Just read over at Michael Arrington’s little blog that Mozilla is working on some analytics / data collection service. Here’s what he writes:
“…data is one of the most important pieces to faciliate understanding (and innovation), and is also one of the most under-explored areas of the modern web.”…
- [Mozilla Analytics] Collects & shares data in a way that embodies the user control & privacy options which are at Mozilla’s core.
- [Mozilla Analytics] Enables everyone — from individual researchers and entrepreneurs (both the social and capitalist types) to the largest organizations in the world — to take usage data, mix it up, mash it up, derive insight, and hopefully share some of that insight with others.
- [Mozilla Analytics] Helps move the conversation around data collection and web usage forward, to help consumers make more informed decisions.”
This is obviously well written PR nonsense. The WebAnalytics industry is far beyond being the “most under-explored areas of the modern web”. Currently there are up to 300 web analytics vendors fighting to be better than the other 299.
Also I am not sure how Firefox, which is mostly used by a young tech-savvy crowd and not the average Joe, will be better than what Alexa’s engineers are working on over the past 10 years.
Well…don’t want to be pessimistic. Just wish them good luck, b/c I believe they need a lot of it.
May 14th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Alexa’s model of what you might study is pretty darn limited.
I think Mozilla is looking at a wider view of analytics — the kind of datastreams you only have access to at MSFT or GOOG from toolbar data.
Beyond that, Mozilla’s underlying implementation allows privacy preserving stats on new versus return visits, use of browser UI, and all sorts of interesting stuff Alexa/ComScore/Compete aren’t able to monetize.
May 14th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Thanks for your input. I hope they come up with something new. Collecting data only from the toolbar or through a browser app is proven to be not very effective.
Having said that I think the community around Mozilla is able to come up with something that we are all waiting for. All which is needed is a good App and some $100 million Mozilla fund