The potential for massive disruption within tired media metrics makes it an intriguing area right now. The reason is fairly obvious. As the money flows into online the bean-counters are right behind making sure that this isn't actually all just dotbomb 2.0. As the market leader Nielsen's shift from page views to 'total-time' is significant but I like Internet Outsider's take that it's just the warm-up act for a real-shake-up. There's a huge number of factors involved but one is that technology is making real-time data about individuals more reliable and that will always trump demographics and aggregated ranking systems. So the best route maybe to simply distribute the online tools to the publishers and advertisers and let them get on with it. At the macro-level that is why Google's EchoStar deal is causing waves. At a micro-level it's why, for this blog, I no longer have to try and second-guess muddy site stats, but simply keep an eye on the Feedburner numbers for RSS subscribers.
[UPDATE: Edelman enters the fray and Jeff Jarvis offers a critique].
FYI - As of this autumn, ABC the Audit Bureau of Circulation, is also planning to include Online ‘Audience Engagement’ In Newspaper Circ Reports.
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-audit-bureau-will-include-online-audience-engagement-in-newspaper-circ-/
Posted by: Graham | July 18, 2007 at 02:06 PM
Thanks Graham, very interesting. Newspapers are sitting on little goldmines if they can just get their act together!
Posted by: James Cherkoff | July 19, 2007 at 11:43 AM