I reported a couple days back about the apparent results of a rock band’s grand experiment. The Internet measurement company comScore had calculated that roughly 60 percent of the folks who’d been asked to pay whatever they wanted to download the new album from Radiohead had chosen to pay nothing at all.
Now the band is saying that comScore got it wrong. Group members won’t say how many people have downloaded the album “In Rainbows” and they won’t say how many people paid what, but they do say that comScore shot far from the mark. ComScore, however, is standing by its estimates.
Unless you’re a member of Radiohead, the specific figures probably don’t matter much to you, but the fight does highlight a major problem with Internet commerce — measuring traffic accurately. Only the people who operate a site actually know how many people visit it. Until companies like comScore find a foolproof way to make the Internet more transparent, mistrust will slow the growth of volume-driven services.
It’s one reason by Internet advertisers tend to pay per click rather than paying per viewer.
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