WebSideStory Rebrands as Visual Sciences

Real-time analytics provider WebSideStory has adopted the name of Visual Sciences, with whom it merged last year, and from today will trade on Nasdaq as 'VSCN'.

Visual Sciences and WebSideStory merged in February 2006 (www.mrweb.com/drno/news5126.htm ) and initially continued with both brand names.

Commenting on the reasons for the choice, CEO Jim MacIntyre explained: 'We chose Visual, because humans are visual creatures and complex data is best communicated and understood in rich, interactive and graphic ways; and Sciences because the scientific method of hypothesis, testing and measurement is the only proven method of ongoing performance optimisation.'

MacIntyre clarified that while the company had evolved as a real-time analytics provider for the web, it has since recognised that other points of customer interaction – such as the contact centre, the retail point-of-sale, and other channels of customer and company activity data – all require real-time analytics too.

In response to this, the firm has released a new solution for large dataset analytics called Technology Platform 5™ – a data visualisation interface that enables direct interrogation, exploration and understanding of broad trends; alongside the latest version of HBX Analytics 4.0 – its on-demand web analytics solution.

Yesterday the newly named firm reported revenue of $20.6m, up from $13.4m in the same period last year. Shares were up $2.38 or 21.4% to $13.50. The company is online at www.visualsciences.com .

Today's announcement comes two days after former Visual Sciences Vice President of Strategic Services Eric T Peterson, left to start his own consultancy, Analytics Demystified. He commented: 'The web analytics industry is very much at a turning point. So the next challenge is really understanding the process through which web analytics is done. My company is going to teach that.' The new firm is online at www.webanalyticsdemystified.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.