I find some of the climate info could be down better particularly
on the oceans and current info and how the weather is being generated , and therefore drought, rain and snow, hot and cold weather. Everyone is leaning including NPR.

I wish I had a contact person at NPR i could depend on. Call me
at 208-578-1557 Thanks
Max Casebeau CEEI Director
208-578-1557

It’s Maria Thomas, VP & GM, NPR Digital Media. Thanks for your post. I wanted to share with you a few facts from NPR Digital Media and my observations on the Shorenstein report. Overall, I found the report simplistic in its approach and erroneous in its conclusions.

First, some numbers. According to our internal measurements (we use Visual Sciences Web analytics software), NPR.org received on average over the last 12 months close to six million global unique monthly visitors. Nielsen NetRatings measures only U.S. unique visitors to NPR.org but even their figure is roughly three times the figure Compete.com is showing for NPR.org in July 2007. And, NPR.org is not alone in experiencing these differences.

http://venturebeat.com/2007/02/22/traffic-measuring-continued-why-compete-doesnt-work-and-why-quantcast-does/

There are all sorts of issues associated with different web metrics collection methodologies. In addition to Beth Lawson’s critique which you highlighted above, the Shorenstein report authors do point out in the footnotes:

o “It should be noted that Compete’s data tend to differ from Nielsen//Net Ratings data on the “visits” variable. The latter’s numbers are higher across the board for news sites.

Beyond the use of Compete.com as a measurement tool, I am disappointed by the author’s overall approach to considering audience measurement across multiple digital platforms.

• Their conclusions seem to be narrowly based on site-by-site comparisons of one metric from two single months.

• A month-over-month comparison provides a limited basis for conclusions. It’s more important to examine trends over time. One big story, exclusive or viral hit on any of these sites in April 06 or April 07 (included Virginia Tech tragedy) can cause a big shift in single-month numbers and possibly lead to erroneous conclusions.

• Lines like this one: “An alternative variable [to "people count'] would have been “visitors,” which counts each visit to a site, even if it is a visit by an individual who has previously been to the site that month” (this is an incorrect definition according to standards set out by the Web Analytics Association; the metric they are defining is “visit” or “session”) betray a lack of familiarity with web analytics and a misunderstanding of the nature of how traffic ebbs and flows on the Web depending on many connected variables which are sometimes difficult to identify.

• The report contains relatively little informed discussion of how audio and video streaming, podcasting and other forms of disaggregated content delivery (widgets, RSS, etc) build audience. For example, the suggestion that podcasting may be responsible for a decline in our NPR.org audience carries an implicit assumption that our podcasting audience is entirely duplicative of our online audience (not true). Also, what about the fact that companies like Compete.com (and Nielsen NetRatings too) don’t know how to incorporate audio/video streaming into their measurements. I care as much about an audience member who may have accessed NPR audio content directly through Yahoo! or through a NPR station site without ever going to NPR.org as I do about an audience member who consumes the same piece of audio content from NPR.org. The challenge is how to add those audience members.

Incidentally, a few weeks ago I emailed the folks at Compete.com to invite them for a discussion of their methodologies and to explain what we see in our Web analytics. They did not write back.

Maria Thomas
VP & GM, NPR Digital Media