• ClickZ, Monday, May 22, 2006 11:30 AM

Is it time for Web video ratings? Currently, advertisers buying video are doing so against numbers publishers report, which might or might not be audited by a third party. It's interesting to think that the same companies that buy and use the complicated "scientific" procedure for buying television are now buying online video, but the process for buying the latter isn't nearly as refined, writes Ian Schafer of ClickZ. How do you compare performance and impact when the processes are so different? Without neutral, third-party reporting you don't, really. While comScore offers a product, Schafer says it isn't widely used. Online video needs ratings because advertisers have to be able to make like-comparisons with other media. Demographics would greatly help the coordination of media plans and audited streams would give advertisers a common currency to gauge the value of video inventory across the Web. So what gives? Why aren't more publishers and ad networks using comScore's system? Where's Nielsen? And what's the model, panel-based or real-time? Schafer says the answer will likely be a hybrid, but an answer is definitely needed to help spur growth.

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