Some of you may think that this is a non-story and you would be right unless you are keeping an eye on the continually expanding big picture that Google is painting.

The ‘story’ is reported at the Webmaster Central blog that data from webmaster central reports can now be downloaded into either a CSV file (which has been available for a long time) or directly into a Google Docs spreadsheet. Google tells it like this

Webmaster Tools now has a new download option for exporting your data directly to a Google Spreadsheet. The download option is available for most of our data heavy features, such as Crawl errors, Search queries, and Links to your site. If you enjoy digging into the data from Webmaster Tools but don’t want to use Python scripts or the API, we’ve added new functionality just for you. Now when you click a download button from a Webmaster Tools feature like Search queries, you’ll be presented with the “Select Download Format” option where you can choose to download the data as “CSV” or “Google Docs.”

The heated battle between Google and Facebook is more than whether Google+ can challenge Facebook in social or whether Facebook will trump Google in search somehow. Not to be mislead, these are two of the biggest fronts that these companies take hacks at each other each day for sure.

But while these products and services are being honed there is something happening between these two that could ultimately make the difference as to just how much advertisers are willing to spend with each media outlet. That something is analytics and measurement. Even little ol’ Aol recognizes this potential difference maker so it must be a big deal .

Both companies have announced their latest efforts to help companies understand just what they are getting from each dollar spent. In the end, the one that gives the best insight could very well be the one that wins this thing.

Google’s latest initiative is called Brand Activate. Here’s a video explaining what is taking place

Hunters like to hunt big game. Sports enthusiasts love the big game. Journalists look for the big story. Marketers? Well, more and more marketers are going after something big as well, big data, and, more often than not they are coming away disappointed.

Why? It’s because big data is elusive. It’s massive and it is swirling around us everywhere much like the pollen does everywhere this time of year (in some parts of the US that is). Much like that pollen it seems to land everywhere but it get washed away or pushed aside just as quickly as it falls. A recent study from the Columbia Business School’s Center on Global Brand Leadership and the New York American Marketing Association (as reported by eMarketer) shows these challenges.