I was excited to read an article in the New York Times by Quentin Hardy* about the potential analytics as a service offering from Amazon. While Mr. Hardy was somewhat unclear regarding what type of analytics service Amazon may provide, the article seemed to indicate that they are interested in developing a predictive analytics service. Predictive analytics is incredibly valuable to marketers as it allows brands to analyze volumes data, such as purchase history or social analytics chatter, to determine when will segments of consumers are most likely respond to a marketing tactic or to complete a purchase.

Mr. Hardy’s idea of an Amazon predictive analytics service is within the realm of possibilities. A prediction engine requires copious amounts of data to learn from and Amazon can easily use their data storage infrastructure (aka Amazon Simple Storage Service) to handle this responsibility. Amazon has already proven that they can build a service that appeals to mass markets: in early 2011 Amazon released Simple Email Service, an email delivery engine. While the service is still in beta, Amazon recently announced incremental improvements to the service, which indicates that they are committed to keeping such a service going. The combination of this and the fact that Amazon regularly releases new offerings on AWS solidifies the notion that a prediction analytics service may be in the cards for 2012. One thing to note is that if such a service does come to fruition, it will instantly face competition from two worthy opponents: Google, a cloud veteran that has been pushing their developer-friendly Prediction API since 2010 and Zillabyte, a stealthy startup with a user-friendly prediction service, is due out later this year.

Since there are no details on the service, it is premature to guess how it may impact the predictive analytics industry. While there’s certainly lots of interest, we simply have to wait and see.

*PS I’ve actually met Quentin at the Lithium UP conference last year. I know that he knows people who know things so I’ll give this rumor a 70% chance for happening this year.

While IE6 usage dropped significantly in early 2008/2009, the downward pressure has softened quite a bit this year. And a recent survey revealed that IE6 is used primarily at work and the majority of people unfortunately can’t upgrade/replace IE6 because they have insufficient privileges on their machines/their company won’t let them upgrade (source). So without significant force now, it may take another two years before IE drops to a level where enough developers stop coding UI tweaks for IE6. Since coding for IE6 takes significantly more time, marketers are unnecessarily spending money on outdated technology (like paying for a telephone land line or dial-up internet service).

Last week, six solid punches in one swing were taken at IE6. I am speaking about the announcement that Google is planning to phase out support for IE6 (source). The announcement indicated that key functionality in Google Docs and [international] Google Sites will be disrupted starting on March 1, 2010. Since no other popular web destination is stepping up to the plate, we’ve got to applaud Google which owns 6 of the top 20 destination on the web (source) for their efforts. So what we really need to do is convince several US-based companies, such as Microsoft (thank you @cubanx!), Yahoo! and Amazon, and Chinese companies, including Baidu, QQ.com and Sina.com.cn, to jumped on board. While it may feel like we’ve made progress, the short list below demonstrates that we still have a long road ahead of us.

Top 20 Companies that don’t support the IE must die movement:

1. Google (starting 1-Mar-2010)
   
2. Facebook (as of 24-Jul-2008)
   
3. YouTube (starting 1-Mar-2010)
4. Yahoo!
5. Windows Live
6. Wikipedia
7. Blogger.com (starting 1-Mar-2010)
8. Baidu.com
9. MSN.com
10. QQ.com
11. Yahoo! Japan
12. Twitter
13. Google India (starting 1-Mar-2010)
14. Google China (starting 1-Mar-2010)
15. Sina.com.cn
16. MySpace
17. Google Germany (starting 1-Mar-2010)
18. WordPress.com
19. Microsoft
20. Amazon.com

• Continued focus on Amazon’s value proposition: low prices, expansion of selection, convenience, and good in-stock levels.
• Availability of Amazon Prime program, which allows customer to enjoy “all-you-can-eat” fast shipping on eligible purchases for an annual membership fee of $79.

Amazon has leveraged their low prices to attract buyers. While pricing is important to these visitors, the online customer experience helps convinces them to complete the purchase vs. going to a rival retailer. For example, Amazon monitors when a customer drills down on to a specific product and uses email to send them special pricing for that item if they don’t purchase it. Amazon has been able to expand their selection of products by offering better tools to sellers, which is another area that Amazon invests heavily to keep their brick-and-mortar competition in check. In addition to these, there are many other feature that Amazon has refined over the years to improve the online experience (view analysis of Amazon’s online experience).

According to a 2008 study by ServiceXRG (source), customers are 3X more likely to to buy a product or service and 4X times more likely to recommend the company or renew the relationship if they have a positive experience. The recent quarter at Amazon is a testament that you can own the market place by implementing only a few simple, fundamental changes.