Web Analytics 3.0

First there was Web Analytics, then Avinash and friends created Web Analytics 2.0 which has the definition below.

Web Analytics 2.0 is:

(1) the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from your website and the competition,
(2) to drive a continual improvement of the online experience that your customers, and potential customers have,
(3) which translates into your desired outcomes.

But it seems that the counting will never stop, Web Analyics 3.0 has just been anounced by Eric T. Peterson. This time it is about measuring what sounds to me like mobile analytics. Using the characteristics of a mobile device to server more relevant ads to mobile web users. Things like the GPS coordinates and the phone number.

And there is some confusion as to what web analytics 3.0 really is as well as Web 3.0 which may be about virtual worlds on the internet.

My concern is that we have had most of this technology for a good while now, I mean Second life and World of Warcraft have provided 3D worlds for a couple of years. We have had the ability to measure qualitative data from websites in the Web Analytics 2.0 style for ages, I think Amazon were doing this from day 1.

And is Web Analytics 3.0 really a necessary term seeing as we have a quite adequate one called mobile analytics. I mean they are 2 quite separate things, you can´t access a mobile website normally on the internet and most people don´t have phones capable of accessing the real internet, maybe just WAP.

Now I agree that mobile analytics does look like a really exciting opportunity to play with some new challenges and develop new ideas for measuring user interaction with brands. But can someone explain to me why we need Web Analytics 3.0 and when will it end?

It feels like web analytics is a very technical field and I know from being in a consulting environment that marketers find it difficult to understand but is that any excuse why we should dumb it down for people to understand?

Just think we will soon have SEO 2.0, can you imagine what that will be? In fact Ed Dale has come up with a pretty interesting concept that sounds like it.