I spoke to M:Metrics about a new metrics service they will launch on Monday, dubbed MeterDirect, which will follow a panel of users who download an application to their smartphone (Symbian, Windows Mobile or Palm). The users are older than 18 and offered an incentive to take part, such as periodic cash payments or entry into a sweepstakes. This is important because it doesn’t rely on user responses to a survey, which can be misleading. While the carriers have a lot of this data they don’t share it very freely…and they tend to only know what people do on the network.
Will Hodgman, president and CEO of M:Metrics, said that mobile is bigger than any other medium in terms of user numbers: “Any time there’s people (advertisers) want to get to them” (he used to be in advertising). Originally mobile content was about content applications on mobile handsets, but now “media has come to mobile”.
Every night the MeterDirect application sends a little message to the M:Metrics database tracking message usage, mobile browser usage, application usage and multimedia usage. The panel for February was 1100 people across the US and UK — M:Metrics will eventually extend the service across the other European countries it covers (France, Germany, Italy and Spain). MeterDirect measures where people go on the mobile web and how long they stay there, for example how many people visit ESPN’s WAP site during the NCAA, and how long they stay there. M:Metrics aims to give the same measurements that people are used to seeing on TV and the web so they can compare across media. The first stats will be out soon.
Comments have been disabled for this post