I keep trying to force myself to use the new "beta" version of Google Analytics (website metrics), but I keep concluding that Google has taken a good system, added some bells and whistles, and then taken out some really important features. Kinds of like taking a sports car and adding a convertible top, GPS, full media center, performance tires... and cutting the horsepower.
I have a business website as well as this blog. So when "beta" arrived, I looked forward to the expanded capabilities. I must admit, some features are nice. But here's what is wrong in a nutshell:
I want to know what interests people who visit the websites. I don't just want a count of visits by article or page. I want to know who is interested in what. I want to know if there is a difference of interests by geography. I want to know if a referring source is sending readers for a particular post or for a general topic.What a disappointment!
The new "beta" doesn't do that at all from what I can see. The old version had some "crosstabs" capability with regard to content and I thought that would be expanded rather than eliminated.
Here, let me spell it out: cross-reference title, network, location, domain, date, source. A simple database capability... and all of the data is there.
..