Google to Compete with Nielsen? 97
An anonymous reader writes "Jason Lee Miller thinks that Nielsen Media Research's ambitious new plan for measuring all types of video audiences could put it into competition with everyone's favorite company: Google. From the article: 'The Mountain View's next potential rival: Nielsen Media Research, the audience measurement company that has held a virtual monopoly in the sector for decades. And it shouldn't be surprising. Google's MO is information collection and research.'"
Sounds more like (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt Google is going to be conducting research surveys or distributing their own rating monitoring boxes.
The part they are going to overlap on is a small part of the publicly visible loss leader.
Re:Sounds more like (Score:2, Interesting)
With video.google.com, the audience comes to them rather than the other way around.
Re:Sounds more like (Score:3, Informative)
Nielsen make their money conducting market research surveys.
Re:Sounds more like (Score:4, Informative)
Google builds geographical barriers on Internet (Score:5, Interesting)
This is what google served me instead of the clips in "Music Videos" menu:
"We're sorry, but the provider of this video has not authorized Google to display this video in your location.
To see more videos visit our home page."
Does it matter that I'm from EU?
Re:Google builds geographical barriers on Internet (Score:2, Insightful)
It's the same as Apple and DRM; I'm not buying it, but it doesn't offend me that they use it, the RIAA wasn't coming to the table otherwise.
Free censorship software from Google, why? (Score:2)
Once they build the censorship software for itself they should not allow customers to use the same *****. Or maybe it is the purpose? Let people use free censoring software and if there are thousands of real Americans using the real censorship then who will dare to blame Google for censoring information?
Rest
Re:Free censorship software from Google, why? (Score:1)
Re:Free censorship software from Google, why? (Score:1)
I understand your sentiment, and I don't really disagree, but I also understand why Google would offer tools to restrict by location, and I don't really care that they do.
Re:Google builds geographical barriers on Internet (Score:2)
Absolutely. By giving people the OPTION to censor, you are indirectly endorsing censorship. And eventually the "option" to censor, will turn into a mandatory requirement.
An example: Region coding on DVDs.
The spec on DVDs REQUIRES to you fix both your DVD and player to a region, so even if you wanted to distribute a "region-free" DVD you CAN'T, because it won't work in many players. You you MUST fix your c
Re:Google builds geographical barriers on Internet (Score:1)
As far as music goes, I have so far chosen not to purchase any drm music. My point was that I don't give a shit what a company sells to other people.
Re:Google builds geographical barriers on Internet (Score:2)
And people would buy DVD players with the intention of NOT playing any DVDs?
But I was mainly referring to content PRODUCERS, and the fact that since you can't distribute the same pressing of a DVD worldwide, this creates major hurdles for small content producers who must do a seperate pressing for each region. You CAN ma
Re:Google builds geographical barriers on Internet (Score:1)
DRM: DRM as law is horrible and bad and evil, DRM as content producer choice is just that, choice. As long as Joe Not That Good Of A Six String is allowed to post unencumbered music to his we
Re:Google builds geographical barriers on Internet (Score:2)
What you're saying, literally, is: "We shouldn't bother changing the laws to benefit end users and smaller content producers because the current market is soley the result of market forces an
Re:Google builds geographical barriers on Internet (Score:2)
---
Response Headers - http://video.google.com/ [google.com]
Cache-Control: private
Content-Length: 141
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 07:36:00 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Server: GFE/1.3
404 Not Found
---
When I use the American IP then I see normal content of http://video.google.com/ [google.com] content.
When I use the URL "http://video.google.com/?test" instead of "http://video.google.com/" from my european IP it works OK. Funny.
Re:Sounds more like (Score:1)
Re:Sounds more like (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, they already have: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/10/13292
With a simple application, they can turn your laptop (pre-deployed) into a ratings monitor.
Google juggernaut =bad? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Google juggernaut =bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and it's not illegal to have a monopoly, what ever gave you that idea? It IS illegal to use your monopoly to push into new markets while pushing others out, or to use anticompetitive market behaviour. Considering most of Google's products aren't even linked to on their homepage, please explain to me how Google is doing either.
Hell, Google doesn't even lock their customers in. I use Google Calendar, Gmail and Google News, yet I still use ask.com and search.yahoo.com, direct competitors to Google's cash cow, almost as often as I use Google search itself.
Re:Google juggernaut =bad? (Score:2)
Monopolies are okay. Abusing monopoly power is not. If Google starts using vendor lock-in and product tying to force its way into dominating other markets or by charging outrageous prices, then we have a problem.
Re:Google juggernaut =bad? (Score:1)
Re:Google juggernaut =bad? (Score:2)
Nielsen Netratings Killer (Score:1)
Good idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
Then again I'm not 'Merican, so I have no idea why good shows get cancelled *cough*Firefly*cough*. I just know that they do, and the dumb ones remain (latest reality show, WHO WANTS TO MARRY A MIDGET MILLIONAIRE APPRENTICE?)
Re:Good idea! (Score:5, Informative)
Nielson samples a very wide demographic, not just "boring old fogies". You can read about it here [wikipedia.org]. The wikipedia article also brings up the point that their research system is not perfect, but it's close enough to give advertisers a picture of who's watching what. If it wasn't, Nielson wouldn't be in the TV ratings system for long.
Re:Good idea! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
It sucks, too. I'm in the target market for most advertisers (by age, income, and interests) and b
Re:Good idea! (Score:1)
Re:Good idea! (Score:5, Informative)
It only samples a very small demographic: people who want to be monitored.
Re:Good idea! (Score:2)
I wonder if it could be argued that people who enjoy sci-fi are more likely to object to being monitored? A lot of sci-fi is rather dystopian, portraying the sinister side of that sort of thing...
Re:Good idea! (Score:2)
Re:Good idea! (Score:1)
Re:Good idea! (Score:2)
Re:Good idea! (Score:3, Informative)
No. People meters have had the buttons since 1991 (possibly before that too).
Pressing buttons
Re:Good idea! (Score:2)
I suppose it might look wrong if someone overdoes it, like maxing out all the buttons every time your favorite show is on. We didn't go that far just because we thought it might indeed look suspicious. I assumed the reason we're no longer a Nielsen home is that at the beginning, they said they wanted us to do it for a ye
Re:Good idea! (Score:1)
Re:Good idea! (Score:1)
That's OK, we already know the people who don't want to be monitored are watching porn.
Re:Good idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
And these are the people they're after. If you're concerned about privacy and not wanting your viewing habits watched, then you're probably too smart to be swayed by TV advertising anyway.
Re:Good idea! (Score:1)
Re:Good idea! (Score:2)
Democracy sucks! It only offers representation to those who are willing to vote.
Re:Good idea! (Score:2)
It appears that the precise duration of "long" will be known shortly.
Re:Good idea! (Score:1)
Re:Good idea! (Score:1)
I still prefer the one from College University [collegeuniv.com]:
"Who Want's To Live on the Real Survivor Idol Millionare Island Dance and Chili Cookoff!"
[ link to episode [collegeuniv.com] -- WARNING: FLASH! ]
Re:Good idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm no expert in the matter, but if Nielson is doing its job properly, they would be using a representative sample of the population of T.V. viewers (of which you and your friends are but a small fraction) or a representative sample of the population of T.V. viewers willing to pay for stuff (of which you and your friends may be an even smaller fraction).
Then again I'm
Re:Good idea! (Score:1)
Google's MO (Score:4, Funny)
... and word processors. Oh, and web accelerators.
Re:Google's MO (Score:3, Insightful)
Google's MO is information collection and research.
Re:Google's MO (Score:3, Interesting)
Add spreadsheet in there and maybe Google's trying to find a better way of extracting metadata from Spreadsheets. Add blogs in there and maybe Google's trying to fin
Re:Google's MO (Score:2)
You made a typo (Score:2)
I think you meant to type "helping advertisers sell things", because Google sure as heck doesn't make money (you know, what businesses do) by helping people find stuff. That's more of a pleasant side effect. But yes, everything they do is lniked to this.
Re:You made a typo (Score:2)
So, you're incorrect. Google does, in fact, make money by helping people find things.
Long tail (Score:3, Insightful)
Already happening (Score:4, Interesting)
Nielsen's been working on total measurement for years. Arbitron and VNU (current holders of Nielsen Media research) got together [mediaweek.com] to build Project Apollo [wired.com]. However, because of the trouble [boston.com] Arbitron is having getting its Portable People Meter accredited, Apollo's deploying Nielsen's A/P Meter instead [broadcastingcable.com], which I've commented on before [slashdot.org].
I work at Nielsen Media at the GTIC facility in Oldsmar FL and I've been hearing about Apollo for many years, but it seems that the rest of the world has only heard about it recently. Project Apollo has been described (internally) as the "holy grail" of measurement, which follows a consumer across every media channel and measures the affect on purchasing habits.
What it looks like Google is doing is a subset of Project Apollo, and even if it could compete on the TV/video side they probably need to license [uspto.gov] the [uspto.gov] tech [uspto.gov] from Nielsen. I'd love to have Google as an ally, but as a competitor I think they'll find Nielsen pretty hard to dislodge.
How far down the tail are you going? (Score:1)
Sounds great. What are the operations outside the US like? I live in Thailand, but I still consume US and UK television on satelite. Are you heading that far down the tail?
At the moment I end up paying a lot to buy DVDs of shows when I'm back in the UK because all the ones I want to watch just aren't available over here. I guess that does get counted somewhere, but I'm also guessing it isn't data that Nielsen are selling anybody.
Re:How far down the tail are you going? (Score:1)
Nielsen Media Research (NMR) mainly does TV ratings, so DVD sales don't really count. ACNielsen (ACN) does consumer market research, which does track DVD sales. VNU now owns both, which is what makes Project Apollo possible in the first place.
VNU has media and market services in 100 countries, including Thailand. NMR operates television and radio measurement services and ACN operates consumer market measurement services, both out of Bangkok. Granted, the Thai ratings don't mean as much to the major n
Re:Already happening (Score:1)
Hail and well met, my fellow swampfronter.
stupid people = stupid shows (Score:5, Interesting)
Heck sometimes I think those people are threatened when a new show like firefly comes on. they just don't know how to classify it so they don't bother watching it.
Re:stupid people = stupid shows (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:stupid people = stupid shows (Score:1)
Re:stupid people = stupid shows (Score:2)
Utterly unbelievable. With an attitude like that, no wonder it was cancelled. People like you probably don't believe in watching commercials either as th
Re:stupid people = stupid shows (Score:2, Interesting)
Someone who is going off on someone else for being an "arrogant elitist" should not start a sentence with "people like you" and then call them stupid.
Yup, I am sure Firefly was cancelled due to his attitude. That must have been it. I bet mine didn't help either.
I don't watch commercials, according to your logic I
Re:stupid people = stupid shows (Score:2)
Oh, boohoo. Television is a medium for illiterates to receive instant gratification. If you think you are too good for that, go to your local library.
Re:stupid people = stupid shows (Score:1)
*plonk*
Re:stupid people = stupid shows (Score:1)
What a bunch of fucking fanboys!
Yes, I enjoy the odd cop or medical drama too. but there are how many different fucking Law and Order shows?
I was just pointing out that firefly was different. Not better. I just want variety, but the networks are afraid to take a chance on anything new because the ratings aren't there for it. The ratings aren't there because as someone else said, people want to just veg out and not try anything new. they are com
stupid people != stupid shows (Score:1)
They push the shows thats the cheapest, yet above the limit of view-a-bility for the general public (Sorry for my english). How much do you think a reality or game show costs?
Here in Spain normally only air tv is available without paying, with 5 nationwide channels, plus a few regional channels maybe. In the afternoon on ~3 of the main channels they show "Telenovelas", which are romance dramas, incredibly c
Re:stupid people = stupid shows (Score:2)
The Network KILLED it, by showing the episodes in random order, at seemingly random times, if at all.
Any show with any kind of story arc would die the same death if given the same treatment.
Re:stupid people = stupid shows (Score:1)
But when it ended people just watched whatever crap took it's place, and the ad dollars kept rolling in. So the people are partially to blame even if they really had no control. They are responsible for making those low budjet reality shows popular
US TV needs a better rating mechanism (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously - Why do the studios and advertisers rate the ratings so highly? The system is inherently gamable, so the very act of gathering statistics affects the schedules. This is why they have "sweeps". Is there somethign magical about that time? Nope. It's just when the people who are doing the counting decide they're going to look. If it wasn't for this, there woukld eb a much more regular spread of quality programming throughout the year, rather than the bursts of new episodes followded by weeks of repeats.
US TV already has a better rating mechanism (Score:1)
Why Nielsen is Bad for TV (Score:1)
Why Nielsen is (not so) Bad for TV (Score:1)
Your information is quite out of date. Last I checked (about a week ago), NMR maintained a sample of 8,144 metered households in the US and they're currently expanding to 10,000. Any high school statistics student can tell you that's more than enough to produce meaningful estimates for any size population.
Re:Why Nielsen is (not so) Bad for TV (Score:2)
I expect that they continue to do things like this, to ensure that their monitored households continue to represent an appropriately balanced sampling.
Re:Why Nielsen is (not so) Bad for TV (Score:2)
If the sample is carefully weighed to reflect the demographics of the population it's trying to represent, then this is true. This is NOT the case with Neilsen ratings. Unless you believe that (for example) single urban black men watch exactly the same kind of television white suburban nuclear families do. My understanding is that 90%+ of those metered households are white suburban
Hmmm... (Score:2)
I thought it was slitting the victim's throat, drawing renditions of Eric Cartman on the wall in the victim's blood and raiding the victim's fridge.
I think that's a much better MO.
Google better take care of existing biz first (Score:4, Insightful)
It's gotten so bad at times that I'm able to open a second tab, load then execute the same search on yahoo! before Google presents its front page.
In a recent IHT article, Schmidt first admitted problems, mentioning "Those machines are full. We have a huge machine crisis." [iht.com].
The Register also raised several complaints from users [theregister.co.uk] about the (negative) impact of recent changes.
I think Google should take a pause, and reinforce their core business before heading out to capture new markets. Their aggressive growth strategy threatens to turn them into the Microsoft of internet computing; get there first, capture the market and worry about quality later.
Re:Google better take care of existing biz first (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe your location has something to do with it? Have you tried connecting with multiple net connections?
Re:Google better take care of existing biz first (Score:1)
Re:Google better take care of existing biz first (Score:2)
And lest we forget, Adwords is under attack by click-fraud and everyday sees the emergence of increasingly viable competitors in search and other business activities that currently account for material amounts of Google's revenue.
Googles own Annual Report [zdnet.com] to shareholders details a wide area of risks it faces.
No, I think they are neglecting core busin
Re:Google better take care of existing biz first (Score:2)
Re:Google better take care of existing biz first (Score:2)
Seems to be lots of complaints lately about Google, and issue with service. I love the company and just hope they don't blow it in a rush to dominate all markets.
This won't improve TV at all... (Score:2, Funny)
Neilsen has salivated at the prospect for years (Score:1)
Flashback (Score:1)
Does anyone remember the CueCat and the fact you could hook up the thing to your tv to display websites of a particular product in a commercial?
It is possible to build better device that will record what channels you remain at for more then 15 minutes and have the computer upload the data to Google through wireless interface.
Related Slashdot Story to Article:
Google Researchers Create TV Audio Analysis System [slashdot.org]
Re:Flashback (Score:2)
Nielson is slipping... (Score:3, Interesting)
google-analytics vs imrworldwide (Score:1, Informative)
people using firefox and noscript extension can easily check how many sites uses some script-based systems to spy users. The most widespread systems have the google-analytics.com and imrworldwide.com domains: imrworldwide is a Nielsen brand, while google-analystics... well, it's obvious
Slashdot.org has google-analytics, so a little disclaimer should be appropriate.