IAB Rides Herd on Web 2.0 Numbers

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is calling the hands of Internet number pushers in regard to the validity and measurement of user behavior. I can't tell you how gratifying it is to see a watchdog set on one of my pet peeves. So many numbers abound across Web 2.0, but most significantly to me these numbers seem rather nebulous at times. Even more significantly, they are utilized in making decisions that not only cost billions of dollars but affect many people significantly.

The IAB is complaining that audience ratings issued by comScore and Nielsen may not be as accurate as is possible with current Web technology. The IAB points out that measurement controversy have been abundant across all types of media venues in the past. Randall Rothenberg IAB's CEO iterated to Reuters via Yahoo! News that we can't allow the most accountable advertising platform ever to fall victim to the same bad habits that have plagued Nielsen and other ratings systems for decades.

"We in the marketing-media ecosystem have spent too many years trying to clean up the residue of flawed media-research methodologies," Randall Rothenberg, IAB's chief executive, wrote in a letter to comScore and Nielsen//NetRatings that was released on Friday.

The bottom line is that the dynamic shift of dollars from traditional media towards online digital media represents a very significant investment in what "could" be the most measurable feedback system yet known. So far Nielsen and comScore ratings have been the most closely watched in determining measurements of primarily Google, Yahoo! to inform investors and analysts for gauging progress.

Without a transparent system for quantifying these results investors can have very limited trust in the entire system. Web 2.0 will be largely dependent on this kind of credibility and this variable is paramount in the effort to expand the web. For their part comScore has welcomed the scrutiny, while Nielsen has so far been silent on the issue. The preliminary citation from the IAB is that there have been discrepancies in audience numbers between comScore and Nielsen. IABs internal figures also differed from results provided by the two research companies, but they did not elaborate as to areas or degrees.

We would hate to wake up one morning and find out that some huge Internet entity is really based on air wouldn't we? The news from IAB is a positive step towards adding credibility and confidence to Web 2.0. Hopefully the IAB can ride herd on the ratings companies and add some more validity and confidence for us skeptics.