MMX Multi-Platform is a Revolutionary Digital Audience Measurement and Media Planning Product that Accurately Accounts for Today’s Fragmented Media Environment
New Rankings, New Metrics, New View of the Digital World
RESTON, VA, November 29, 2012 – Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today announced the U.S. Beta release of MMX® Multi-Platform, the next generation of digital audience measurement and media planning. Building on MMX, Mobile Metrix and Video Metrix from Comscore’s Audience Analytics suite, this revolutionary product offers unduplicated accounting of audience size and demographics that reflects today’s multi-platform digital media environment, which includes websites, apps and video content accessed from multiple devices.
“We are excited to introduce our Beta version of MMX Multi-Platform, the next generation in digital audience measurement offering a unified 360-degree view of digital consumer behavior across platforms and content types,” said Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of Comscore. “With smartphones and tablets accounting for a rapidly expanding share of digital media consumption, Comscore recognized the need to evolve our industry-leading audience measurement product to better represent this new paradigm. By developing proprietary methods to account for multi-platform audience overlap, we have designed a truly unique and innovative solution.”
MMX Multi-Platform is expected to remain in Beta over the next several months as the product undergoes a thorough data review and validation with Comscore clients. All publicly reported data included in this initial report are illustrative and should not be interpreted as official Comscore rankings.
A New View of the Digital World
Multi-platform digital audience measurement has significant implications for how the digital world is seen and understood. “As an active investor in mobile and web businesses, I have been dying for an accurate consolidated view of web, mobile web, iOS, and Android audience data. Comscore has delivered exactly what I've been seeking for the U.S. audience and I am looking forward to seeing them tackle the global audience next,” said Fred Wilson, Managing Partner of Union Square Ventures.
The most notable change from traditional MMX rankings are the overall audience increases for media properties with a measurable mobile presence; in some cases, these increases are substantial. Specifically, the MMX Multi Platform view shows 10 properties reaching 100 million unique visitors compared to six in a non-multi-platform view, 28 properties reaching 50 million (vs. 19), 77 properties reaching 25 million (vs. 51), 223 reaching 10 million (vs. 171) and 410 reaching 5 million (vs. 334)
MMX Multi-Platform Beta vs. MMX: Audience Threshold ComparisonSeptember 2012Total U.S. (Age 18+ on iOS, Android and RIM platforms for Mobile)Source: MMX Multi-Platform
Audience Size(Unique Visitors / Viewers)
# of Properties with Specified Audience Size
MMX
MMXMulti-Platform
100 Million
6
10
50 Million
19
28
25 Million
51
77
10 Million
171
223
5 Million
334
410
Another visible way of reflecting this change is through the ranking of the top media properties. Properties that are particularly mobile-centric, or at least have a strong mobile extension of their brands, may realize strong increases in total audience size and rankings under MMX Multi-Platform reporting.
Below is a comparison of the top 30 media properties in September 2012 according to the new MMX Multi-Platform Beta rankings compared to the existing MMX ranking of top web properties. These properties reached an average incremental audience of 26 percent compared to their desktop computer-only audience. Other key findings include:
MMX Multi-Platform Top 30 PropertiesSeptember 2012Total U.S. (Age 18+ on iOS, Android and RIM platforms for Mobile)Source: MMX Multi-Platform
Unique Visitors/Viewers (000)
MMX Multi-Platform Rank
MMX Rank
Total Digital Population
Desktop
Mobile
Total Internet : Total Audience
234,953
219,970
126,890
1
Google Sites
214,806
189,588
109,099
2
3
Yahoo! Sites
189,272
164,404
94,304
4
Facebook.com
179,411
151,122
91,502
Microsoft Sites
170,565
168,022
41,837
5
AOL, Inc.
135,860
120,936
52,400
Amazon Sites
134,522
111,170
61,844
7
Wikimedia Foundation Sites
103,724
88,441
39,444
8
Glam Media
102,288
86,884
39,749
9
Apple Inc.
102,065
79,689
47,567
CBS Interactive
100,698
86,998
36,662
11
Turner Digital
98,711
84,649
36,996
12
Ask Network
91,011
78,023
31,618
13
14
eBay
90,289
73,805
37,537
Demand Media
89,894
78,214
30,003
15
New York Times Digital
88,284
71,671
36,401
16
18
Comcast NBCUniversal
83,105
70,031
31,135
17
Federated Media Publishing
81,923
68,846
30,071
Viacom Digital
79,410
71,610
20,313
23
ESPN
65,486
47,345
31,818
20
24
Weather Channel, The
63,268
46,930
28,878
21
Gannett Sites
61,514
49,499
24,140
22
Answers.com Sites
60,228
48,828
22,760
61
Pandora.com
59,877
22,657
48,641
VEVO
57,716
55,033
4,966
25
craigslist, inc.
57,442
49,601
16,657
26
27
Twitter.com
56,736
36,840
30,646
34
Disney Online
51,938
44,508
14,470
Wal-Mart
51,469
41,515
18,643
29
30
Yelp.com
47,920
33,385
23,021
Linkedin
47,064
39,600
13,639
*Note: Desktop includes audience reached via video and will therefore differ from standard MMX rankings; Mobile includes smartphone and tablet platforms
Methodology & Metrics
Comscore’s multi-platform measurement relies on its proprietary Unified Digital Measurement™ (UDM) methodology, which combines panel and census-based approaches, to deliver best-in-class estimates of digital audiences and consumption. In order to provide accurate unduplicated audience size estimates across digital platforms, Comscore developed a proprietary method that leverages its census web site network to understand audience overlap across different media channels – the first offering of its kind to utilize such an approach.
This unified representation of disparate media channels also requires a modified view of certain standard reporting metrics. While “unique visitor”-based metrics remain central to MMX Multi-Platform, measures of engagement such as page views must be reconsidered. This means that duration-based metrics (i.e. minutes) become the preferred engagement metrics because they are consistent across media; however, Comscore is also introducing the new “views” metric to account for content-specific engagements, such as the web-based page view, video view or app start.
Tag Your Digital Content Today!
MMX Multi-Platform Beta is available to U.S. clients immediately, and anticipated for introduction to the UK market in early 2013. Other international markets will follow thereafter. Publishers, brands, and media companies who want to ensure that all their digital platforms and audiences are fully reflected in MMX® Multi-Platform are strongly encouraged to begin tagging their digital assets with Comscore today at the Comscore Direct website.
Many web sites are already familiar with the process from tagging their traditional web content using Comscore’s UDM census tag. The Comscore tag has recently been updated to enable advanced measurement of sites and apps in a fixed web or mobile environment, inclusive of both iOS and Android platforms. With an increasing amount of media consumption shifting to smartphones and tablets, now is the time to make sure that all of your digital assets are accounted for:
If you have any questions about implementing these additional tags, please feel free to reach out to your Comscore account representative.
About ComscoreComscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. For more information, please visit www.Comscore.com.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking StatementsThis release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including, but not limited to, expectations regarding the impact and benefits to Comscore from the MMX family of products, financial or otherwise. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially, including, but not limited to: the features and characteristics of the products, the rate of development of the digital marketing intelligence, Internet advertising and e-Commerce markets; the growth of the Internet as a medium for commerce, content, advertising and communications; and the acceptance of new products and methodologies by the industry, including existing and prospective clients.
For a detailed discussion of these and other risk factors, please refer to Comscore's most recent respective Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Annual Reports on Form 10-K and from time to time other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), which are available on the SEC's Web site ( http://www.sec.gov).
Stockholders of Comscore are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date such statements are made. Comscore does not undertake any obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements to reflect events, circumstances or new information after the date of this press release, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
PressBill DaddiDaddi Brand Communications646-370-1341press@comscore.com