The hope in Portland (where the company is headquartered) is that this new team can help WebTrends recapture market share that it's lost to Omniture and other competitors.

Currently, WebTrends is in a retrenching phase. The company says it's trying to improve ease of use in areas such as post-analysis translation, administration, reporting enhancements, data collection (especially in the areas of streaming video and audio), and admin rights (something we've talked about in the Web Analytics Report), among others.

From a customer perspective, I found this news to be somewhat heartening. The last few months have been anything but clear with regard to the company's direction. Now it appears that at least there's a team in place.

However, we run across many customers who have gripes with WebTrends, such as awkward Excel reporting, and a unique visitor counting method that bloats numbers. Will the company's soul searching lead to improvements in these, and other core functionality areas, or will the improvements be merely cosmetic?

Stay tuned.

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