New Google Analytics

A new version of Google Analytics is coming:

http://analytics.blogspot.com/2007/05/new-version-of-google-analytics.html

Google Analytics is already a great tool, but this new version seems to still be an improvement. The features being promised for the new GA are much needed - scheduled email of reports, custom dashboard, and better trends-over-time. I hope they can also get the Site Overlay feature working better on CSS-based layouts. Maybe it's not really that useful, but it sure looks cool!

The interface looks simpler also, to which I say "it's about time!" So many web analytics tools, for so long, have used such non-intuitive, cryptic menus and language for their interfaces. Granted, I've never been fortunate enough to use WebTrends, which I hear is great, but LiveStats, SmarterStats and Urchin/Google Analytics, despite improvement over the years, still don't quite give me the information I'm looking for, and they all require pulling multiple reports just to see what you'd think should be the same information every webmaster wants to see! Not only that, it's difficult to understand exactly what you're looking at, sometimes the explanations about the reports don't really provide any helpful information. Maybe that's why Mint gets such rave reviews, but I can't use it because it's LAMP. So, yay for better, more usable web analytics tools!