• by Masha Geller , April 5, 2001

When DoubleClick closed their Brazilian office early last month, they probably didn't expect eMarketer to forecast that 6.1 million Brazilians will be actively using the Internet by the end of this year, increasing to 16.4 million by 2004. Granted, forecasts probably didn't make much difference.

But how about the Internet audience measurement lawsuit Jupiter Media Metrix just won? This week, DoubleClick introduced a new independent research division called Diameter, designed to compete directly with Jupiter and Nielsen//NetRatings.

Diameter will offer three areas of research: media intelligence, audience measurement and advertising effectiveness. Online market research company @plan, recently acquired by DC, will offer consumer behavior data, updated quarterly, from a random sample of 40,000 adult Web users.

Also, Diameter will offer creative testing, involving a single impression test; brand measurement, testing frequency levels to determine how many exposures are needed to optimize an ad's impact; and campaign evaluation, using data mining to track campaigns from beginning to end.

And finally, Diameter's audience-measurement capabilities will come from DC's recent deal with comScore Networks to create a suite of Web measurement tools. The first of these products, launched in late January and called netScore, claims a sample size of 1.5 million opt-in users and tracks site traffic from home, work, school and international users.

I smell another lawsuit, but until that day comes, Diameter is an interesting alternative to the Jupiter and Nielsen numbers online advertisers have come to swear by.