Comment: Get the counting right and the world is ours

Anyone interested in the wider media market will be well acquainted with the fascinating shouting match that has been going on between colourful former editor of The Sun Kelvin MacKenzie and the industry body which measures audience figures for radio, Rajar.

Mackenzie, as the chairman and chief executive of The Wireless Group which own Talk Sport, has spent the last few months lambasting Rajar for continuing to back an obsolete paper-based diary system for radio listeners. His own commissioned research from German firm GFK uses electronic wrist-bands to measure listening habits - far easier to use that memory-based diaries. The source of the contention is that the GFK data routinely gives TalkSport higher audience figures than Rajar's.

The result has been that Mackenzie has cried foul and launched a legal action, while Rajar is moving like an oil tanker to address the issue and has only now commissioned a survey into applying the new technology. And Talk Sport's competitor's put the whole thing down to sour grapes.

The story has wider implications for other media, since GFK's technology is just one of a number of new solutions which could end up measuring digital TV watching and even outdoor poster viewing using wireless devices.

Cut back to the Internet world and you quickly see that the debate over the veracity of web traffic figures and the measuring process fits into this wider debate over how to measure audiences in an atomised media environment.

Netimperative recently held an industry lunch, sponsored by WebAbacus, on the 'Web analytics' issue. Some of the concerns aired by attendees revealed how important this issue is.

For instance:

- Some of the main concerns included learning how to capitalise on web analytics by working with the best possible data set from a site.

- There was a desire for common standards, as laid down by such industry bodies such as the ABCe.

- There is a lack of clarity in the advertising market, because of four different trading currencies. Creating clarity and rationalising it all is a big issue.

- Affiliates and traffic aggregators (the CheapestOffers.co.uk's of this world, for instance) need to know the truth about traffic, since half of it comes from partner sites. Sorting out who did what is part of the business model - and affects the bottom line.

- Online advertising is taking off and could hit 5% of the market. But advertisers are going to want to know what they are getting for their money. Every other medium has the individual at the heart of their data - but discrepancies between Comscore and Nielsen - to name just two measurment companies - means the data may often not appear to be like for like.

- The integration of how you measure acquisition, conversion, and retention of customers is a big issue, especially with online and offline. Today's consumer will move from channel to channel as they see fit.

- Big Brother's web site has broken records for page impressions and unique users, but they can't turn around the data quickly enough. The TV industry has overnight ratings but there is no such agreed standard online for 'over-night online ratings'. TV sites can send people back to the site then back to the show but there's no metric for measuring that today.

However, perhaps the encouraging thing here is the size of the internet media market right now. Because it is hovering at a low percentage of all media spend, the new media sector can conduct its debate over measurement in a pretty civilised atmosphere.

While the big beasts of TV, say, beat each other with clubs over audience ratings, the online media sector has an opportunity to get the numbers and the measurement right before taking anyone to court.

So let's get this right. Let's bring the IAB's, the ABCs, the Nielsons, the Comscores, the Hitwises, you name it, together. There's a media world out there to win.