Hi Rich,

I was actually quite disappointed with the summit. For the $1,995 /
person fee we spent, I'm not really sure how much value any of us
received.

I should preface things by saying we went as a group of 3. Myself a
web analytics specialist with a bit of experience, a search engine
marketer and a senior business analyst with virtually no web analytics
experience. All three of us reported that the conference was of
little use.

Being a new customer, we were really eager to see what an Omniture
summit looks like. I've only ever been to an eMetrics summit last
year in D.C. so that was my frame of comparison.

Basically, I felt that Omniture used the entire event as a product
showcase to upsell current customers.

Here are the sessions I attended and my take:
March 5: All the introductory stuff was as to be expected and was
fine. Here's the new version, here's how were trying to streamline so
on and so forth. It was good to get the info, but in all honesty
there wasn't much they went over that a few minutes in the new
interface and a call to support wouldn't have provided.

The birds of a feather lunch was great as I got to hang out with
Rachel Scotto again! :)

The media beginner and advanced sessions were pretty horrible. The
beginner session was taken on by a speaker who not only didn't seem to
understand media at all, but who (I'm sorry to say) was just a really
poor public speaker. I'd like to save other people the disappointment
here so I'll provide some advice...ask your Account Manager for the
"media playbook" that literally summarizes both the beginner and
advanced sessions they had. Made me pretty angry when I saw them with
slides taken right out of the pages of the playbook.

Lance Armstrong at a web analytics conference...he's a great speaker
for sure and inspirational in his own way, but I really didn't care
for it at a conference about web analytics!

March 6
Woke up refreshed and ready to give the conference a second shot. I
attended the "Power Web Analyst Track" expecting to be challenged by
the session entitled "Improved Data Accessibility through ExcelClient
Publishing".

The session again turned into basically a walk through of a new
product feature which allows users to publish worksheets and have
Omniture handle automated sending.

I'm a huge fan of the feature, but why did I need to spend $1,995 to
find out what I could've read in product documentation?

Continuing on after lunch I attended "Using APIs to Get the Right Data
in the Right Place". Again, love the new feature they've released
(not a huge fan of the token architecture they've created - I have to
pay to ask Omniture if they've completed my request?), but didn't see
this as much more than an upsell.

I do realize with that last session though that many people who
attended may have been unfamiliar with what an API even is. In that
case, I could see how it may have been useful.

Finally, headed to "Integrating Attitudes, Behavior and Intent" in the
"Web Analytics & Segmentation Track". There was nothing wrong with
the course except that for me, I could've gotten all the information I
needed from the title. "Mike, go out and integrate attitudinal and
behavioural data in order to get an idea of intent." It wouldn't even
matter if I didn't know how, I would figure that I'd have to bring in
some Omniture consulting in order to help me out.

So in comparing Omniture summit to eMetrics...I'd say save your money
for eMetrics. eMetrics for me had little (if nothing) to do about the
tool you use, it was how to apply strategies using web analytics to
truly improve your online business.

I personally find that approach much more rewarding in that strategy
is the tough stuff. After I know what I'm trying to do I can always
engage consulting services to fill in the gaps.

Just my $0.02. :)

Mike

--- In webanalytics@yahoogroups.com, "Rich Page" <rich@...> wrote:
>
> Hey all - did many of you go to the summit up in Salt Lake City? I just
> got back, and was very impressed. I particuarly liked the focus towards
> testing and targeting. And I am very pleased to see version 14 of site
> catalyst too - way better interface than before. I actually wrote a
> full review of the major themes at the summit on my blog:
> http://rich-page.com/web-analytics/omniture-summit-08-review-new-seth-
> godin-book-giveaway/
>
> Oh, and I have a few free copies of Seth Godin's new marketing book to
> giveaway - its a great book that he discussed in a keynote.
>
> Rich Page
>