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| Industry Standards and Practices |
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| Scott Ross |
Director,
Product Marketing |
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Going Beyond Page Views:
Measuring Audience Engagement in Web 2.0 |
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| There’s no doubt the Internet has come a long way in the last 10 years, but only recently have we seen a real shift in the way Web sites deliver content. Web 2.0 technologies and publishing models have set the stage for fast, highly-interactive sites that no longer rely on full page refreshes (aka page views) to deliver user-requested content. |
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| The two technologies driving this change are Rich Internet Applications (RIA) like AJAX (which refreshes only the necessary portion of the page, rather than the full page) and the continued proliferation of streaming media (which provides dynamically changing content within a Web page). As the Web experience moves further in this direction, the tried and true Page View metric becomes less comprehensive for estimating engagement. Starting in early July, we will begin reporting Total Minutes and Total Sessions to provide our clients with a more complete perspective. While we've always provided Average Sessions and Average Time Spent along with Average Page Views to show a varied view of site engagement at the user level, we have added “Total” aggregates to better reflect the total engagement on the site. |
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| Time Spent as True Engagement |
| At this stage of Web 2.0 development, it's clear that Total Minutes is the best engagement metric, because it provides a common denominator for user behavior that is independent of site design. This not only ensures fair measurement of those sites using RIA or streaming media, but also of Web environments like online gaming and Web-based applications and services that were never well-served by Page Views to begin with. |
| Top 5 Subcategories Ranked by Total Time, May 2007** |
| Subcategory |
In Millions of Hours |
| E-mail |
342.9 |
| Instant Messaging |
253.6 |
| Member Communities |
205.6 |
| Online Games |
170.0 |
| Current Events/Global News |
119.6 |
| Ad Inventory |
| It is worth noting, however, that Total Minutes cannot fully replace the Page View's role as an ad inventory proxy. (Accordingly, we will be maintaining our Page View reporting in both NetView and in WebRF.) As Web 2.0 evolves and ad serving best practices arise, we will continue to assess whether the Page View can be succeeded (or supplemented) by an “Ad Opportunity' metric that would fairly represent all Web environments. In the interim, using a combination of time spent and page views for comparing potential ad inventory across sites is recommended.
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Webinar: Going Beyond Page Views - June 27
If you'd like more information about new metrics and measurements in this changing Internet environment, join our Webinar on June 27. We'll take an in-depth look at AJAX, the state of Page Views and other engagement metrics, and best practices for publishers and marketers. Click here for more information and to register.
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| Media Ratings Council Accreditation |
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| Manish Bhatia |
| Executive Vice President, Global Operations & US Sales |
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| Update on the MRC Audit Process |
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| On May 17, we announced that Nielsen//NetRatings is moving full speed ahead on the Media Rating Council's (MRC) accreditation of our Internet audience measurement methods. Having already completed a pre-audit, we are now starting the full accreditation process, specifically for our patented metering and page-tagging technologies. We'll also continue to execute on the already-existing MRC research plan for our panel procedures.
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| The decision to expand the audit process is significant. Pairing our media quality panel data with patented |
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| desktop-based metering technology provides the industry with the most accurate insights into online usage. MRC accreditation will validate this innovative strategy and bolster client confidence in the measurements we produce and you rely on.
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| The Role of Panels and Servers—A Symbiotic Relationship |
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You may have been following the ongoing “panel data vs. server data” debate in the press. Nielsen//NetRatings' position is that while both metrics have their pros and cons, together they provide the most complete picture of the online world. |
| Panels are essential to robust online measurement. They provide key competitive and demographic information that server data alone can't deliver. Without panel data, publishers and marketers would not know who visits which sites and why, or how their sites fare against the competition. As part of the Nielsen organization, panels enable us to measure the link between online and broadcast media. Smart marketers are developing cross-media marketing and advertising strategies, and panels play a critical role in building the right media mix.
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| Panels often get criticized for what is perceived as a lack of complete coverage of the online universe—in particular, libraries, schools, Internet cafes and other environments that house shared computers and online access. Our research suggests that our panels, on average, cover about 93% of unique users and approximately 85% of all page views. For the increasingly important Time Spent metrics, we provide the most accurate measurement. Our patented, desktop-based metering system accurately tracks users switching between online and offline applications--we credit time to Web sites only when the site is in-focus and active on a user's desktop. |
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| Server Data |
| Our research done across multiple countries and numerous sites reveals that server data tends to overstate every metric it reports: Unique Users (cookies get deleted), Page Views (bots and auto-refreshes) and Time Spent (due to the inability of server measurement tools to know when a user switches to another application). We have seen overstatements of as much as 100%--which means that in some cases, the real audience and page view traffic to a site could be half what the server reports.
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| The Solution |
| We believe that an integrated solution, one that combines the best of both panel- and server-based measurement, will provide the marketplace with complete metrics and a rich database for deeper analysis of user activity.
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We will continue to update you on our progress, and I encourage you to contact your client services representative to find out more about our work with the MRC, and why this is so important to the industry and our clients.
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| Google Search Continues to Lead the Pack |
An estimated 3.8 billion search queries were conducted at Google Search in April, representing nearly 55.2% of all search queries conducted that month. Yahoo! Search followed with 21.9%, and finally MSN/Windows Live Search rounded out the top three with 9.0%.
Read More |
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| Nielsen//NetRatings Moves Forward in MRC Accreditation Process |
Having completed the Media Rating Council's (MRC) pre-audit, Nielsen//NetRatings will now commence the full accreditation process, specifically for its patented metering and page-tagging technologies, while continuing to execute on the already-existing MRC research plan for its panel procedures.
Read More |
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| Pet Food Contamination Drives Concerned Consumers to the Web |
Web traffic to pet-related sites grew 115% in March, from 9.1 million unique visitors to 19.5 million. Menu Foods, North America's largest pet food supplier, announced a product recall on March 16 after receiving complaints about renal failure in pets who had consumed the food. Pet owners flocked online to find out which products were affected – MenuFoods.com drew a remarkable 12.8 million unique visitors in March.
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| Nielsen//NetRatings Launches VideoCensus |
VideoCensus is the industry's most accurate online video measurement service and is the first-ever syndicated online video measurement service to combine panel and census research methodologies and provide an end-to-end accounting of audience size, demographic composition, engagement and competitive activity.
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| Nielsen//NetRatings in the News: |
| Click here to see news articles featuring Nielsen//NetRatings data and analysis |
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