Software

What's Best for Web Analytics: Client, Server or Hosted?

If you are looking for a Web analytics application, you'll find more than 100 vendors who are ready to jump in with statistical bells and whistles that measure your site's effectiveness. But before you get too impressed with the capabilities of any particular vendor, it can be particularly helpful to determine which type of analytics solution best suits your business.

For Web analytics, the three underlying differences are commonly referred to as server-side, client-side, and hosted solutions. Each, of course, has its pros and cons. And some enterprises choose to use a combination of these tool types to get the most comprehensive understanding of visitor behavior on their sites.

If it's up to you to choose a Web analytics solution for your business, you'll probably find it helpful to consider your budget and what your hosting company supports, as well as your appetite for statistics. Here are some basic concepts and inside tips from the experts to help you get started.

Surveying Server-Side

Server-side analytics tools are software applications installed on your Web site's server. These are usually pre-installed by your hosting company and accessed through your Web site's control panel. These tools make a record of each time a visitor pings your server and they tabulate data such as when visitors came through your virtual doors, where they came from, and what files they viewed.

Server-side analytics offer benefits such as anywhere access, high reliability and relatively low cost. Although the most basic server-side tools for Web analytics are typically free, enterprise-level analytics of course come with a higher price tag.

Another advantage of Web analytics that are based on the server side is privacy because the data is stored in-house. And, since they record pings, server-side analytics can offer better insights into site failures so you can fix issues like broken links. There are some downsides, though, such as portability. If you change hosting providers, you could lose your historical information unless you have kept a chronicle offline.

The Web analytics industry is moving from visits and pageviews to analytics that reflect more about what people are paying attention to, according to Ed Schipul, CEO of the Houston-based Schipul Web marketing company that created Tendenci -- a hosted application designed for management associations.

Schipul says companies need to record "events" that reflect actions. It may be, for example, that a visitor to your site first clicks to watch a video, then reads more about the product, and then finally makes contact. All of those activities may occur on the same page. Enterprise-grade server-side solutions can offer critical insights.

"The best analytics come from server-side smart systems built into your application itself so you can look at events that you view as desirable [and those] that reflect what the visitor is paying attention to," Schipul says. Enterprises, he adds, must have a server-side solution because the cost of even an expensive statistics package for an enterprise is nothing compared to the value of the business intelligence it gathers.

Calling on Client-Side Tools

The second type of solution for Web analytics is based on the client-side. These are desktop applications that are installed on your computer. With client-side software, you can call up the stored data quickly and even access the stats without an Internet connection. You can also keep your original log files and store them independently, offering you ultimate control of your data.

Unlike hosted solutions that offer monthly rates, client-side tools come at a premium and it's paid up front. Although you can get into a client-side tool for $500, you may pay well more than that for the most robust versions. Still, this can be an attractive option for enterprises because it frees them from any long-term entanglement with a host. Simply stated, your data won't be held hostage on the host's server. Client-side software also lets you manage multiple domains. For all their benefits, though, client-side tools could leave you empty handed if your system crashes and you don't have a back up.

For large organizations that are concerned with integration with existing enterprise applications, the long-term return on investment is often better with client-side Web analytics applications, according to Rod Radojevic, vice president of product management at Varicent Software, which offers Web analytics for sales performance management.

"One of the drivers for client-side Web analytics applications is the ability to leverage best practices in different areas of the organization," Radojevic said. "For example, companies that have mastered Web analytics for product profitability analysis, and other corporate performance management applications, are looking to extend Web analytics into other areas such as sales operations."

How About Hosted Analytics?

The third option is hosted solutions, or on-demand Web analytics solutions. These software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications are installed on your vendor's server. These tools require you to log into to the Web site of your Application Service Provider (ASP) in order to view and analyze your data, but that's about all you have to do. There's no downloading, no installation, no maintenance and no log parsing. That frees you up to spend more time analyzing the data.

Hosted applications come with monthly fees, which can be easier on the corporate budget, and you can access the data from any computer with an Internet connection. With page tagging -- capturing data only for the pages you want to track -- you can limit the amount of unnecessary data to wade though. Of course, that means if you forget to tag a special landing page, then you'll miss vital opportunities to track your promotion, unless you are using server-side analytics as a back up. Much the same, you won't necessarily know about site errors unless error pages and redirect pages have Javascript embedded in the tags.

"Hosted and software-as-a-service applications tend to be siloed and not always easily extendable," Radojevic argued. "On the other hand, hosted and software-as-a-service applications are a great fit for smaller organizations with limited IT resources. These organizations typically prefer fewer options."

Using Multiple Tools

At the end of the day, using multiple tools can be a key strategy for firms that want the best of all worlds. Using server-side tools offers a good baseline from which to draw error messages, spider activity and other metrics that rely specifically on tracking visitor pings to your server. Adding more robust client-side or hosted solutions on top of that can offer different angles on your data.

Schipul said his firm does have a few clients who run both an enterprise server-side application and a client-side application, because they believe the duplication adds value to the analytics equation. "While enterprise-level server-side analytics are more powerful, it definitely does help to have client-side analytics passing the data back to the server in an intelligent way," he explained. "Perhaps a video pings back to the server on completion. This would have to be client-side initiated, hence the need for both client and server side."

Now that you've got a handle on the pros and cons of the tool types, you can decide which vendor or vendors is right for you. Stay tuned to this column for a look at how to choose Web analytics vendors.

If you are looking for a Web analytics application, you'll find more than 100 vendors who are ready to jump in with statistical bells and whistles that measure your site's effectiveness. But before you get too impressed with the capabilities of any particular vendor, it can be particularly helpful to determine which type of analytics solution best suits your business.

For Web analytics, the three underlying differences are commonly referred to as server-side, client-side, and hosted solutions. Each, of course, has its pros and cons. And some enterprises choose to use a combination of these tool types to get the most comprehensive understanding of visitor behavior on their sites.

If it's up to you to choose a Web analytics solution for your business, you'll probably find it helpful to consider your budget and what your hosting company supports, as well as your appetite for statistics. Here are some basic concepts and inside tips from the experts to help you get started.

Surveying Server-Side

Server-side analytics tools are software applications installed on your Web site's server. These are usually pre-installed by your hosting company and accessed through your Web site's control panel. These tools make a record of each time a visitor pings your server and they tabulate data such as when visitors came through your virtual doors, where they came from, and what files they viewed.

Server-side analytics offer benefits such as anywhere access, high reliability and relatively low cost. Although the most basic server-side tools for Web analytics are typically free, enterprise-level analytics of course come with a higher price tag.

Another advantage of Web analytics that are based on the server side is privacy because the data is stored in-house. And, since they record pings, server-side analytics can offer better insights into site failures so you can fix issues like broken links. There are some downsides, though, such as portability. If you change hosting providers, you could lose your historical information unless you have kept a chronicle offline.

The Web analytics industry is moving from visits and pageviews to analytics that reflect more about what people are paying attention to, according to Ed Schipul, CEO of the Houston-based Schipul Web marketing company that created Tendenci -- a hosted application designed for management associations.

Schipul says companies need to record "events" that reflect actions. It may be, for example, that a visitor to your site first clicks to watch a video, then reads more about the product, and then finally makes contact. All of those activities may occur on the same page. Enterprise-grade server-side solutions can offer critical insights.

"The best analytics come from server-side smart systems built into your application itself so you can look at events that you view as desirable [and those] that reflect what the visitor is paying attention to," Schipul says. Enterprises, he adds, must have a server-side solution because the cost of even an expensive statistics package for an enterprise is nothing compared to the value of the business intelligence it gathers.

Calling on Client-Side Tools

The second type of solution for Web analytics is based on the client-side. These are desktop applications that are installed on your computer. With client-side software, you can call up the stored data quickly and even access the stats without an Internet connection. You can also keep your original log files and store them independently, offering you ultimate control of your data.

Unlike hosted solutions that offer monthly rates, client-side tools come at a premium and it's paid up front. Although you can get into a client-side tool for $500, you may pay well more than that for the most robust versions. Still, this can be an attractive option for enterprises because it frees them from any long-term entanglement with a host. Simply stated, your data won't be held hostage on the host's server. Client-side software also lets you manage multiple domains. For all their benefits, though, client-side tools could leave you empty handed if your system crashes and you don't have a back up.

For large organizations that are concerned with integration with existing enterprise applications, the long-term return on investment is often better with client-side Web analytics applications, according to Rod Radojevic, vice president of product management at Varicent Software, which offers Web analytics for sales performance management.

"One of the drivers for client-side Web analytics applications is the ability to leverage best practices in different areas of the organization," Radojevic said. "For example, companies that have mastered Web analytics for product profitability analysis, and other corporate performance management applications, are looking to extend Web analytics into other areas such as sales operations."

How About Hosted Analytics?

The third option is hosted solutions, or on-demand Web analytics solutions. These software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications are installed on your vendor's server. These tools require you to log into to the Web site of your Application Service Provider (ASP) in order to view and analyze your data, but that's about all you have to do. There's no downloading, no installation, no maintenance and no log parsing. That frees you up to spend more time analyzing the data.

Hosted applications come with monthly fees, which can be easier on the corporate budget, and you can access the data from any computer with an Internet connection. With page tagging -- capturing data only for the pages you want to track -- you can limit the amount of unnecessary data to wade though. Of course, that means if you forget to tag a special landing page, then you'll miss vital opportunities to track your promotion, unless you are using server-side analytics as a back up. Much the same, you won't necessarily know about site errors unless error pages and redirect pages have Javascript embedded in the tags.

"Hosted and software-as-a-service applications tend to be siloed and not always easily extendable," Radojevic argued. "On the other hand, hosted and software-as-a-service applications are a great fit for smaller organizations with limited IT resources. These organizations typically prefer fewer options."

Using Multiple Tools

At the end of the day, using multiple tools can be a key strategy for firms that want the best of all worlds. Using server-side tools offers a good baseline from which to draw error messages, spider activity and other metrics that rely specifically on tracking visitor pings to your server. Adding more robust client-side or hosted solutions on top of that can offer different angles on your data.

Schipul said his firm does have a few clients who run both an enterprise server-side application and a client-side application, because they believe the duplication adds value to the analytics equation. "While enterprise-level server-side analytics are more powerful, it definitely does help to have client-side analytics passing the data back to the server in an intelligent way," he explained. "Perhaps a video pings back to the server on completion. This would have to be client-side initiated, hence the need for both client and server side."

Now that you've got a handle on the pros and cons of the tool types, you can decide which vendor or vendors is right for you. Stay tuned to this column for a look at how to choose Web analytics vendors.

Enterprise Linux

Red Hat Launches Enterprise Linux 5


Red Hat released Wednesday a new version of its Linux operating system, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (RHEL 5). The new OS, which the Raleigh, North Carolina-based company said is more of a platform, is accompanied by RHEL 5 Advanced Platform for server and an updated Enterprise Desktop.

Three prepackaged solutions, based on the Advanced Platform, were also announced. They are the Red Hat Datacenter Solution, a turnkey solution to run a data center on open source; the Red Hat Database Availability Solution, designed to enable existing databases to run as reliably as clustered database systems; and the Red Hat High Performance Computing Solution, a platform for solving computational problems for engineers, financial analysts, and others.

Advanced Platform allows customers "to greatly reduce the cost and complexity of purchasing, integrating, and managing separate virtualization, storage management and high availability software," Paul Cormier, Red Hat executive vice president of engineering, said in a statement.

Red Hat Exchange

Red Hat is also trying to take the lead as the portal for open-source software. It will launch Red Hat Exchange, an online market where users can buy, sell, and rate open-source software, including those from other open-source-based companies such as SugarCRM, Al Fresco Software, and MySQL.

Red Hat has said that Exchange, launching in the second quarter, will offer only software that Red Hat guarantees will work with its products, for which it will offer technical support.

On Thursday, IBM and Red Hat announced their joint efforts to integrate new technologies into the Linux kernel that will offer improved virtualization, security, and real-time capabilities. The features will be available in the new release of Red Hat's Enterprise Linux 5.

The two companies said that the real-time features enable customers to obtain higher processing rates at high levels of reliability. The virtualization software enables several virtual machines to operate on a single server.

Challenging Miscrosoft

"It's clear that Red Hat is moving aggressively to compete with Windows Server 2003 Data Center, Solaris, and HP Unix," said Laura DiDio, an analyst with Yankee Group. "Not just in servers, but also applications, and at the high end."

She noted that the list price for a Red Hat license over three, four, or five years is actually more expensive than Windows Server 2003. "But I.T. people like that they can customize the code," she said, "and that they are not locked into a license with Microsoft."

And can the new Red Hat offerings help Linux achieve broad acceptance at the desktop? "The Red Hat Exchange could provide a major boost to third-party Linux providers," she said, including possibly Linux desktop applications.

Pricing for the OS and for the Advanced Platform will be the same as for the previous versions, Red Hat said.

The U.N. copyright agency that arbitrates more than half the world's "cybersquatting" cases saw a 25 percent increase in complaints last year.

The World Intellectual Property Organization received 1,823 complaints in 2006 alleging abusive registrations of trademarks as Internet domain names.

The complaints came mainly from information technology, financial and pharmaceutical companies, as well as famous fashion brands and the entertainment industry.

The growing number of professional domain name dealers who use computer software that automatically registers expired domain names or temporarily registers them without paying charges, is of concern to trademark owners, WIPO said.

"Domain names used to be primarily specific identifiers of business and other Internet users, but many names nowadays are mere commodities for speculative gain," said WIPO's deputy director-general, Francis Gurry.

Most of last year's disputes have been resolved, including cases brought by Tamiflu maker Roche Holding AG, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and America's Cup-winning sailor Russell Coutts.

Anyone can register a domain name for as little as a few dollars. The arbitration system, which started in 1999, allows those who think they have the right to a domain to claim it without a costly court battle or payment of large fees to buy the name.

But critics say the system favors trademark holders and not individuals who also may have legitimate rights to the names for parody, criticism and other purposes.

Since 1999, WIPO has decided in favor of the complainant in 84 percent of all cases.

TechTrend

Semiconductor Sales Rise in January


Worldwide semiconductor sales rose 9.2 percent in January, boosted by better-than-expected cell phone shipments and strong sales of personal computers, digital cameras and music players, an industry group said on Monday.

Chip sales were $21.47 billion in January, up from $19.66 billion in January 2006, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.

Sales for the month showed a seasonal 1.2 percent decline from December.

"Purchasers of personal computers continue to reap large benefits from the steady decline in prices of semiconductors achieved through advances in technology," said SIA President George Scalise in a statement.

Cell phone shipments reached 1.02 billion units in 2006, according to final figures, above earlier estimates.

"Concerns about inventories in the previous quarter appear to have worked themselves out, and the forecast for unit growth in the range of 10 to 15 percent for 2007 appears to be realistic," Scalise added.

San Jose-based SIA has represented U.S. chip manufacturers since 1977.

IDC: World Created 161 Billion Gigs of Data in 2006

Imagine more than two billion of Apple's highest-capacity iPods. According to a study by technology research firm IDC , that's what it would take to store all of the digital data that the world created in 2006 alone.

Taken together, the planet's electronic ones and zeros last year added up to 161 exabytes -- or 161 billion gigabytes -- of data. But that's just a start. In a press release issued earlier this week, data storage giant EMC, which commissioned the IDC survey, predicted that the so-called "digital universe" will increase by a factor of six by 2010.

If correct, that means the planet's annual data output will be approaching one zettabyte, or one sextillion bytes (a one followed by 21 zeros).

Rising Data Storage Costs

While IDC predicts that as much as 70 percent of data in 2010 will be created by individuals -- e-mail, online video, Web sites, and so forth -- the firm also predicts that virtually all of the data will be handled by an organization at some point.

As a result, IDC argues, "organizations -- including businesses of all sizes, agencies, governments and associations -- will be responsible for the security, privacy, reliability and compliance of at least 85 percent of the information."

"If regulations become more stringent," EMC spokesperson Kevin Kempsie said, "and governments require companies to store more info, then the sphere of the average I.T. manager will expand tremendously."

Fortunately, not all digital data lasts very long. Some data is deleted and the bytes recycled, while other data is never stored in the first place (most cell phone conversations, for instance). Nonetheless, the predicted rise in data volume will put steady pressure on corporate data storage costs.

Emerging Data Trends

The EMC/IDC report contains several other significant trends that will be of interest to corporate I.T. departments, which are frequently charged with making sure that data stays in one place. The largest category of digital data, not surprisingly, is e-mail. Person-to-person communications alone accounted for six exabytes of data in 2006, and growth continues to be rapid.

In addition, IDC estimates that in 2006, there were one billion devices capable of capturing digital images. Approximately 150 billion images were taken with digital cameras, and another 100 billion with cell phones.

Approximately 20 percent of all digital data is governed by compliance rules and standards, while roughly 30 percent might be subject to security restrictions. The recent adoption of data preservation rules by the federal courts might increase those percentages.

But without question, the two most powerful data trends are the number of Internet users and the speed with which they are connecting. Between 1996 and 2006, the number of Web users grew from a mere 48 million to 1.1 billion worldwide. IDC predicts that over the next four years, another 500 million people will come online.

When new users get online, the odds are good that they'll have a fast connection. Right now, over 60 percent of Internet users have access to broadband, whether at home, school, or the office.

Consumer Privacy Concerns

For I.T. departments, the sheer volume of digital material and the ease and speed with which it can be distributed will be an ongoing challenge in the years to come. A particular concern, as organizations collect more information, will be threats to consumer privacy.

"I.T. departments," Kempskie said, "mainly secure infrastructure right now. But with the expanding digital universe, organizations will have to get a lot smarter about information security. In fact, security needs to get information-centric; that is, the security needs to travel with the information."

Kempskie said that the EMC/IDC report is actually the third in a series of studies that began in 2000. "We approached IDC last year," Kempskie said, "because everyone knows that the amount of digital information has exploded over the last few years and we felt that increase should be quantified."

A detailed version of the research is available on EMC's Web site.

Microsoft vs Google

Microsoft Slams Google Book Search

In yet another clash between tech titans, Microsoft is accusing Google of copyright infringement. Redmond claims Google's Book Search project robs publishers and authors of due profits by reprinting their content online for the world to view free of charge.

In prepared remarks delivered at Tuesday's Association of American Publishers annual meeting in New York, Thomas Rubin, Microsoft's associate general counsel for copyright, trademark, and trade secrets, called Google's business model "troubling" and said the search giant "systematically violates copyright."

Rubin lumped Google in with companies that create no content of their own and make money solely on the backs of other people's content by selling advertising.

"What path will we as a society choose in making the world's books and publications available online? Will we choose a path that nourishes creativity and innovation over the long term and that preserves incentives for authors to offer their best works online? Or will we choose a path that encourages companies simply to take the works of others, without any regard for copyright or the impact of their actions on authors and publishers too?" Rubin asked. Microsoft, he said, has chosen the former path.

Microsoft's Read

Like Google, Microsoft is scanning thousands of books and making the tomes searchable online in a project dubbed Live Search Books. But Redmond has chosen only to scan works that are no longer protected under copyright law, or newer titles that publishers give express permission to reprint.

Google, on the other hand, includes portions of copyrighted works under what it claims as "fair use," a portion of the United States Copyright Act that allows the use of copyrighted materials for certain purposes, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.

Microsoft is not alone in its take on the matter. The Association of American Publishers and the Author's Guild are suing Google over its stance. Google's track record of protecting copyrights in other parts of its business is weak at best, according to Rubin, who pulled the YouTube card: "Anyone who visits YouTube, which Google purchased last year, will immediately recognize that it follows a similar cavalier approach to copyright."

Google Writes Back

Google responded directly to Rubin's assertions. The company assured copyright owners that it is committed to complying with laws. Google continues to tout the benefits to copyright owners of its approach to book scanning.

"The goal of search engines, and of products like Google Book Search and YouTube, is to help users find information from content producers of every size," David Drummond, Google's senior vice president for corporate development, wrote in a statement. "We do this by complying with international copyright laws, and the result has been more exposure and in many cases more revenue for authors, publishers, and producers of content."

Which Company Is Right?

Charles Baker, an intellectual property attorney at Porter & Hedges, said Google's book scanning project isn't necessarily protected by fair use, but it might not be direct copyright infringement, either.

Some legal experts have questioned whether Google's practices amount to secondary copyright infringement according to a new theory of liability that emerged following the MGM v. Grokster case. Baker defended StreamCast Networks in the landmark decision in which the Supreme Court unanimously held that peer-to-peer file sharing companies like Grokster and StreamCast could be sued for inducing copyright infringement.

"Even the Supreme Court has said that there's got to be more than just offering a product out there that may or may not allow copyright infringement," Baker noted. "Google has plenty of defenses here such that they are not directly tied to the underlying acts of infringement."

Considering Microsoft's own book scanning project and Ruben's captive, agreeable audience, Baker suggested that Microsoft might be attempting to play the good corporate citizen in the eyes of irate publishers who have lobbying power. "At the end of they day," he concluded, "Microsoft is trying to make its competitor look bad."

Aaple and Mecintosh

Apple Patches Serious QuickTime Bugs

Apple has released several updates for QuickTime, the company's media-player software, to address eight security vulnerabilities. Classified as "serious," the flaws expose Macs and Windows computers to attack, the company noted in its security alert.

The bugs garnered a high severity rating because they could be used to create malicious files that could give an attacker control over any computer running QuickTime.

Apple has issued patches for QuickTime in the past, most recently in January when it created a patch for a zero-day flaw. The new patch is for QuickTime 7.1.5, which can run on both Macs and Windows systems.

Feeling Flawed

The bugs reside in QuickTime's integer overflow and heap buffer overflow functions, and affect the software's handling of video files.

By enticing a user to open a malicious movie, an attacker can trigger an overflow, according to Apple. This action could lead to an application crash or arbitrary code being executed, which could give an attacker control of the user's system.

In addition to issuing the QuickTime patches, the company released updates for iTunes, adding additional support for the music and video store.

Now in version 7.1, iTunes has improved sorting options so users can more effectively organize artists, albums, and songs. It also adds support for the release of Apple TV, expected to launch within the next few weeks.

System Check

Security researchers have been focusing intently on QuickTime and other similar applications because they are in widespread use on blogs and social-networking sites.

As much as Apple hypes its security in comparison to Windows, it is very difficult to say whether one operating system is more secure than another, according to Sophos senior security consultant Carole Theriault.

"There are millions of lines of code behind any platform, and of course there are flaws inside that can be discovered and exploited by those that look hard enough and are determined enough," she said.

Apple tends to be less targeted than Windows because more people use the Microsoft system, she added. That means there are more hackers and malicious code writers scouring that OS for vulnerabilities.

Hacker Target

So, although it might look like Apple is safer, Theriault noted, the more likely reason is that the company is not the market leader, and presents a smaller, less attractive target for attackers.

"Should this change in the future and they become kings of the computer market, I'd be very surprised if we didn't see malware distributors and hackers shift their attention to exploiting Apple code much more regularly," she said.

In terms of warning users and taking security matters seriously, both Microsoft and Apple seem to be very adept at dealing with flaws, she added.