By John Letzing
Twitter said Monday it’s tying up with TV ratings giant Nielsen to create the “Nielsen Twitter TV Rating,” a new audience metric based on the popular microblogging service.
The move seems to be a natural extension for Twitter, which becomes particularly useful when it lights up in real time during notable TV events like a presidential debate, say, or even a benefit like the recent music extravaganza held to benefit victims of Hurricane Sandy—when it was used to monitor perception of the current state of decrepitude of the Rolling Stones, for example.
This so-called “second screen” phenomenon often plays out as a Twitter user watches the tube with a mobile device or tablet in hand.
Nielsen said in a statement that the new Twitter TV Rating will be used to gauge “the reach of the TV conversation on Twitter,” and will start in the fall 2013 TV season. The new metric will complement current TV ratings, and will give “TV networks and advertisers the real-time metrics required to understand TV audience social activity,” Nielsen said.
Twitter head of media Chloe Sladden wrote in a post on the company blog that “our TV partners have consistently asked for one common benchmark from which to measure the engagement of their programming.”
“This new metric is intended to answer that request,” she added.
Closely-held Twitter is in the midst of dramatic growth, and its ability to translate its vast audience into vast amounts of revenue is sure to come under increasing scrutiny as it moves toward a potential IPO. That’s particularly true in the wake of several IPOs among Twitter’s peers that have turned out to be less-than-enticing for many investors, such as those staged by Facebook Zynga and Groupon .
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