Comments on: Omniture Invents Fire - News at Eleven

By: Zach

Zach — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:45:19 +0000

As someone who is also confused by the gap between marketing and reality, I was wondering if you know whether Omniture’s API is real and working. It was announced at the user conference, but it didn’t seem to be live when we played with it. I’d appreciate an e-mail if you have thoughts on this. Thanks.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:22:28 +0000

@Julien, You are probably mostly correct. This post probably just goes to my own strong desire for people to just lay it out like it is, and let me make a decision. I agree that Omniture is not necessarily alone here. Their press release just reminded me of an old situation.

And your 2 cents are always welcome, because that is worth like 5 cents here.

By: Julien Coquet

Julien Coquet — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 08:21:40 +0000

I like to think all vendors try to bend the rules of physics and alter reality to hold their own on a nearly saturated market.

I have seen vendors here in Europe blabbering total nonsense and throwing dirt on competitors just to get a foot in the door. Crazy and unethical.

Sales teams walk a fine, fine line on the way to ethical sales, but on the way across, they stagger on the dark side more than they’d like to admit.

Just my 2 cents from across the pond :)

Julien

By: Matt G

Matt G — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 00:08:27 +0000

Michael:

Interesting post sir. I would agree with you in principle, but say that I don’t think “O” is the only offender in this space. I was recently working on a tool evaluation and selection project for one of our clients and had a similar experience - From multiple companies.

The Phrase “First Party Cookies” comes up in multiple brochures as “we really do it” or “we were the first.” I would suggest all companies take the time to review their competition’s - and their own - marketing material to make sure it is 1) accurate and 2) up to date with the current state of affairs.

To your point, I think the “O” incident you described still happens a lot when you look at companies who are not familiar with the tools in general (enter folks like us who can try to keep them honest).

Let’s hope the mad dash to grab market share in today’s world leads to more thorough review of the claims and consistency of them with reality.

MPG

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:58:33 +0000

@Stephane
I don’t disagree that Omniture has a great solutions suite. My main complaint is that they unnecessarily prejudice me against them because of their marketing tactics. And you are right I am not at the Omniture Summit this week. :)

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 12:06:35 +0000

Gotta agree. A couple years ago I talked on the WA Demystified forum about the exact same thing with this company — the press releases and sales efforts touting unique, first, only, breakthrough kinda words that just were not true. All hell broke loose back then as a result, with some somewhat personal public comments (and a lot of supportive private emails).

By: S.Hamel

S.Hamel — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 06:47:20 +0000

Hi Michael, I would say that one has to look behind the marketing pitch and make his own judgment. I have seen sales pitch that looked more like a contest of who would come up with the best adjectives to describe their products. Individually, other products might offer some parts, but in my point of view, Omniture is the only one offering such a complete suite of products. Should you go for best of class or best of suite? Like so many things in web analytics, it depends…

As a freelance consultant, I have clients that use SiteCatalyst, HBX, Coremetrics, WebTrends and Google Analytics, each one has its merits, but I bet you weren’t at the Omniture Summit …