This morning DM News released a special report on Web Analytics (download the 6 page pdf here).

Eric Peterson (Visual Sciences VP of strategic services and web analytics best selling author) has the lead interview in this report talking about market consolidation, Sterne's eMetrics Summit doubling up this year (Santa Barbara, CA in the Spring and Washington, DC this fall), and the trend he has seen that more and more companies are actually putting their analytics investments to work (taking a strategic approach).

Eric has a nice comment on Google Analytics

Take Google Analytics as an example: all-and-all the Urchin application is good and provides many features for free that other vendors sell.

and on the need for web analytics

Again, how do you know you're successful if you're not measuring your success? Web analytics and Web measurement technologies when thoughtfully deployed can have a great and profound impact on any online business. If you're satisfied being average, be average. Most companies I work with strive to be great and they see their investment in Web analytics as a competitive edge that will help them achieve greatness.

There are about a dozen more articles in this special report written by analytics consultants and luminaries including Jim Sterne (eMetrics Summit organizer) talking about the top five pain-points for web analysts, Greg Drew (CEO of WebTrends) discussing the the correlation between measurement and profitability and Warren Raisch (senior VP WebSideStory) talking about the importance of hiring a web analytics consulting firm.