In a post called "Defining the New Media Currency," adtechblog talks about a panel at Chicago '07 that discussed the idea of the need for new "universal currency" for measurement online.
Charlie Buchwalter, SVP Industry Solutions, believed an industry standard of measurement should be pursued, but with change happening so quickly, by the time the standards would be accepted, they could be irrelevant.
Director, Marketing Effectiveness and Enabling Analytics, GMIA, General Motors Corporation, Karen Ebben, came right out and said I don't think it's possible to create a new media currency, especially online, because it's getting more fragmented, not less."
The panel, in the end, argued against there being a need or desire to pursue the matter.
I think they're right. Similar to marketing through online videos, there is never going to be a one-size-fits-all way of doing things. Every demographic and will be marketed to in a different way. And the variables are so vast, that to attempt to find a universal metric would be to force innovation and change to fit around the metric, rather than the other way around.
For anyone wanting significant metrics, I think it's going to be a series of different tools and strategies that will fit the increasingly fragmented market. The online market isn't going to turn into a mass media event the way the past has been. Those days are long gone. Even within social networks there may be different metrics used depending on what is being marketed and to who.
We probably won't see people stop trying to create some type of universal metric, but the market is never going to surrender change in innovation so a universal system can be created to fit all marketers. It's just not going to happen.
Even if someone down the line announces they've done it, it will be nothing but an empty promise based upon trying to wrap themselves around and get hold of the wind. The Internet is like the wind, and nobody will know which way it's going to blow. And most the time it's blowing in many directions at one time.
We'll probably see a diversity of metrics in the future that will measure a number of things from different angles. Even these will be in a constant state of flux.
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