• by August 7, 2000

With the number of industry organizations, associations and discussion groups the Internet has sprouted, it's amazing we still don't have any standardized guidelines to follow when it comes to advertising on the web.

Maybe the newest member of the pack will make some headway.

Top Internet leaders Radiate, AltaVista, Arbitron, MediaMetrix, Nielsen Media Research, OgilvyOne, DoubleClick, AdForce and Motorola met recently in New York for a high- level roundtable meeting to discuss the recent debates over audience measurement, Internet privacy and the rise of the "digital consumer."

The group decided to formally create the Radiate Internet Roundtable (RIR) to "provide industry leadership in key Internet issues." First on the agenda: an understandable and accurate digital consumer measurement metric that maintains the highest level of consumer privacy.

"Digital consumer," a term coined during the discussion, includes traditional HTML-based Web properties, software, wireless devices, music and video. Devising a way to accurately measure those audiences is challenging not only for the measurement firms, but also for each measured company's internal consumer measurement procedures, the group said.

"The power of this group to shape and lead the Internet industry is enormous," said Ehren Maedge, CEO of Radiate, who created the roundtable. "Despite the highly competitive and sometimes adversarial relationships among some of the roundtable companies, all were able to set those differences aside and agree to work toward real progress in certain areas."

The RIR will meet again in early fall and begin issuing industry recommendations and solutions at that time.