"Anywhere Anytime Media Measurement": Nielsen/NetRatings, Convergence, and Attention Data (Lots of It)

Nielsen/NetRatings is obviously intensely interested in attention data, and the degree of that intensity is reflected in their June 14th announcement about Anywhere Anytime Media Measurement, a new suite of services aimed at understanding what people are watching and listening to at home and on the road, via broadcast, cable, streaming media, on just about any device. I quote from the announcement at some length below because I find its comprehensiveness fascinating. N/NR is going to be gathing an unbelievable amount of attention data in the very near future, and they're taking a big leap forward in terms of their ability to correlate data across platforms. I wonder if any of this technology will ever be deployed not simply for marketers' benefit, but to help users control, manage and understand their own attention data?

Nielsen Media Research, a unit of VNU, N.V., today announced that it will provide integrated, all-electronic ratings for television regardless of the platform on which it is viewed. Under the Company’s Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement (A2/M2) initiative, Nielsen will develop and deploy technology to measure the new ways consumers are watching television, such as on the Internet, outside the home, and via cell phones, iPods and other personal, mobile devices.

Developed in close consultation with clients, A2/M2 reflects the transformation of the television industry into a multi-platform business. Key components include:

• ...Measurement of online streaming video as well as the addition of Internet measurement in Nielsen’s People Meter samples...
• ...The creation of new research for measuring viewer “engagement” in TV programming

...As more and more streaming video content, including traditional television programming, becomes available online, content providers need to measure this viewing and understands how it complements their traditional television programming. To help media clients measure their growing online presence, Nielsen Media Research and its sister company NetRatings, provider of the Nielsen//NetRatings service, will introduce a number of unique integrated measurement services:

• Nielsen//NetRatings will establish the industry’s most comprehensive system for tracking and reporting digital audio and video delivered via the Internet...
• Nielsen will add Internet television measurement to its People Meter samples next year, creating a single panel to measure the relationship among TV viewing, web site usage and streaming video consumption...

...Starting this fall and continuing into the beginning of 2007, Nielsen will conduct a preliminary external test of two personal meters, called “Go Meters,” designed to capture out-of-home viewing by collecting audio signatures. One device places metering technology in cell phones and the other is a customized meter that resembles an MP3 player. Nielsen will likely offer panelists several options based on their experiences and preferences...

...Nielsen is building the foundation to measure television content that is migrating to new portable media platforms – including cell phones, iPod, portable game players and handheld computers – in ways that clients can evaluate and monetize.

The Company is continuing engineering work to create “Solo Meters” that can be used with any portable media system. For platforms that use a wireless, Bluetooth® connection, Nielsen is developing a very small wireless meter that would passively listen to communication between mated devices. For systems that are wired, Nielsen is building a diminutive “in-line” meter that would be physically inserted between the device and its earphones.

Both metering solutions would be “device-neutral” to work with a wide variety of personal media platforms without having to be customized for specific devices. They also would identify viewing by collecting audio signatures. Development of the systems starts this summer and functional prototypes would be available within six to 12 months, so that testing could begin by the latter part of next year.

tags: attention attentiontrust attention+trust attention+data attention+economy nielsen netratings