Dan Keldsen's Library tagged analytics →  View Popular, Search in Google

Have not yet used this service, but I like the general approach. Instead of tracking analytics in 10s to 100s of different specific sites, like Facebook Insights, YouTube, Yelp, Google Analytics, etc., bring it into one place so you are more likely to actually look at and act on your analytics.

metrics statdash mashups analytics

Quite the incredible collection of startup-related materials - very heavily leaning towards software companies as the startup target audience, but it can all be extended into services or other arenas.

startup tools entrepreneurship analytics steve_blank

"We all know the pain of a lost piece of vital information, whether a customer proposal, document, or important e-mail. The hurt became even more acute this year, as many were forced to comb through data left behind by laid-off colleagues. That's too bad, because the core technologies to enable federated enterprise search have existed for more than 15 years. Yet according to our InformationWeek Analytics Enterprise Search Survey of 552 business technology professionals, not even one in four organizations uses any type of enterprise search system today. "

I still recall a client whose "center of search excellence" employee insisted that federated search was something we made up, and wasn't possible. The same person who's sole job was to harness search, sitting in IT, couldn't tell us what versions and capabilities of the various search technology they had in place.

To paraphrase Bon Jovi "You give search... a bad name."

informationweek research search analytics federated_search

Findability isn't just for users. Analytics on use helps ongoing Active Management as well. Interesting case study.

kmworld P&G findability analytics

Interesting discussion posted by Tim O'Reilly - I responded in the comments. Clearly, there's a lot of confusion about innovation in general, and how to measure whether it's gone up or down, even within a single company, let alone across comparative companies.

We did some research on the management practice of innovation in Q4 2009 - view the webinar at:
Innovation needs to be defined within context. Innovation for a government agency is much difference from innovation in a publicly held company, vs. a non-profit, vs. a 10-person software startup vs. a hospital, etc..

Comparing innovation levels across disparate contexts is, well, ridiculous. There is no "innovation thermometer" that allows for direct comparisons. Innovation is in the context of whatever you decide it to be - product-oriented, cost reduction-oriented, service-oriented, revenue-oriented, etc.. Raw patent #s don't mean much of anything - look how many patents are filed that don't actually result in a real impact in the world. Defensive patents aside, many patents are just ideas that made it to the patent office first, not necessarily good nor "innovative" per se.

For those who don't believe innovation can or should be measured, it's safe to say that you aren't doing innovation, no matter how innovation might be defined. In my experience (having covered the idea management and innovation management space for 6 years), you need to measure and encourage both small i innovations (improvements, of the like that Toyoyta [normally] are famous for), and BIG I INNOVATIONS (what most people would call innovation - or disruptive innovations for Clay Christensen fans) and put SOME stake in the ground to see what level of innovation you had when you started caring about innovation, if those measures change from a raw #s perspective, but, importantly, what the outcomes of those innovation experiments DO for your business.

If you simply want "more innovation" - you'll either get nothing, or a lot of undifferentiated STUFF, with the odd useful idea/innovation

innovation analytics measurement tim_oreilly ari_shahdadi brad_burnham innovation_management

The # of users of Foursquare is a tiny fraction of the potential users, so let's not get carried away just yet, but for those locations that take advantage of this type of social proof stand to blow the doors off of their clueless competition. Should be a sign that the business *already cares about customer satisfaction/engagement* as well. The clueless are likely to remain blissfully ignorant.

foursquare hyperlocal commerce analytics engagement

Quarkbase is a mashup of multiple sources to get a profile on websites - traffic via alexa, ownership/details via zoominfo, etc.. Looks like they're just starting, and personally, I'd go with Compete data over Alexa, but perhaps that's on the todo list.

alexa analytics quarkbase biztechtalk zoominfo traffic_tracking