The announcement of Google Analytics took the web analytics world by storm. As it should have, being that it’s a good and free product with the name and power of Google behind it.
There was a mad rush of webmasters, bloggers, marketers, and anyone else running a website to sign up and start using it.
Unfortunately, that basically brought Google Analytics to a grinding halt. The first few days users got downtime, no data for the previous 48 hours, trouble logging in, and various other issues. Essentially, the master of data centers and capacity either didn’t anticpate the demand, or just wasn’t prepared for it. Analytics requires a lot of data crunching, so I’m not surprised it happened in one sense, but being that it’s Google I figured they could handle it.
In order to rectify this, Google sent out an email stating that no new accounts would be accepted right now, and current accounts can’t add any new websites until further notice.
Unlike the Gmail launch where you needed an exclusive invite to sign up, this time there is no sense of exclusivity or coolness, it’s just that Google screwed up. Now they have people who have wanted to sign up who can’t, and users like myself who already were paying for Urchin before who can’t add any new websites.
I wanted to add this blog to my account this week, but couldn’t. What did I do? I installed Sitemeter instead. If Google is lucky, I’ll remember or care when I can add a new site again and add it back. Otherwise, they’ve lost a site.
Of course, being that I’m not paying Google anything for it, perhaps they don’t mind losing “free” customers. However, it has tainted my view of Google a bit, and that’s a slope you don’t want to start sliding down. How about you?