We're a bit slow in posting about the next version of Adobe SiteCatalyst. We haven't been asleep to it, but we also haven't had a direct reason to look into the detail of it. Now that we've got clients scheduled to move over, we've got that excuse.
The iceberg software release
Much of the change going on in this release is under the hood. Omniture are swapping out the infrastructure that drives data display in SiteCatalyst and swapping in an entirely new back-end. The new infrastructure will be more stable, more scalable, cheaper to both operate and, most importantly, cheaper to change.
Adobe may have seemed asleep as Google Analytics added more and more features that have been creeping up on the Adobe product offering, but in fact they've been busy building this new infrastructure. The new back-end changes the economics of Omniture's business, allowing them to react quickly to competitive changes in the market. Expect to see the conveyor belt of cool new stuff to accelerate as they learn how to make the most of their new toy.
Adobe hides it well, but the existing SiteCatalyst infrastructure is creaky and expensive. Remember that Adobe built a system capable of dealing with massive data volumes in very new ways before the current wave of interest in NoSQL and MapReduce. Along the way they've had to hack in fixes and work-arounds to add new functionality. This new release shows they've learnt some lessons and have taken the pain to build new foundations.
What's cool and here now
So enough about the pipeline, what do you get straight away that's going to make it worth the wait?
- Real-time segmentation
What is your customer behaviour in only a single segment? Previously this required complex Data Warehouse queries, ASI slots or Discover. Now you can do it on-the-fly, slicing any report with a specific segment.
- Unique Visitors on any timeframe
How many times have you had to explain that you can't grab seven Daily UV numbers and get a Weekly UV number? Nor can you change the reporting week from the Admin setting. No longer an issue. The report period is now the UV period. Awesome!
- Full subrelations
Break down any conversion variable by any other eVar.
- Trend multiple metrics
It's always been a bit odd that you couldn't see Page Views alongside Unique Visitors trended on the same graph. Now you can!
- Processing Rules
A cut down version of VISTA allows you to push smarts into the data collection process. Re-map variables, pull data from one field, slice it up and push it into other fields. Very very cool.
- Data Warehouse, Discover and SiteCatalyst, together at last
Segments you create in one product are available in the others. Finally!
- Video integrated properly
Earlier versions seemed to have video reports as a bolted-on feature, not terribly well integrated elsewhere. In v15, videos are just an eVar, video players are just another eVar, what happens to videos are just events. And it's all available in Data Warehouse, Discover and everywhere else.
So when do I move over?
There's a few complex dependencies to when you can move to the new infrastructure, and some features haven't and won't be implemented. There's no ASI slots in the new version, but the real-time segmentation may solve the reason you use it anyway, and better. Video is still in beta and will require some changes. Your data will have to be moved into the new infrastructure, and you won't get all these featured on your old data.
