Chinalytics Longmarch Blog

In a sign that at least some people read this blog, I got an email from Edelman two weeks ago, sharing WebTrends success working with CCTV. Props to Edelman for their outreach efforts. Leaving a comment on my blog might have been the more “web 2.0″ thing to do, but sending me an email is fine with me. At least is strokes my ego

Now the news:

• “CCTV, China’s largest TV broadcaster, is using technology from WebTrends to track online video and other content during the Olympics. [...] By bringing WebTrends in, CCTV will be able to uncover visitor trends and customize content for hundreds of millions of Chinese Internet users throughout the Olympics.” (highlights are mine)

Some thought:

• WebTrends is certainly the best established global analytics solution in China. Their partnership with a local distributor gave them and edge and an 8
  year lead on Omniture and other competitors. They have done especially well in large state owned companies (more in an older post).
• The rumor mill says Webtrends didn’t see any money from the CCTV deal. Some underhand deal from their local distributor left them in the rain. Well, at least they got the press release.  Lesson: there are opportunities and risks working with a local distributor.
• One great illusion is that a tool (any tool) will enable a company to do anything. It’s the team that runs the analytics that makes the difference. Without them, the tool is just a useless piece of software collecting data.
• I am not sure what WebTrends “online analytics” means. It could be interpreted as CCTV using “WebTrends on Demand”, which is their hosted solution. I don’t think that would make any sense for CCTV. Considering CCTV.com gets more traffic than NBC.com , it is critical for large site that the growing volume of analytics data (Javascript, tracking pixels) is hosted on a local server. (I am assuming that JS is the only way of effectively tracking video, please correct me if I am wrong). To my knowlege Webtrends does not have any servers in China. Looking at the HTML code of CCTV.com, it becomes clear that they do indeed use WebTrends SDC tags, but that the JS is hosted on CCTV’s own servers. This fact, practical reasons, China’s manical need to keep online and TV data out of foreign hands and WebTrends standard sales pitch in China argue for a WebTrends software installation (read: not on demand, not hosted by Webtrends). Plus, this way noone at headquarters needs to find out there is a large installation running (at least until they want to send a press release )

Any additional info about Web Analytics and the Olympics? Please let me know in the comments.