• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, March 23, 2011

Is mobile measurement still an oxymoron? Panelists agreed that there's still a lack of standards and a fragmented landscape when it comes to mobile metrics. Shiven Ramji of Nielsen believes the inherently more complex nature of mobile will mean there will never be a single measurement system (not even from Nielsen?) to solve the problem, but instead a mix of approaches including a panel-based measurement and tracking server-based logs. Even Eric Rickson of mobile metrics firm Webtrends conceded its difficult to find consistency across multiple mobile ad networks. "Where easy to get data from AdWords, it's hard to go across the rest of the networks," he said.

For its part, mobile ad network Millennial Media is already looking beyond the click--borrowing the rallying cry of online advertisers. Jeff Tannery of Millennial said the tracking post-click actions, especially when it comes to mobile commerce, is the new frontier. "That's the next big step," he said, in part because of the popularity of apps that enable mobile transactions. In that regard, Tannery added he's "very excited' about the launch of the Amazon app store this week. Not to be confused with Apple's App Store, of course.