Google Retires Web Analytics Software Tool Urchin
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — In a blog post made Friday to the Google Analytics blog by Paul Muret, director of engineering for Google Analytics and one of the founders of the Urchin website analytics software revealed that Google was finally retiring the Urchin software platform, about six years after acquiring the technology back in 2005.
The Urchin site offers some more details on the move, saying sales of the software will continue until March 28, 2012. The group says the software, though unsupported, would likely continue to work for years in cases where users continue to run Urchin. Of course, Google is encouraging Urchin users to make the switch to Google Analytics.
As with the end of many such products, the post on the Google Analytics blog has quite a few posts from Urchin fans lamenting the loss of a preferred tool.
In one sense, the shift in attention from Urchin to Google Analytics mirrors the general shift in preference from download-and-install software to SaaS applications.
Urchin was a log-analyzing tool that was one of the early leaders in the website analytics market, one of the staple tools among hosting providers when it was acquired by Google in 2005, and a major contributor to the development of Google Analytics. Since the acquisition, distribution and support of the tool has continued through authorized resellers. A list of nearly 40 such resellers is posted on the Urchin website.
A look through the sites of some of those resellers shows businesses that offer consulting around Urchin, along with other analytics tools, including Google Analytics. It appears unlikely that the end of Urchin will mean the end of any of those businesses.
One such Urchin reseller, ActualMetrics, says its Angelfish software could fill a void in the market for analytics software, left by Urchin, and says it will include migration functions for Urchin users.
On the Angelfish website, the company says it plans to launch an Alpha version of the software in February of 2012, for select customers, with a beta release to follow in Q2.
“During the past six years our team has provided Urchin and Google Analytics expertise to hundreds of companies. We’ve also created add-ons for Urchin like the Toolbelt, the v5 Search Module, administration utilities, and a bunch of API and management scripts,” says a notice on the Angelfish website. “With Angelfish, we’re bundling all of our experience, best practices, overlooked feature requests, and homegrown utilities into a standalone software product.”
