• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, June 26, 2007

The Nielsen Company this month launches a new measurement service for wireless content — Mobile Vector — that will use data from its National People Meter TV sample to report on audience behavior and demographics by wireless carrier. Later this year, Mobile Vector will expand to include a survey of mobile phone users.

Mobile Vector is the first product from the newly formed Nielsen Wireless service, which will track how many people use services such as the mobile Internet and mobile video and what impact this usage has on established media consumption.

“We want to determine how mobile users are different from other consumers — are they time-shifters; what types of content they prefer," explains Jeff Herrmann, vice president of Nielsen Wireless and Nielsen Games. The new service complements Nielsen’s Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement initiative to electronically measure all TV viewers, no matter what the video platform.

The move is expected to give a boost to mobile advertising. “There’s an absolute need for third-party measurement, and to have the Nielsen imprimatur is going to be critical,” says Jeff Janer, chief marketing officer for mobile ad network Third Screen Media.

Nielsen isn’t alone when it comes to mobile media ratings. Late last year, comScore Networks and Telephia teamed up to offer a joint mobile media measurement service, and research firms such as M:Metrics also offer data on mobile audiences. But Nielsen’s established brand and breadth of research will help bring a new level of legitimacy to mobile advertising, says Janer.