• by David L. Smith , May 13, 2002

Several months ago, the Feds got NetRatings Inc. to agree to cancel its bid to buy Jupiter Media Metrix after the Federal Trade Commission expressed antitrust concerns.

The developments of the last week either scream conspiracy theory or gross incompetence on the part of the FTC. JMM’s business was not in good shape. NetRatings had already stolen a lot of JMM’s ratings business. They were also both using similar technology which Jupiter laid claim to via patents. In both TV and radio, much bigger marketplaces, there is only one rating service. As such, the merger made sense to those in the industry.

So, what happens next? NetRatings immediately buys AdRelevance, one of the primary pieces of Nielsen that they wanted. Then last week, the dam burst. In several short days, NetRatings bought @Plan (arguably the most useful piece of Internet media research) from DoubleClick, entered into a strategic alliance with DoubleClick with long-term data exchange between the two giants (no antitrust concerns on strategic alliances I guess), buys the international part of the JMM business, settles the patent lawsuit for far less than it would have cost it to acquire JMM and buys eRatings from Nielsen. All of this for far less cash than it would have cost to buy JMM.

Who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too?

NetRatings comes out the big winner here. JMM is in the process of repositioning itself with a R/F product and a qualitative research tool in AIM (formerly Q-Metrix). JMM is confident of their ability to win with a slimmed down company and two products that are in clear demand in the industry. But it may be too little, too late. At a time when the ARF has endorsed the merger of third party server data with survey data for R/F, JMM is without a chair in the Internet’s version of musical chairs. While JMM has a good argument for their simulation methodology, obviating the need for third party server data to develop their R/F curves, their competitors both have strong alliances, NetRatings with DoubleClick and comScore with Atlas DMT.

In addition, AIM has yet to prove that it can unseat @Plan, the provider of choice for agencies looking to establish strategic target definitions for their Web efforts. The result, JMM is not number one in anything. They are definitely going to have to “try harder” to survive.

Meanwhile, NetRatings is in the catbird seat. William Pulver, new CEO has to be clearly please with his position in the marketplace.

So what is your read? Was there a conspiracy at hand that gave NetRatings all of this bounty? Or are the Feds (once again) clueless?

David L. Smith is President of Mediasmith, Inc., the Integrated Solutions Media Agency based in San Francisco and New York.