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Nielsen Who? Try Google Media Research

Add Nielsen Media Research to the long list of companies threatened by the onward march of Google, the world's largest search company, says WebProNews. The convergence of the Web and television means the job of Nielsen and its family of traffic monitoring companies is becoming increasingly digitized. About a week ago, Google researchers announced their intention to develop a means of monitoring the TV usage of a consumer from their PC. The research report explored the possibility that a laptop could actually "hear" what was being played on television, and then display interactive programs and corresponding contextual advertising on the computer while the user watched. The paper also said the technology would only note what's on television, and would not "overhear" conversations. It calls the idea "mass personalization." The idea is to create personalized content layers based on usage, ad hoc social communities based on who's watching the same content, and "virtual media library services." The paper uses the example of two friends watching "Seinfeld" at the same time. The application might open up an ad hoc social community, allowing people who are watching the program to communicate while they watch. WebProNews reports that Google has already scooped up domain names like googledvr.net and googledvr.org, alongside googletv.com and googlehdtv.net. The company has also posted recently for an Interactive TV Product Manager--meaning that Google is very serious about this.

Read the whole story at WebProNews »

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