The Audit Bureau of Circulations and New York-based World Wide Web tracking
technology partner WebTrack have set May 1 as tentative date for official
launch of its auditing service, Interactive Age Digitial confirmed today.
The ABC/WebTrack effort is one of several emerging auditing technologies
aimed at giving content providers and advertisers rock-solid data from which
to negotiate Web advertising rates.
The tentative name of the ABC/WebTrack offering is Audit Bureau of
Circulations Interactive Auditing Service.
This week, WebTrack and ABC executives are scheduled to meet to hammer out a
roll-out strategy, while final go-ahead for ABC Interactive Auditing Service
is on the agenda for meetings of ABC's board of directors. ABC spokesperson
Monica Segura confirmed that launch date should be decided before ABC
directors conclude board meetings on Saturday.
More than 45 sites are currently participating in ABC Interactive Auditing
Service beta tests. Beta test data could be the determining factor in the
decision to move forward. ABC Interactive Auditing Service technology uses
data collected from Web server logs to determine such statistics as number of
HyperText Markup Language (HTML) pages, or "pageviews," delivered.
Details of ABC Interactive Auditing Service's emerging auditing service comes
on the eve announcement by NPD Group Inc. of plans to begin on-going consumer
research showing top-trafficked World Wide Web sites on a weekly basis.
The NPD model, which closely resembles ratings "sweeps" used by the
television industry, is scheduled to be detailed at a New York press
conference on Tuesday.
As reported exclusively in Interactive Age, the NPD Group's Web ratings will
be included as a component of its PC/Meter services, which are used throughout
the computer industry to measure such areas as software and hardware sales.
The PC/Meter project looms as potentially the first rating systems to measure
on-going usage patterns based on consumer behavior in the home. Most existing
Web traffic schemes analyze and compare information collected by Web servers.
--__John Evan Frook_