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Wed Feb 27,2008,
17:03 GMT
Nielsen Ratings and Doing the Work of Peep
Posted by Hal
Interesting New York Time article here – Nielsen Looks Beyond TV . Basically the tv ratings giant needs to branch out because fewer and fewer people are watching conventional tv in a conventional way. So they want to track web usage, cell phone usage, shopping etc. Problem is, people don’t necessarily want all that stuff tracked. Here are a few choice quotes:
“Nielsen’s goal is eventually to coax all its television households to agree to Web monitoring as well.”
This month, Nielsen announced an investment in a small company in California that tracks people’s eye movement, brain waves and perspiration while they watch television. Nielsen had already acquired several smaller measurement companies, like NetRatings, which tracks Web surfing and is now called Nielsen Online.
“One of the things we will do better is provide a broad view of how a consumer goes through their day,” said Susan D. Whiting, executive vice president of Nielsen and the executive leading A2/M2. “Broadly, it’s about how are consumers spending their time, how are they consuming media, whether it be TV or music or movies or whatever they’re doing online. And as that content and all that activity moves from device to device, how can we measure that?”
Article goes on to note that stiff competition Neilsen faces as various different companies fight with each other to track the minutiae of all kinds of media usage. It’s interesting that the big problem Neilsen is having is getting people to agree to have all their different activities monitored — agreeing to have your tv or online use monitored is one thing but both plus cell use starts to feel a bit what…Big Brother? Invasive? Scary?
We are doing the work of peep for corporate entities pretty much daily, but so long as it is buried in the quotidian of shopping for groceries or doing a google search for a decent Ethiopian restaurant we don’t notice. At the same time it’s probably a positive that when people are actually asked if they’d like their media use to be monitored they tend to say no.
The Bloggist
Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...
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