WebTrends 2.0?

So Web 2.0 got a big mention at the WebTrends roadshow although on reflection I'm not sure that much was said.

• Rich Applications (built with AJAX & Flash) were there and RSS & broadcasting got props too.
• It seems that web analytics have become very sophisticated in terms of the events they can track - you click, they know about it. And event-based metrics are very interesting to site designers - esp. if your site is transactional.
• User-generated content got heads up (the critical events being "view", "share" & "submit"). As did the existence of a wider system of forums, blogs & wikis outside your site.

For all this, web analytics is still about the interaction between a user and a site. What seemed to be missing was the social dimension of interactions between people through and about the site (except for people clicking on a "email this cool video/graphic/virtual custard pie to a friend"). The WebTrends model seems to place web analytics firmly in the camp of analytical CRM tools that allow to segment & dissect your customers to the nth degree but don't acknowledge that they might interact with each other independently of you.

In other words, we have got more precise & accurate over the last decade (and this is no bad thing) but our users have yet to become people.