A Disturbance In The "Audience Measurement Force" - Why Jason Calacanis Is Wrong

Usually when we talk about Web traffic and measurement – it’s a pretty dry topic.   But Jason Calacanis – just threw down the gauntlet by calling for a boycott of comScore.  I certainly agree with Jason on many things - but this time he's wrong.

Basically what raised the Mahalo CEO’s hackles was a recent announcement (and update) by comScore that they plan to launch a new measurement methodology to attempt to produce better, more accurate numbers.    The new service will cost $10,000 in the first year (there’s a $5K implementation fee) and then $5K for every six months if the customer wants to continue to receive the hybrid data.

Calacanis seems to think that comScore is acting like some kind of bully when he says:

“Comscore is the technology industry’s biggest bully, and today I’m calling for an industry-wide boycott of their services. I’m asking journalist and bloggers to stop covering their stats, I’m asking advertisers to not use their services, and finally, I’m asking startup companies to not support their new and widely reported on “$10,000 to get your stats correct” extortion ring.”

It’s no secret that Calacanis doesn’t like comScore and his disdain goes back 5 years or more – especially when he was CEO of Weblogs Inc – which is now owned by AOL.

Why He’s Wrong…

As a guy who’s been working with Web site metrics for 10 years, and television and radio ratings before that, I can tell you that there’s no magic bullet here.  There’s no reason to get into excruciating detail here – as the debate between measurement methodologies is well documented.    Just know that pure server/browser-side methods are flawed and tend to overcount people (note the distinction between people and visitors).  This is the classic "same person surfing from Home and Work and being scored as two visitors challenge".  And the panel methodology, where they interview a sample of people about their surfing habits. This approach tends to undercount people.   Mixing these methodologies, which comScore announced months ago, in a new service is at least an earnest attempt at providing accurate numbers.

The argument for a new, mixed methodology couldn’t be clearer.  The IAB’s new guidelines issued last year were abundantly clear that just “counting cookies” was no longer sufficient for advertisers to report unique visitors.  Eric Peterson actually has a wonderful article about that very topic here.

So, whether it's a valid move by comScore just couldn't be clearer to me.  And, I certainly have no reason to doubt their motives.  Yes, they're out to make money by developing a better product.  What part of that is exactly wrong?  Calacanis calls it "formalizing their extortion ring". 

And, with regard to charging for the service – which is what Calacanis seems to be mostly upset about – here I just can’t get behind this at all.   At $5K per six months (e.g. less than $1,000/mo) this seems super-cheap for a service targeting the largest publishers on the net.  I mean, come on,  I’m a small blogger – and will continue to look at my Google Analytics and Quantcast numbers and sigh. But, Federated Media?  Comcast Interactive?  Conde Naste? MTV? (all of these by the way are companies that have publicly expressed support for the new Media Metrix 360 Product) – these guys can pay some money for what promises to be a better service.  And, by the way, it's the kind of data required under the new IAB guidelines.  

And if publishers don't pay – guess what – it won’t succeed.   To get all frothy about whether they're charging for this service seems like much ado about nothing.

And, I’ll assume (I have no inside information on this at all) that this service has something to do with comScore and Omniture’s partnership.  And, if comScore has to pay Omniture some dough to provide some of the underlying technology here – one thing is for sure – Omniture doesn’t do *anything* for free.

Only one thing is absolutely for sure.. A BIG tip of the Adaptive Marketer Hat to @linda_abraham - CMO of comScore.  Whether this was a designed PR effort or not, she definitely got the buzz going.  Whether she was surprised by poking the Calacanis tiger through the cage with the “Free Trial” offer – or it was a designed provocation – so far I’m a big fan of the marketing.  

Stay tuned... I'm sure the drama will continue...

Comments

[omar]

haha, if your speculation about Comscore "poking the tiger through the cage" as a marketing effort is true, then thats what I would call the ultimate example of "keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer." !!!!

@omarjead