As Web Analytics Wednesday continues to gain momentum around the world leading into what is shaping up to be the largest event in WAW history in San Francisco on Tuesday, May 6th, I am pleased to announce that Coremetrics and SiteSpect have both signed on to be global sponsors of this event.

You can read the press release here but the essence of this announcement is that these great companies share my vision for what Web Analytics Wednesday is becoming — the largest and most widely recognized gathering of web analytics professionals in the world. In sharing the vision, their management teams have graciously decided to provide financial support to allow Web Analytics Demystified provide more reimbursement to a larger number of events around the world.

Starting today, we are pleased to be able to help emerging Web Analytics Wednesday chapters cover the cost of providing food and drink to participants. You can read about the WAW sponsorship policy here and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to write me directly.

On behalf of myself, my wife Amity who provides event support, June, and every Web Analytics Wednesday host and participant around the world I want to thank Coremetrics and SiteSpect for their vision and contribution. So far in April nearly 700 people have signed up to participate in Web Analytics Wednesday and we’re well on the way to beat my goal of 5,000 participants worldwide in 2008!

In other Web Analytics Wednesday news …

• I will be in New York this coming Wednesday giving a short Web Analytics Wednesday presentation on “The Future of Web Analytics” at the headquarters of Avenue A/Razorfish. This event is being organized by Joel Collymore, one of the WAW hosting superstars, and promises to be a great event (over 115 people are signed up to attend already!) Sign up here to join us since we need to add you on the security list at the door!
• Don’t forget, if you live in the Bay Area in Northern California or are coming to Emetrics, we are having what is likely to be the largest WAW event in history at the Fluid Nightclub on Mission Avenue. This special WAW on Tuesday, May 6th is open to all web analytics practitioners regardless of whether you’re going to Emetrics or not so please sign up to join us!
• Just in case you live in French Polynesia, the first ever Web Analytics Wednesday event is being held on Bora Bora in Tahiti. Steve Jackson, blogger, consultant, and likely soon-to-be EUWAA leader is heading to Bora Bora for his honeymoon and has offered to help spread the good word. While his new bride will almost certainly not think it amusing, if you can get to Bora Bora I’m buying the drinks!

I am especially excited about the San Francisco event because Coremetrics, ForeSee Results, SiteSpect, and Tealeaf have all made significant sponsorship donations, giving us quite a lot of lattitude to entertain. It looks like our efforts are paying off as the sign-up list is a virtual who’s who of web analytics thought-leaders, practitioner talent, and consulting genius!

Those of you who regularly attend the Emetrics Marketing Optimization Summit here in the states know that from time to time we hold big Web Analytics Wednesday events in conjunction with the conference.  Especially in San Francisco where the philosophical founder of WAW lives (June Dershewitz!) we like to have big events.

This time June and her partner David are planning a doozy!

Thanks to the very generous support of Coremetrics, ForeSee Results, SiteSpect, Tealeaf, and Jim Sterne (Marketing Optimization Summit) we are having a big party at the Fluid Nightclub on Mission Street (just around the corner from the conference hotel.)

You can download a very snazzy PDF invitation or read the press release about the event.

If you’re coming to Emetrics, even if you’re planning on attending a vendor dinner or just hitting the town, we sincerely hope that you’ll join us at this special Web Analytics Wednesday (on Tuesday) event.  You can register to join us and get all the details here.

Yep, it’s that time of the year again, time for my bi- (soon to be tri-) annual pilgrimage to Europe to meet with some of the best and the brightest overseas. I’m very excited about this trip for a handful of reasons:

1. The trip begins in London next Monday at what is likely to be the largest event in the history of Web Analytics Wednesday. Thanks to the fine folks from SCL Analytics and Unica and a little support from E-Consultancy there are currently 128 people registered to attend the event! London has always been a hotbed of WAW activity and this is my first time attending the event. I’ll be giving a short presentation on “The Future of Web Analytics” and taking questions from the audience.
2. On Tuesday I will be presenting at Nedstat’s “Streaming Media on the Move” event at London’s Soho Hotel and talking about the white paper I recently authored with Nedstat’s Chief of Innovation and how measurement is changing in a Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 world.
3. Wednesday and Thursday I will be in Amsterdam doing private presentations. Over the years I have grown to love the beauty, culture, and diversity Amsterdam has to offer (despite the presence of what Aurelie lovingly refers to as “the narcotourists!”)
4. Friday I will be in Brussels, Belgium with the fine folks at OX2 giving a private presentation and participating in another special Web Analytics Wednesday event (albeit a somewhat smaller affair)
5. The following Monday I will be in Helsinki, Finland working with my partner Trainer’s House/Satama and giving a presentation on Measuring Lead Generation site. The folks at Satama are great to work with and I’m very excited about getting to spend more than 18 hours in Helsinki this time …
6. Back to London on the 8th for some client work and home on the 9th. Phew!

If you’re in or near London or Brussels I’d love to meet you at one of the Web Analytics Wednesday events. I suspect I will also have a little free time in Amsterdam and Helsinki so if you’d like to meet in one of those cities, please feel free to drop me a line and we can try and meet!

Ha, made you look. Actually what is going on is some Web Analytics Wednesday antics in San Francisco where last week Web Analytics Demystified, Inc. sponsored an event hosted by the great June Dershewitz (read June’s blog!) You can see some of the other photos June took at Facebook

Speaking of Web Analytics Wednesday, we’ve made some pretty cool additions to the event system recently, including:

• Better visibility for sponsors, which seems to have increased the number of event sponsors and thusly the volume of free food and drink being provided
• Sponsorship from Web Analytics Demystified, Inc., to help smaller events in cities around the world get started. If you’re thinking about having an event, we’d love to hear from you!
• The ability to share your experience at Web Analytics Demystified, which will inevitably help market these events to other practitioners around the globe
• A snazzy interactive map done in Flash (alternates with other Flash content) to highlight how much of the world is participating in these events

I just participated in an EXCELLENT Web Analytics Wednesday event in New York hosted by Joel Collymore and Derek Monteverdi and sponsored by OpinionLab. Web Analytics Book has a nice write-up of the event and it was nice to have met Sebastian and the nearly 50 other folks who showed up.

Anyway, thanks to June for the fun photo and to all of you who are out there hosting, sponsoring, and most importantly participating in Web Analytics Wednesday events. If you have any questions about how you can host or sponsor an event, please drop me a line anytime.

If you’ve been doing more than just reading my blog, you probably noticed that I massively updated the Web Analytics Demystified web site over the past week. Thanks to Jeff, Judah, and dozens of other kind folk who gently pushed me to build a site that was more reflective of the work I’m doing now.

Aside from an overhaul for the look-and-feel of the site, here are some of the things you may want to check out:

• A substantial overhaul of the Web Analytics Wednesday site including the addition of new sections letting participants share their experience, information about how my company is now sponsoring events around the world, and better navigation tools for folks looking for local events.
• An overhaul of the jobs section of the site, including an updated RSS feed for jobs, job content integrated into site search, better navigation for jobs, and an overall cleaner look.
• The addition of new charting and trending tools to the Vendor Discovery Tool, which I’m really excited about since it makes it much easier to explore market relationships between vendors.
• A much cleaner process for purchasing copies of my books, as well as the ability to purchase copies of Web Site Measurement Hacks and standalone copies of the key performance indicator worksheets that come with The Big Book of Key Performance Indicators.
• An exciting new blog with Joseph Carrabis and (hopefully) a bunch of really bright people from inside the measurement community and out, The Future of Web Analytics, Demystified.
• RSS feeds for all major content areas of the site including research, consulting, jobs, Web Analytics Wednesday, and a universal feed for my, Judah, Daniel, and the all new Future of Web Analytics, Demystified blog.

There is a lot more but it’s probably better if you just come back to the site and have a look rather than my trying to describe it all.

If you find any bugs please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email and let me know. I very much welcome your feedback on the new site and am open to suggestions. I have a handful of initiatives that I’m still working on, including some stuff around Web Analytics Wednesday, but welcome your ideas.