Web tracking alliance creates world first
Asian Web surveyor iamasia has joined with global media auditor BPA International in the world's first partnership that covers both quantitative and qualitative Internet audience measurement.
They will help determine not only which Web sites are popular, but why.
Hong Kong-based start-up iamasia, short for Interactive Audience Measurement Asia, creates opinion-type polls by tracking the surfing preferences of residents in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan. Its clients include Credit Suisse First Boston, Reuters, and America Online.
Non-profit organisation BPA, which is governed by media owners, advertisers and advertising agencies, has audited readership for newspapers and media outlets since 1931 and more recently has measured Web-page usage by examining the computer logs of Web sites.
No money changed hands in the deal. Instead, the two companies agreed to divide future revenue. The deal gives iamasia, a newcomer on the world market for Internet polling, the backing of a veteran player.
BPA, which had been looking for a company to resell its services in Asia, gains a firm foothold in the region's Web measurement market with the help of a local player.
Kevin Tan, chief executive of iamasia, said the contract brought 'two halves of the puzzle' together when it came to figuring out why people liked certain sites and how popular those sites really were.
'Our partnership with BPA allows us to take . . . the other side,' he said.
BPA chairman and chief executive Glenn Hansen, in Hong Kong from New York this week to educate clients, said 'it gives us a sales opportunity in the Asia region'.
Mr Hansen also expects BPA to gain 'lots of business on both ends of the spectrum'.
The relationship was seeded when an executive at Chinese portal company Renren Media introduced the two chief executives at an Internet conference in Beijing in April.
