As 2007 ends, I thought it worth looking back, from the practitioner perspective, at just a few of the issues that have shaped Internet measurement and thus online metrics over the last year.

A measurement system needs a purpose. All the different tools at our disposal, which allow us to measure where consumers clicked on a page, at what point they stopped watching a video, or how they otherwise engaged with the content -- might make for great techniques if you are a seller of an analytics package competing on features. But as an industry, we need to stop being distracted by what we can do, and focus more on what we need to do.

Global warming and consumers warming up to a brand or product: While it might not be obvious at first glance, there are certainly parallels between the two. First, both climate changes and consumers' responses to advertising are significantly more measurable today than in the past. And, second, in both areas new patterns, emerging from newly acquired data, routinely challenge our convenient ways of thinking and render our customary methods of going about our business inadequate.

Several weeks ago in this space, David Smith urged Randy Rothenberg (IAB) and Jim Sterne (WAA) to get together over the reach standards and definitions their two organizations are putting out. Following that column, Judah Phillips then wrote about the yin and yang of online metrics -- audience measurement and Web analytics -- from his perspective as a Web analytics guru. Consider this a companion piece to Judah's column, covering similar ground but from the audience measurement perspective.

A few weeks ago the topic of this newsletter was "You Guys Should Talk." The theme of this week's column is "Us Girls AreTalking." David Smith made a public call for the Web Analytics Association and the Internet Advertising Bureau to get together and discuss and collaborate on metric standards. There is no action item here -- but merely a need for a little PR to let the online measurement community know that the groups are indeed communicating with each other.

Audience measurement and Web analytics systems are like the yin and yang of online metrics. Yin and yang are different, opposing forces, but they also complement each other. Think of Web analytics and audience measurement data in the same way: different, sometimes in opposition, but complementary.

Randall Rothenberg of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, meet Jim Sterne of the Web Analytics Association. There are a hundred reasons why you two should be at the same table.

Traditional Web analytics focuses on all of the activity on your own domain, but how do you measure your content when you unleash it into the wild across the Internet? The solution is a new set of metrics (and eventually standards) for how to quantitatively measure the power of viral content.

With six plus years spent in the search trenches, and prior years of Web site building and other forms of old-school marketing behind me (fax, broadcast, anyone?), I find myself in the most excellent and interesting position of overseeing online media for a client who has been highly successful building a brand over many decades with "traditional" media. Hurray! What a compelling and ever-changing way to spend one's days. But here is the crux: We set our sights on expanding upon our combined successes with search with other forms of interactive media -- and find that to be truly successful, …

Last week the New York Times ran an article in which the headline posed the question, "How Many Hits? It Depends Who's Counting." The author began the article by wondering how many people had visited Style.com last month, citing several disparate estimates. But hits, as readers of this column probably know all too well, are not people.