[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
(2016)
Author : cpeterso
Score : 246 points
Date : 2024-08-09 20:32 UTC (1 days 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.
| taf2 wrote:
| The bad IMO originated from double click
| jlarocco wrote:
| I'm not so sure.
|
| Google already had a reputation for slurping up user
| data, even in 2008 before they bought DoubleClick. It's a
| no brainer that a targetted advertising company can
| target ads better if they have as much information about
| the users as possible.
|
| In 2008, DoubleClick's over the top, obnoxious
| advertising (banner ads, punch the monkey, etc.) was
| slowing down in favor of Google's more discrete
| advertising and data collection. They may have caught on
| and turned it around eventually, but Google bought them
| up first.
| 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.
| greenavocado wrote:
| Yandex Metrica has free heatmap
| 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.
| egorfine wrote:
| > Now I wish Google had never touched them.
|
| It is incredible how out of touch with reality GA has become.
| Nothing is called what it used to be, and not a single straight
| report with simple familiar figures. Everything is abstracted
| to the point of it being useless. I am pretty sure I understand
| what happens with the GA team today [1]
|
| We run self-hosted Matomo for analytics. One of the bonus
| points, besides actual sane reports is that Matomo can see
| about ~40% more traffic due to being invisible to blockers
| while being fully GDPR compliant and providing full privacy for
| visitors.
|
| [1] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-
| architect...
| 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.
| pixelesque wrote:
| Further backed up by the fact that the photos show "Urchin 3.0"
| signs, and the article mentions: "In 1999, Brett Crosby, VP of
| Sales and Marketing, was casting about trying to get Urchin 2.0
| noticed."
| 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.
| golergka wrote:
| Somehow, even on the opposite side of the globe software
| company parties also were not very timid. I spent a whole
| morning in 2009 in an ambulance and then in hospital with my
| colleague who passed out in a bar after a full night of
| drinking.
| _the_inflator wrote:
| For maybe different reasons or circumstances. Nevertheless
| cheers, mate.
|
| VC backed passing out was way different and not in the
| somewhat elitist sense that prevails in Europe.
|
| Play hard, party hard mixed with friendly and open nerd frat
| house mentality in California is one of a kind compared to
| then cold and dark winters in Europe. People forget that
| there is essentially always sun, a huge difference.
|
| Some had a 17:00 party break every weekday, loud music and
| food 17:00 sharp no exceptions, a phenomenon what became
| after work parties in Europe, but were more or less barbecue
| parties for casual idea sharing and bonding.
|
| Catering costs for a month alone would have killed every
| startup or company in EU.
|
| And then imagine special occasions somewhere else. These
| people knew how to have a good time - to pass out one way or
| the other.
|
| Happy times.
| golergka wrote:
| Europe is big. Some parts get almost as much sun as
| California, and get hotter in the Summer. And other parts,
| like Russia, where the described events took place, have
| deeply ingrained alcohol culture not that far from frat
| mentality.
| davidcbc wrote:
| Sounds like something better left in the past
| mkmk wrote:
| > The UTM, or Urchin Traffic Monitor, was an early method for
| augmenting Apache (or IIS, etc.) log files with cookies, such
| that unique visitors could be established.
|
| Of course, "utm" lives on today as a standard prefix for link
| tracking parameters, even outside of google analytics
| ThinkingGuy wrote:
| Thanks for that info. I've wondered for years what the meaning
| of the utf parameter was.
| userbinator wrote:
| Given its purpose, I always thought it was "user tracking
| mark" or similar.
| tyingq wrote:
| Many of them described for GA:
| https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10917952
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| Love reading stories like this! Thank you.
|
| I DO know about Yellow Dog Linux as it was the Linux officially
| supported on a PS3 console!
| shombaboor wrote:
| UA to GA4 finally got us to abandon google analytics for cookie
| free cloudflare completing the cycle
| millipede wrote:
| UA transition shook me out too. Who breaks backwards
| compatibility??
| ErikAugust wrote:
| What about defunct startup shirts? Like, I'd wear that Urchin
| shirt.
| codetrotter wrote:
| That sounds like a potential business idea even. Although
| realistically I guess eBay and Craigslist already has that
| covered :p
| Dwedit wrote:
| Oh, that domain I block. I still have no idea what they actually
| do, but they sound really scary.
| gumby wrote:
| That picture of their first computer, a sparcstation, brought
| back memories.
|
| Our first computer at Cygnus was a sparcstation that was actually
| a "prototype" (probably PVT since it had all the housing etc) for
| the first sparcstation. I think Andy B had given it to John. It
| worked fine and lasted for years.
|
| When the author said they'd started the company on a 10K
| investment I knew they were my kind of people.
| chatmasta wrote:
| (2016)
|
| (In case anyone else is surprised by the line in the article that
| the "10th anniversary of the acquisition has recently passed.")
| Terretta wrote:
| Urchin is not Google advertising's only origin story...
|
| See also "A Brief History of NetGravity":
|
| _In October 1999, DoubleClick purchased NetGravity in a stock
| deal valued at $530m. The NetGravity product line is now
| completely incorporated into the DoubleClick portfolio of
| advertising management products. The original founders and
| management team have all left to pursue new opportunities.
| NetGravity, having helped to create the multi-billion dollar
| internet advertising market, has essentially ceased to exist._
|
| -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41206733
|
| _DoubleClick rebranded NetGravity AdServer as DART Enterprise...
| On March 11, 2008, Google acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.
| In June 2018, Google announced plans to rebrand its ads
| platforms, and DoubleClick was merged into the new Google
| Marketing Platform brand._
|
| -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DoubleClick
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > Urchin is not Google advertising's only origin story...
|
| Further because that leaves out the Overture / Inktomi part of
| Google's revenue origin story...
| ec109685 wrote:
| Yahoo bought them.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| Sure, but what did Yahoo also do? They settled the patent
| suit that was jeopardizing Google's IPO. What were those
| terms? Find out and learn a fascinating part of Google's
| history.
| cj wrote:
| Spoiler alert: Google agreed to give yahoo $300m worth of
| Google IPO shares.
| sureIy wrote:
| This was the most consequential purchase, it's the one product
| Google will never sunset because it _is_ Google.
| dang wrote:
| Discussed at the time (of the article):
|
| _The origin story of Google Analytics_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12986649 - Nov 2016 (53
| comments)
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| I think a lot of people forget some of the other Google origin
| stories.
|
| Android was a company Google acquired.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| Urchin analytics (which, IIRC, were provided to us by our host
| OVH for free at the time) is what taught me what I would still
| call Rule #1 of being a webmaster:
|
| > Tracking your analytics makes traffic grow. Refreshing your
| analytics makes traffic stall.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| Could you elaborate on that? The meaning of "makes traffic
| stall" is lost on me, unless you simply mean "don't obsess over
| it, just look at long-term trends".
| sebastiennight wrote:
| Because humans like to see lines go up to the right, there's
| a weird Gaussian curve where
|
| - never checking your analytics means you're probably going
| to stagnate forever,
|
| - checking them at a fixed frequency means you're going to
| look at what's worked and work hard to keep it going, so
| traffic grows,
|
| - checking them at every time of the hour (I was at my worst
| when I switched from Urchin to Xiti client-side analytics in
| '06) means you're switching back to a passive almost-
| superstitious wait for the number to move, which is both
| frustrating and extremely ineffective.
|
| I've been there and done all 3, and as CEO of a startup[0] I
| find it's my job to do my best to stay in the middle :)
|
| [0] https://onetake.ai
| randomgiy3142 wrote:
| So have a good idea, be lucky and smart, and most importantly
| come from really rich families because floating 2.8million
| through two (!!?) crashes on an obvious now technology but log
| processing in the early 2000s is like describing how to win
| powerball.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| what's the obvious new technology right now, and why aren't you
| doing it?
| sskates wrote:
| Wow- a lot of similarity to what's important with analytics
| today! Depth of analytics and speed of queries were their key
| competitive differentiators. Those are still ones we hammer at
| Amplitude. Also individual visitor history drill-down (we call it
| user timelines) is one of the most used features in Amplitude
| today.
|
| I have a huge amount of respect for the Urchin team. They had to
| figure out everything for the first time on their own with
| nothing to go off of while going after a much smaller and earlier
| market.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Personal story: in 2006 in Google Enterprise, we had many, many
| meetings with the GA team, the goal being a private, inside-the-
| firewall box that would run GA, using our Google Search Appliance
| hardware.
|
| This never came to anything.
| k__ wrote:
| In 2006, I worked for a company that built exactly that: A web
| analytics engine that ran behind the firewall. It would rely on
| a reverse proxy and not on cookies or pixels, so it couldn't be
| blocked.
|
| They even had some of the biggest sites in Europe as customers.
|
| However, the company never turned a profit and after going
| through the hands of a few investors, they closed shop.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Yeah, "inside the firewall" declined as a marketing pitch
| pretty quickly.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Security over convenience is also something that declined
| pretty quickly as well followed quickly by the concept of
| privacy in exchange for convenience.
|
| With what we know about how/why/where the use of those
| analytics are used back then, would we make the same
| decisions if it was a choice today?
| jeffnappi wrote:
| We were Urchin users prior to the acquisition and were also
| Google AdWords customers...
|
| I remember being shocked at the idea of putting Google's
| JavaScript in our secure e-commerce site. We wanted to pay as
| little as possible for traffic and were mining the long tail of
| keywords. We certainly did not want AdWords to know what our
| economics were.
|
| Ultimately AdWords evolved into a very efficient system that
| groups similar keywords and takes as much margin as the
| advertisers can handle. The golden days of a level playing field
| in ppc advertising were over and Google won the game :)
| morning-coffee wrote:
| Hmm. So this is the ancestor of stuff I block with my pihole now?
| tgtweak wrote:
| The fact ga4 doesn't even do what urchin did back when Google
| bought it tells you everything you need to know about how great
| this software (and company) truly was.
| kristianp wrote:
| It doesn't necessarily show that Urchin was great, it is an
| example of the dumbing down of software that happens these
| days.
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(page generated 2024-08-10 23:01 UTC)