

Jason Calacanis Punches Comscore In The Face. Comscore Punches Back. - mun411
http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/24/comscore-calcanis-wilson-punch-face/

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kitcar
At the end of the day, the real problem with using ComScore #'s when
developing a media plan is unlike with all other forms of mass media
(TV/Radio/Print), in Online the advertiser has direct feedback from the
audience of their advertisements - hence you don't really need to use a 3rd
party measurement service to help you determine if your campaign was on
target/"worked".

A much better way to buy media online is sprinkle money around, see what
performs best, allocate more money there, measure, test, repeat.

ComScore was designed to meet the need of old world media buyers working in
online - those who can't wrap their heads around allocating media $ based on
actual placement performance, rather than a 3rd party measurement company's
estimate of what the audience might look like. There are A LOT of these people
out there - hence ComScore has done OK for themselves. Unfortunately I agree
that over the long term, their importance in the world of media buying will
dwindle, and they will become more of a competitive research tool used by
middle management and tech bloggers to re-enforce their viewpoints.

~~~
andrewvc
I'm not in the ad game, but what you just said doesn't sound right to me. I
mean, if I see 10 ads for a new show on TV network X, even if I don't click on
them they have value. Not everything is monetizable online, and those things
that aren't will be hard or impossible to track.

~~~
kitcar
The key point I'm making is as an advertiser, there is no way for me to know
that you saw those 10 ads on TV - hence the need for 3rd party measurement. On
the web, I have a direct line of sight to you - hence why introduce a 3rd
party?

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barrkel
Nothing I read in the replies or MA's commentary actually countered the
substance of Jason's argument.

Fred's line: "someone has to pay, so pay up." That sounds like a straight-up
mobster.

Linda Abraham's line: "we measure people" (what about dogs? I wondered), "we
have a slightly cheaper option of 5K". IOW, we can be flexible in what we hit
you up for. Oh, and we have cameras in people's homes, so we know the
difference between people, machines and cybernetic half-breeds.

MA's line: this person is right, someone needs to get paid, Jason's wrong. The
judge and jury in one persona, but logic-free.

But all this doesn't address the core fact: that people using ComScore to
evaluate a site (why can't these people pay?) can be greatly influenced by the
sites paying ComScore for "auditing" and other ancillary services to make sure
they "get counted correctly". 'Cos you know, if you don't pay up, some
"accidents" might happen.

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jgrahamc
_It’s unfortunate that you were picked on as a child. It must have been
difficult to you. But you’re an adult now. If you want to debate, please do so
with facts, not just blind fury._

That last line of reply was worth reading the whole article for.

~~~
ronnier
Before this, I knew nothing about Comscore. That one line has really turned me
off. If they want to win people over, insults are not the way to do it.

~~~
stingraycharles
Yeah, never understand why companies go this way, when responding to social
media. I assume it's an act of impulse by one of their employees, I would be
amazed if it was actually discussed and cleared by their PR department. But it
sure doesn't look professional at all, and I do expect professionalism from a
company like Comscore.

~~~
sachinag
Isn't that the whole point of social media? Be authentic and don't sound like
a PR?

I, for one, give them a hell of a lot of credit for pushing back at Jason in
this way. He's the one who brought up the subject, and it's fun to see people
stand up for themselves. It's part of why Jason is such an entertaining writer
himself. He's a big boy; he can take it.

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
Correct, I'm a big boy and I can handle it. :-) No one should ever feel bad
for me... I got a free roll on _life_. I'm playing with the houses money and
my life is 1,000x better than I ever thought it would be.

Seriously, I've been fighting with these guys for a decade trying to get them
to address the fact that their data is wrong and HIGHLY DAMAGING for startups
looking to get ad revenue.

They ignored me for a decade, and this email was the FIRST time I've really
been able to get them to address the issue.

I try to take these inside conversations and put them in the sunlight and part
of that is writing with a certain, well, flair (at least 20 pieces of flair in
fact).

You can be sure I'm laughing and smiling when I write these things, and more
so when folks like Comscore or Kiretsu Forum take the bait.

Now that Comscore has engaged the debate other folks can move it forward. I
think Comscore will do the right thing here and move to a freemium model like:

1\. Free for companies with under 50M impressions 2\. $1,000 a year for
companies with 50m-250m impressions 3\. $5,000 a year for companies over 250M
impressions

If they did this they would build a funnel of clients and a ton of good will.
Compare that plan to their current plan:

1\. Pay us $5,000 for accurate stats or... 2\. Don't pay us and we will use
our old and admittedly inaccurate system for counting your stats--thus
damaging your company and ability to get advertising.

best j

~~~
sachinag
The problem with your freemium model is that there's no real incentive to jump
up once you're over 50MM impressions. At over 50MM impressions, you have your
own in-house ad sales force (or you should) and they can open the kimono to
media buyers. I think they're kind of screwed in that they have to charge
everyone and I can see the logic that a min/max model would spit out $5,000 as
the magic number. Plus, the only people who care about impressions are people
selling on a CPM (or similar) basis. Someone like, say, Dropbox or 37signals
or even Consumer Reports doesn't care.

(Lastly, you've been around here long enough to know not to sign your
comments/posts. If you're going to add extra stuff to the bottom, add some of
that sweet, sweet LA sunshine.)

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jrockway
You know the voice that the adults talk in on Charlie Brown? Anything written
by Calacanis (and to a lesser extent, Arrington) makes a lot more sense if you
read it in this voice. I used it for the entire article, and I feel like I
have a much deeper understanding of what's going on.

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sounddust
As publishers, why should we be supporting any of these services, Quantcast
included? Am I really going to have to put 12 different JS includes on my site
and pass on my users' browsing history to these companies just on the slim
chance that some advertiser is using their stats? I get enough complaints
already about the Google Analytics tracking (and that's after putting it on
the bottom of the page to minimize the chance of blocking the page, thus
hurting my stats).

Everyone is talking about "pixels," but actually giving publishers blocking JS
includes. This means that as a publisher, you're going to have to prioritize
the user experience versus tracking, and also prioritize the tracking! If you
put the Comscore JS under the Quantcast JS, then the slower the Quantcast JS
returns, the lower your Comscore stats will be (because it gives the user more
time to navigate away from the page). It seems like it would give an incentive
to the analytics firm to serve the tracking JS as slowly as possible.

I wish we could just make portions of our Google Analytics data public and be
done with it. I don't think the "pixel include" race is going to scale very
well.

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jasonlbaptiste
is there something im missing in regards to this whole public analytics game?
Most of us use google analytics. Those are the most accurate stats. If we're
interested in making stats public (or a certain subset) like we do with
comscore/being quantified, why don't we just make google analytics stats
public?

1) Take API for google analytics 2) Make app with api 3) Let site owners
choose which stats to make public 4) Stats are public, problem solved.

This is a weekend project that requires funding in the amount of red bull.

*Please please correct me if I'm wrong. This isn't my area of expertise and I may be overlooking some very important things.

~~~
jonknee
> Those are the most accurate stats

comScore would disagree--GA counts cookies not people. When I visit your site
at home, on my phone and then at work I look like three people. Add in the
fact that I use Chrome, Safari and FireFox regularly and I can look like 7
people. I dump cookies quite frequently too.

Not that comScore is perfect at what they do, but GA being a gold standard for
accuracy is false.

~~~
sgk284
Do you know how comscore does this? Just using statistics?

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ecaron
Who is going to take the lead in setting up an independent analysis for
Compete.com vs Quantcast vs Comscore and see who has the most accurate data
when compared to the raw web server data?

I think the test should compare 20 1k, 20 10k, and 20 100k sites. If anyone
decides to take bets on it, I'd guess Compete has the best data and Comscore
has the worst. Let's see the services have a throw down!

~~~
ekiru
Given that Comscore argues that the raw web server data is flawed because of
the same person using multiple machines, different browsers, deleting cookies,
etc., that would be a pointless comparison. It isn't an independent analysis
to take two different approaches to information-gathering and see who has the
most accurate data when compared to the data gathered by one of the
approaches.

The question isn't whether Compete or Quantcast or Comscore is closest to the
raw server data. The question is whether the raw server data can be used to
accurately judge the number of people who visit a website. If so, Comscore's
data are most likely irrelevant because they are approaching the problem in a
completely different way.

~~~
ecaron
I couldn't agree more. The point of the contest wouldn't be to see who guessed
right, but to see if any of the parties are so far off with their estimates
that they should be embarrassed.

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teye
I'd be interested to hear what Google/Quantcast/Compete have to say about
people vs cookies and if/how they tell the difference.

~~~
barrkel
I'd like to know how ComScore can tell the difference between a TCP connection
from a machine and one directly from a human.

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jsz0
_"As such, I’m asking for complete and unconditional surrender. Make your
tracking pixel program 100% free in the next 10 days or the boycott will
continue."_

Who's the bully here again?

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johng
I wonder if anyone with some internet prestige can ask MA if he is unbiased in
this.

Ie, does he get his comscore access "for free" -- are his stats "accurate"
without paying?

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zackattack
Don't talk shit about Jason. He can SEO any site into 5 million uniques. Any
site.

~~~
omarchowdhury
Any site where the content has already been made by others, you mean.

