ChaosScenario

Nielsen DVR Metrics Flawed?

Paul made a post earlier this month that Nielsen is beginning to monitor DVR use for the first time this year. Undoubtedly, this reporting from Nielsen is going to influence spending in the more than $70 billion TV advertising industry. But according to David Card, VP and Senior Analyst at JupiterResearch, that may not be such a good idea.

David posts on his blog that a TV Week article (registration required) says Nielsen currently is basing reporting off of only 60 DVRs! We hope this is a typo... If not, no one should be paying attention to these numbers. As David points out, JupiterResearch had 550 DVRs in a study they conducted on the subject. If the TV Week article is right, it will take Nielsen half the year just to catch up.

- John Keehler

Nielsen merges with Buzzmetrics and Intelliseek

As a follow up to my post about Nielsen beginning to track DVR use, Micro Persuasion reports that Nielsen has merged with Buzzmetrics and Intelliseek, two firms that monitor and report on blogs, word-of-mouth and message boards. I agree with Steve that this is a recognition that they needed to begin to monitor new media more aggresively. I also agree that advertising firms that already don't have this in-house will acquire or build the capability to exploit this media. The one issue Steve doesn't cover is how they will change their cultures after decades of doing things the same old way.

- Paul Herring

The Cookie Scenario

Once again, the "cookie deletion" issue is brought to the attention of on-line marketers. Internet users are deleting their cookies because they're afraid of spyware. And they're deleting them in alarming numbers. JupiterResearch has published a second report on consumers using spyware applications -- subsequently deleting cookies from their machines. This issue has the potential to undermine on-line advertising's ability to track campaign performance. I had an opportunity to talk with Eric Peterson, the analyst on the topic for Jupiter. Read what Eric had to say in my ClickZ article. - Pete Lerma