Web Analytics Wednesday @ ZAAZ

ZAAZ hosted Web Analytics Wednesday (WAW) again last evening. It was the fifth or sixth time I hosted the event for the group, and they keep getting better. We had people attend from ZAAZ, Microsoft, Razorfish, Farecast, Neutrino, and Whitepages.com. Its interesting now that after having done this a few times, we are seeing recurring people which is great because you get the feeling of community now among the group instead of everyone not knowing each other and having to play the get-to-know-you dance. The main topic I heard going around a lot last night was Google, Google, & Google. Why the heck not? They're hot right now. Snapping up Doubleclick just to Microsoft couldn't have them and the latest release of Urchin there is a lot to talk about in the space. Mostly the talk is generally about the industry and whats going on, rather than best practices- which to some extent is okay. Best practices is what gives you a slight lead among the competition, which essentially is what all these people are anyway. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer I suppose right? Regardless of all of it- WAW is really panning out to be a good event for Web Analytics professionals to develop community among themselves and finally feel like they belong. Most companies right now just have one or two web analytic FTE's, and its hard to play in a game like that when you have all this creativity but no outlet. This definintely provides that.