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Nielsen To Track Online Content

The Nielsen Company and Digimarc Corporation have announced a new service that will enable media companies, social networks, peer-to-peer services and user-generated content sites to monitor and manage the distribution of media content across the Internet. Dubbed "Nielsen Digital Media Manager," the system will use digital watermarking and fingerprinting to enforce copyright compliance and help clients realize the value of their digital content.

Nielsen already uses digital watermarking to encode 95% of national television programming for its television ratings service, and the new service will focus initially on the online distribution of television content in the U.S. The companies expect these new solutions to be available in mid-2008. Nielsen and Digimarc also plan to work with the media industry to digitally watermark DVDs, movies, music, video games and other content in subsequent phases of the roll-out.

"We believe these services will stimulate the growth of online video distribution, to the benefit of consumers, content providers and distributors," said David Calhoun, chairman and CEO of the Nielsen Company. "Until now, the lack of an independent, industry-accepted identification and tracking service has limited the transactions that allow the delivery of media content over the Internet. Now with our new media identification and management services' unique ability to identify content throughout the Internet, both content providers and distributors can protect and monetize the value of online media."

Under the agreement, Nielsen and Digimarc will work together to develop this service and each will contribute intellectual property and technological expertise. Digimarc is licensing digital watermarking patents from its extensive patent portfolio to Nielsen for these new solutions and providing development support. The solutions will take advantage of Nielsen's extensive expertise in digital watermarking and fingerprinting technologies, its extensive network and systems infrastructure and its world class capabilities for supporting media and advertising companies around the world.

Nielsen Digital Media Manager will offer many benefits to key players in digital distribution:

* Content owners can leverage the popularity of new media distribution channels by identifying what content is being shared, viewed, mashed up or accessed. This intelligence enables content owners to make meaningful decisions on what content to allow or disallow on such sites. At the same time, they can decide where and how to distribute content while developing new revenue streams, and how to measure the effectiveness of associated marketing campaigns.

* Content distributors, including social networks, user-generated content site operators and aggregators, can ensure the legitimacy of content shared on their sites. This will enable them to establish new business relationships with the content community, and explore new sources of revenue by extending the reach of advertising and other value-add applications.

* Consumers will enjoy expanded access to related goods, services and communities and be able to more easily find video content when they want it, regardless of format or operating system.

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