TOP AUDIENCE TRACKERS PROMISE BETTER LOCAL STATS

By: Staff Reports Competing Companies Seek To Answer Critics



Being the two powerhouses of Internet audience measurement,
Media Metrix and Nielsen//NetRatings have gotten all the glory
- and all the gripes.



The two New York-based groups have become the standard measurers
for a medium that is notoriously difficult to gauge. While
journalists report these numbers as gospel, small and regional
Web sites have particularly complained that they're
undercounted.



'At the moment, it's 'buyer beware,'' said George W. Ivie,
executive director/CEO of the Media Rating Council, at a recent
meeting of newspaper new-media professionals. The
Congressionally mandated Council provides accreditation to
groups that provide ratings for broadcast and other media. Ivie
compares the Internet-measurement space to the unreliable
broadcast measurement statistics that were available for
television in the 1960s. By invitation from the companies, the
Council is just now beginning to audit Media Metrix's work, and
will soon look at Nielsen//NetRatings as well.



In the meantime, Media Metrix and Nielsen//NetRatings are both
trying to improve their local measurement.



Media Metrix announced a partnership this week with Houston-

based International Demographics Inc., which provides The Media
Audit, a phone survey that compares TV, radio, newspaper, and
Web site penetration in 83 markets across the country. Media
Metrix will use Media Audit's data to provide expanded profiles
of users on the local level in 40 metropolitan areas of the U.S.
- available by September. The company is also moving to
monthly, instead of quarterly, reporting for local market
trends.



Media Metrix Senior Vice President and General Manager Doug
McFarland said the new reports are designed for local Internet
providers, newspapers, retailers, and classified advertisers. At
the NAA SuperConference in San Francisco last month, McFarland
told the newspaper industry that his company would continue to
improve its local audience measurement, as long as there is
economic incentive to do so. 'The Internet started as a national
phenomenon, and I think the local [measurement] is going to come
on [later],' he said.



In late May, Nielsen//NetRatings announced its own local
measurement efforts. The company says it now measures over
110,000 people worldwide, including 65,000 panelists in the U.S.
Allen Weiner, vice president, analytical services, for
NetRatings, said the company would probably do research on 40 to
50 of the top markets by the end of the year.



(Nielsen and E&P are owned by the same parent company,
VNU USA.)



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Staff reports













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