Comscore Clings to a Page View World

I have no reason to pick on the fine folks at comScore Media Metrix. However, despite some recent indications that they want to change, it seems as though they are clinging to the days of yore when hits were all that ruled.

Consider this analysis published yesterday by Ars Technica. The piece reports: "comScore has said that they are working on new metrics that will also take into account the trappings of Web 2.0, including interactive AJAX-driven web pages which do not necessarily generate page views." That doesn't sound like bad news, right? Wrong.

Further down in the piece Dr. Magid Abraham, President and CEO of comScore Networks, added: "While page views will not altogether cease to be a relevant measure of a site's value, it's clear that there is an increasing need to consider page views alongside newer, more relevant measures." Abraham, however, doesn't say what that solution is. The reason could be such metrics could have severe ramifications for comScore's business model, which feeds off a hit-driven economy that's dying.

Comscore needs to wake up and realize that we're in a Long Tail world where top 10 lists matter less. Marketers want to know about the influence circles within the niches that matter to them - and those niches are often tiny. The time is now for comScore to open up to the little guy.

Quantcast is going to eat comScore's lunch. They recognize that partnering with the crowd is essential to measuring it. Comscore seems to slow to adopt to this model and it's highly possible they will become irrelevant in this world if they don't change fast.

Tags: comscore, metrics, pageviews, disruption

Comments

[Dino Baskovic]

Hey, Steve, no offense, but why not give comScore a chance to prove itself before casting judgment? And nice commercial for Quantcast...

[Max Kalehoff]

Quantcast is interesting, and it represents a new force influencing the evolution of measurement services. But it is far from eating comscore's lunch -- especially in the online MEDIA-consumption measurement space, which you seem to allude to. (They have a number of other business lines as well, besides media.)

I have faith that comscore -- and its director competitor, netratings, and others -- will adapt and build products that their paying customers desire -- and that includes a landscape less dictated by pageviews. Competition and client pocketbooks will drive them to go there, as well as deeper, if there is monetary opportunity there. Don't write them off just yet. As for the solution, it will happen gradually, as the shift from pageviews will happen gradually. Measurement businesses -- like any business -- have to evaluate carefully where they invest their R&D, especially in a media landscape that changes as quickly as online. Solutions won't happen overnight, but they will happen.

[Max Kalehoff]

Steve,
Disclosure on my prior comment: I used to work for comScore, and still work in the measurement busines. Of course, you know my history, from your time repping Weatherbug to current. But just so others know...cheers,
Max Kalehoff

[Chris Thilk]

Steve,
You say that comScore doesn't spell out what the alternatives to page views will be but, unless I've missed something, neither have you.

If you're going to announce the death of the page view then what are you proposing take its place? There needs to be at least one - even if it's a faulty one - quantifiable metric that can be used by buyers/sellers. So what's your answer? And what exactly leads you to trumpet Quantcast so much? What are they doing right that comScore isn't?

It would be helpful if you actually tried to move the discussion forward and think outloud about this issue since you seem intent on pursuing it.

[Jeremy Pepper]

Well, I have to agree with Chris.

Besides the game of buzzword bingo - if I hear the tail is chunky one more time, without any real examples of why the long tail works, I will vomit - what solutions or suggestions do you have for the conversation. It's beating the same dead horse for the past two years you have been blogging, but sticking your neck out, taking a stance, etc is never a bad thing. It separates those that want to lead from real leaders. A Zune does not a leader make.

What is your relationship with Quantcast? You have written about clients in the past without disclosing, but I can see they are not a client. Is Edelman working on something with them, or are you consulting them on the side?

Oh, as for best services, I have been testing alot of them out - all are broken, all realize that, and all are working on getting better metrics. It's the state of the market, though, and no one has set the flag in the ground and showing up as a leader. Each have their strengths and weaknesses, but that's the market.

[Steve Rubel]

Chris, that's fair enough. It's easy enough to yell fire in a crowded theater rather than opening up the extinguisher box that's sitting right next to you. I don't have that answer.

Jeremy, welcome back. We missed ya here. Edelman has zero relationship with Quantcast. I am a fan of their service.

[Kool Moe Dee]

Steve,

Please get off of Quantcast's jock. If you're a paid advisor or flack please disclose, otherwise its amazing the amount of cheerleading. unreal.

[Steve Rubel]

Kool Moe, I am not a paid advisor nor do I have any relationship with Quantcast.

[Allen Stern]

I am still looking for people to work with on the interactionmetrics.org site. You can read my post about the site. Naturally it would be great to get Steve involved even though he has not replied to my email :)

I would love to get a team together in the next couple of weeks. I think we are ready as a marketing/analytics force to move forward. E-mail me on allen [at] centernetworks.com if interested.

We killed off hits in 1996, now its time to put pv to bed and create the next reportable metrics. Except this time, they can actually mean something.

Funny note, cleaning house over the weekend I found some very early WebTrends manuals.

[Rich Ord]

An interesting discussion here but pageviews (which advertisers call impressions) are not going away anytime soon ... for a very good reason: Value Validation. Advertisers want to know why they are paying a certain price and the history of advertising tells us that they will pay more for larger audiences and less for smaller ones.

What is missing in your previous discussions on the death of pageviews as a metric is that more pageviews usually means a longer Long Tail!

The metric I guess you are looking for would require advertisers to pay for pageviews that are generated down the tail from the originating site. That's really nothing new ... it's called branding.

[David C]

Very insightful post. IMHO the only way for Quantcast's "quantified" program, the thing that truly distinguishes them from say an Alexa (wider data) or Compete (richer data), is for the company to be acquired quickly by say a Google or someone with deep pockets.

The reason is that so far they've flown under the radar of Nielsen Netratings who holds several patents that Quantcast is most likely violating. The patents are around the use of javascript as a means to capture web analytics. They'll need someone with deep pockets to either fight a patent lawsuit or to pay a very large licensing fee to Nielsen.

Nielsen has been very active in suing companies in the web analytics space for the last 2 yrs, especially those using javascript tags to capture analytics. The list of folks they have filed infringement lawsuits include CoreMetrics, Webside Story (Hitbox), Omniture, Visual Sciences, Unica, SageMetrics, etc...... Scary considering most of these companies weren't actually large direct competitors, Quantcast would be if it took off.

[Cross posted on WebMetrics Guru]

[David]

Nice post. I atrongly agree with your comments about ComScore. Panel-based measurement services like comScore and NetRatings use a model that worked fine for television, but is inadequate for measuring anything other than major sites like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo.

With respect to some of the other comments here, I think I understand why some say that the traditional agencies are dinosaurs. If you don't understand how the web operates, you should not be in internet advertising.

[kolli]

aarp auto insurance
What is missing in your previous discussions on the death of pageviews as a metric is that more pageviews usually means a longer Long Tail!

[Michael Rubin]

Steve,

I'm curious as to what you and others in the comment thread think of the new metrics that comScore unveiled earlier in the month. Far from clinging to a page view world, they seem to be working to satisfy your earlier concerns.

http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1246

Disclaimer: I'm a former comScore employee, still have friends there, and remain a fan.