Awhile back, I blogged about I.B.M’s System S software, and predicted that it was the direction of future web analysis - where the requirement is to combine and massage large datasets, beyond just web clickstream data, to provide a global view/insight into a company’s operations. Another player just jumped into the space with a more accessible, affordable and snazzy tool.
A new web startup called Data Applied just launched. It is an online analytics, data mining and visualization tool described on its website as follows:
Data Applied revolutionizes data-driven decision making by integrating rich analytics, data mining, and information visualization capabilities - all using a zero footprint Web interface, collaboration features, and a secure XML Web API. By extracting valuable knowledge from data in domains as varied as Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Social Sciences or Non-Profit, we help organizations make better data-driven decisions and improve efficiency
Data can be easily imported from csv or excel files. You can try it out for free now, but commercial licenses start under $500. The 8 minute video below explains some of of the things you can do, which includes:
- Data imports from multiple sources
- Deep segmentation of datasets
- Extensive visualizations which are easily reconfigurable
- Analyze correlations/associations between data variables
- Model data using Decision Tree Analysis / Tree Maps
- Share results/comments
- Time series forecasting / simulations
So what does this all mean for the field of Web Analytics?
Tools like these are popping up with increasing frequency in recognition of the emergence of a data centric world. According to this article in the NYTimes, the big 800 pound gorilla called Microsoft is getting into this space as well with a tool called Pivot, described as a tool for radical visualization of online objects.
Web Analytic tools were designed to mine just Web clickstream data. In comparison to the feature set of these new tools, the current breed of Web Analytics tools do not match up. The Omniture Discover tool, which is an optional paid add-on to the regular suite of products comes closest to the segmentation capabilities of these new tools. None of the current Web Analytic tools offer things like Decision Tree Analysis modeling, forecasting of traffic trends / time series analysis, extensive visualization toolsets and data mining capabilities to find hidden correlations.
This is closer to what SAS offers, so in a sense, Data Applied is like a cheaper Web based version of SAS. I suspect that tools like Google Analytics will continue to be very relevant for small and medium size businesses who don’t need any esoteric stuff like Decision Tree Analysis to figure out their web traffic. However, I won’t be surprised to see Google push out enhancements to it’s Analytics package with similar capabilities but in a way that is easy to understand and use.
It will be interesting to see what can be done with data from the Google API (or any other Web Analytics API source), pipped into the Data Applied machine for analysis. I may just try that and post my findings here!
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