• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, July 22, 2010

Eric Peterson, senior partner at Web Analytics Demystified, and the opening speaker at OMMA Metrics & Measurement in San Francisco this morning brought new meaning to the term "surfing the Web."

Showing an image of a tropical paradise, Peterson asked if anyone in the audience new where it was. No, it wasn't Fiji, and it certainly wasn't the bone-chilling coastline surround San Francisco this week. It was, according to Peterson, Hawaii.

And why was Peterson flashing us an image of the Big Island – other than to make us climatically jealous? Because Hawaii, he said, "was the birthplace of Web analytics."

Huh? Yep. The first Web analytics service, he pointed out, was GetSite's 1.4 system, which dates back to November 1993.

The birthplace of Web analytics.