[HN Gopher] Urchin Software Corp: The unlikely origin story of G...
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Urchin Software Corp: The unlikely origin story of Google
Analytics, 1996-2005
Author : cpeterso
Score : 35 points
Date : 2024-08-09 20:32 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (urchin.biz)
(TXT) w3m dump (urchin.biz)
| holman wrote:
| I can't really explain how _cool_ Urchin was. I think it was one
| of the first truly analytical software I used -- not just from a
| web traffic point of view, but it was a site that used and
| presented _data_. The graphs, the maps, even the two-column UI
| was stuff a lot of web developers copied and riffed on back then.
| It really opened my mind up to a lot of things: design, software
| as a service (and installable software), even acquisitions in
| general. Strangely had a large impact on my future career.
| davidwinters wrote:
| I was so excited to switch from Webtrends to Urchin and back when
| I still loved Google I was delighted that they bought it out and
| made it free. Now I wish Google had never touched them.
| PaulStatezny wrote:
| > Now I wish Google had never touched them.
|
| Would you be willing to elaborate?
| cqqxo4zV46cp wrote:
| I don't think "Google bad" needs elaboration in 2024.
| jonas21 wrote:
| Many of the things people think are bad about Google in
| 2024 (trackers, targeting, slurping up user data, etc) came
| from Urchin.
| davidwinters wrote:
| After the switch to Google Analytics the heat map feature was
| dropped pretty quickly and it was one of the features I
| really enjoyed. I also think it would have been better for us
| in the long run to have paid for a service that let us
| maintain control over our data.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| Oh man, what a shift moving from webtrends to urchin. Between
| that and following the regular "google dance" on the
| webmasterworld forums what a time to be alive.
| cut3 wrote:
| I remember switching from some cgi script web counter to urchin
| and it was incredible the insights it unlocked. Good nostalgia
| hit.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| Had a chance to meet Brett at the Google offices shortly after
| the acquisition. Really nice guy, had a lot of good advice about
| being a founder.
| spydum wrote:
| Worked at a hosting company in those years.. urchin was the GOAT.
| we ran it for every customer, and relied on it heavily for
| billing our customers. It was crazy fast and elegant. Nothing
| came close
| aeyes wrote:
| I'm very surprised that they signed up whole ISPs and got away
| with it.
|
| I wasn't able to process the daily logs of the tracking pixel of
| the site I was operating on Urchin 5 within 24 hours. I had a
| beefy server with a 16 drive raid array but the log processing
| never used multiple cores.
|
| By that time Google had aquired them, support didn't exist
| because they wanted you to switch to Google Analytics and it was
| basically 30k down the drain.
| Lammy wrote:
| > Our first tradeshow ever, circa 1997.
|
| Pardon my one nitpick: the computer in the photo (PowerMac1,1)
| was introduced 1999-01-05.
| ot1138 wrote:
| I loved this retell. Brings back the old days, especially the
| Google and Yahoo parties of the late 2000's. Those were crazy.
| They literally carried one of my employees out of a basement rave
| who had passed out from drinking too much.
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(page generated 2024-08-09 23:00 UTC)