Much Ado(be) about nothing?

There’s been some frantic blogging over the past few weeks since the announcement of Adobe’s purchase of web analytics company Omniture and what it means for the digital creativity and evaluation.

There’s been some frantic blogging over the past few weeks since the announcement of Adobe’s purchase of web analytics company Omniture and what it means for the digital creativity and evaluation.

So, why all the hubris?

Some background first. Adobe owns the flash product, an authoring tool for creatives that underwrites most of the graphics used in the digital creative industry today. Omniture are a website evaluation company that own products used to evaluation visitor performance and on-site commerce.

So the reasons for the purchase are largely stated to centre on an increased ease of implementation between creative development and the insertion of analytics tracking codes, is this enough to justify the $1.8bn purchase price.

It seems a pretty flimsy reason for spending XXX on the deal. After all we’ve been in a similar situation (you may not have noticed –QED) when DoubleClick launched Motif tracking tool in 2003. This product was also feature the inclusion of DoubleClick’s tracking and evaluation measures directly into the flash authoring tool. The product barely impacted revenues back then. Creatives just wanted to get on with creating, and because of the split between most media agencies and most creative agency (where DoubleClick had most of it’s relationships) the implementation imperative was virtually not existent.

So, what’s different about the Adobe / Omniture deal? Will it work? Could there be another motive for this deal lurking in the commercial shadows’. Let us know what you think…