I would like heathcare **OR** broadband from a provider that **I** choose. Not something the government decides is "best" for me. Or decide that, oh, well, you smoke, and drink, therefore we're not going to treat your colon cancer, you need hospice, not surgery. Or how about the other side of the coin? I can't afford private insurance, so i'll get it from the Government. Seems simple right? Well, the old saying goes "no such thing as a free lunch". Your neighbor just paid for your colonoscopy. See, this crazy choice thing, not so bad! If i want better broadband, healthcare, corrective colon surgery, I CAN. You may be willing to pay higher taxes to help pay for the under-priveleged, but hey, i'm suddenly under-privleged too even though i make $50k a year, so... uh, thanks!

NetRatings a few years ago was a seperate entity, i vaugely remember the email about aquiring netratings. I2 though is structured so differently and unlike the TV ratings side of things, they only have a working app for windows xp/vista. The mac one barely works right (since it's java), and there is NO unix variant. Quite a large chunk of people left out in the cold if you ask me. (even though i do remember them saying WHY there wasn't any for unix, market share is nil in comparison)

200k sample is actually pretty small in the Internet space. Compared to the national TV sample. (NTI) Glad to hear that the I2 system took off pretty well though. The first version of the software they showed us in Oldsmar was pretty... erm... bad. (much like MSM :P )

The Vsync is TV on/off... the speaker tap is the secret. The broadcast station has a Nielsen box too! They're encoding their SID codes in the audio chain for the Nielsen boxes to listen for out in the world. Everything is audio driven with Nielsen's boxes nowdays. The old Mk2 equipment was MUCH MUCH more intrusive, but IMO more accurate, since it tapped the physical tuners of the sets. (either I2C or an actual high frequency probe inside the tuner can!) On flat panel sets, they have a current sensing relay on the power cord and everything is driven off audio.

I used to work for Nielsen as a field rep. The way they gather the data is solid, but they have some serious issues with quality control. Meaning too much QC. If the power goes out in one section of the home, and the box is reset, the whole days viewing data is thrown out for the WHOLE household. They should just throw out that one viewing site. As for DVRs, the article fails to mention that Nielsen already accounts for DVRs, quite well I might add. It's live+7 days. Meaning that if you recorded tuesdays american idol, and didn't watch it til sunday, it still counts for tuesdays viewing data. How it deals with the nightly numbers was a bit above my pay grade, but i think the DVR equipment tracked the SID codes while it was recording.

Biggest problem Nielsen really has is internet usage. They just (like 3 years ago) started tracking internet sites with their A2M2 program. The sample is very very small, about 1/5th the size of a TV sample. And a lot of the households are former TV sample homes. (they offer them the I2 program as the home comes out of the LPM sample) They also now are able to track distance family members, like kids at college are counted now away from home, but count as part of the household. (figure that one out if the parents live in Minneapolis, and the kid goes to school in LA?)

As for people wondering why Nielsen is a viable company in this digital age? Simple demographics. Nielsen has every household members income, job title, where they work, shopping habits, age, etc. The cable company can find out what a person is watching through an STB, but doesn't have ANY of the demographics of the household. Nielsen using LPM systems can tell you EXACTLY who was watching what at a specific time, including the persons age, wine buying habits, primary shopper in the home or not, and what kind of car(year, make, model) they drive. (yes, these were the questions i had to ask households every 3 months) Obscene target audiences. Even with the old NSI sample, Nielsen had more data than the cable companies. (NSI is total household data, LPM is persons data)

For those really wondering, Nielsen does track homes that pirate satellite/cable. They just don't show that number anywhere. :)

Um, this guy lives in central Minnesota. The temp average this past week was -10 degrees. Of anyone, he would know what snow/fog/rain is... That is to say, St. Johns University isn't really known for turning out good scientists.

Another key item nobody is noticing is that a LOT of people think that with the impending doom of analog TV, that they need a new HD set... and quite a few big (yellow) stores are telling people exactly that. Other cases are that the man in the house sees it as a good excuse to get his new flat panel for football season, but forgets to tell the wife about the converter boxes for $60 (speaking of, thanks uncle sam for kicking in the $40, but you may have wanted to PRICE FIX THAT!)