Has Google forgotten all about MeasureMap?
Close to a year ago, Google acquired the blog analytics tool MeasureMap from Jeff Veen of AdaptivePath. Every other blogger was excited of the purchase since Measure Map was really gearing up to be a great blog stats service and with Google taking over the service along with the development team, it would only become better (or so I thought).
Yet, it’s almost a year already and Measure Map is nowhere near what I’ve expected it to be. Actually, there hasn’t been any update on the tool nor have they opened up the service to more bloggers. The only apparent change I’ve noticed is with the server migration of the site. It’s now hosted at a Google Data Center which fortunately made the service more reliable in terms of uptime (before that, users are constantly being greeted with server issue notices). Aside from that, there’s been no word from the team — no email, no notices, not even a blog. Their Google Groups is practically empty and it seems like Veen is busy doing something else at Google.
Had Google not acquired Measure Map, it would have been completely finished by now (as it’s perpetually in Alpha mode for ages). A pity if you ask me considering the kind of tool it’s been. At least, if you compare this to the other analytics tool Google bought (Urchin), there were several improvements and service upgrades with Google Analytics.
Still, I cannot shake the fact that Measure Map seems to have been abandoned. I hope Google will do something about it as I don’t like to see such a great product go to waste.
I hope they do something. I’m seriously underwhelmed with FeedBurner’s StandardStats offering.
I sincerely hope they release it – I helped build MeasureMap (I wasn’t part of the Google buyout), and am lucky enough to still use it every day, and quite seriously – nothing compares. It’s truly a remarkable product, and a credit to everyone who built it.
Last I heard the team had been merged with the Google Analytics team. They have been collaborating ever since on a totally new stats application that merges the comprehensiveness of GA with the UI of MM.
Companies worth the kind of money that Google is worth can afford to shell out a few million dollars (~$3M so I’ve heard) to bring someone as brilliant and talented as Jeffrey Veen to the team. I wouldn’t be surprised if MeasureMap was never finished and never saw the light of day, and they only bought it so that they could bring Veen in to work with other superstars like Doug Bowman on giving their applications a polished once-over.
I’m incredibly disappointed about Measure Map’s abandonment, having been checking in on it for over half a year now. Especially considering that the stats scene is still full of examples with either bad UIs, bad feature sets, or a hefty price tag. Jeeze, Google…