Hey Google, where’s that free data you promised!?
Posted by Phil Smulian on 07 Aug 2008 at 02:58 pm | Tagged as: Search Engine News, Uncategorized
On the 24th of June, the Wall Street Journal published a piece claiming that Google would be releasing a new and free internet usage statistics product, due for release within a matter of days.
In the article, author Emily Steel considers that the product would rival the services offered by existing internet usage data providers, namely the prominent ones: Comscore and Hitwise. She muses that, given the sheer size of Google’s data infrastructure, they could significantly shake the web measurement market place, especially if they offered that data up for free.
I have been digging through the official Google and Google AdWords blogs, in search of some mention of this alleged product, and so far the predictions from the esteemed WSJ have not been actualised.
There was this WebProNews post from the 17th of July, Google unifies AdWords campaign management, that reports Google AdWords is to unite their keyword and placement targeting campaign types into one easy to use interface, where advertisers will be able to bid for particular sites on the network. A rather momentous and generous modification, but still not close to a new & free internet usage stats product.
On the whole, Google has seen an assortment of alterations and unveilings, big and small, over the past month.
- Google bought “Begun”, one of Russia’s leading contextual ad businesses
- AdWords released search volume numbers in their keyword tool
- Google news introduced filters to further organise news results
- Google introduced a specialised downloadable search application for iPhone
- Google launched Knol, the moderated wiki
- Google Maps boasts a sharper appearance
- Google now shows searchers if their results have been modified due to geo-location or search history factors.
Despite all of Google’s activity, I have not managed to pick up any confirmation of the release of the product that Emily Steel of WSJ spoke of. She labelled her sources as “Ad executives who have been briefed on it”. Emily, if you read this, please could you drop a comment as to the progress of this matter? I’d sure like to know if the balance of the “internet web stats” ecosystem is about to be disrupted.
