Microsoft vs Google - things that make you go hmmm

August 1st, 2007 by Carolyn Gardner

It’s hard to stay on top of all things “e” so I was thrilled when my colleague Jim Cain flipped me this little nugget of a news leak. Gotta love this kind of stuff especially when it deals with a rumoured battle between such small brands as microsoft and google!

Speaking of battles, I remember when I worked at Corel in the mid 90’s and Mike Cowpland decided Corel WordPerfect should go head to head with Microsoft Word. Ya, that was really fun. NOT! I digress…

Anyhow, the e-word is that Microsoft is creating an analytics tool to compete with Google analytics. Imagine that. I should mention there is no confirmation of these reports, but for fun, let’s ponder a few things:

First, it’s code-named “Gatineau” - I have to mention this since Sitebrand is headquartered in Gatineau, Quebec (Gatineau is just across the river from Ottawa, Ontario = Canada for any “north-of-the-border” challenged folks). I hope this isn’t some scary foreshadowing going on…but as if Microsoft could beat Sitebrand in the ever thrilling world of web personalization. Bah! Pick on someone your own size please! Or offer us tons of money and we can talk! Who said that?

Second, rumour has it Microsoft has plans to enable users to filter web traffic by age and gender demographics. This specific data will be coming from users’ Windows Live profiles, and will remain unconnected with users’ personal information such as name or email address.

This begs questions around:

1. What will be the impact on the analytics space of corrolating demographic information; moreover, what will be the privacy freakout and what is the adoption rate of MSN ID?

2. The ability to real time segment on age and gender could have a huge impact on specific kinds if websites. For example, Amazon would love to show specific products to the 15-25 demo vs the 30-45) — but does this cross the marketer decency line?

Thoughts very welcome!!

Posted in Personalization |