Inquiring Minds Want to Know

Who's watching? Who's listening? Who's reading?

Advertisers, not unreasonably, continue to ask these questions about interactive media and online in general. The inability of the online industry to come up with a coherent and standardized answer to that question is a primary reason why online advertising, even as it continues to grow, isn't growing as fast as many of us believe it could. We need better standardized tools.

There are a lot of efforts, at many levels, to try to solve the problem. For those of us particularly interested in downloadable media, the Association for Downloadable Media is trying to develop those standards. If you're involved in podcasting, or vodcasting, or streaming, you really ought to join the ADM and help the group wrestle with these questions.