About ten days ago, gossip blog Gawker and its sister sites Gizmodo, Lifehacker and others switched over to a drastic redesign which was met with plenty of jeers. People always complain about design changes, but this time it looks like several of Gawker’s sites actually took a major hit to traffic.
According to Quantcast, which directly measures the sites, Gawker’s U.S. daily unique visitors were cut in half from a high of 561,000 to 257,000 (see chart above). Gizmodo dropped from 746,000 to 420,000 in the U.S. Sitemeter shows an even more harrowing freefall for Gizmodo (see chart at right). Jezebel and Deadspin also took hits. Only Lifehacker seems to be holding steady. → Read More
Media measurement and Web analytics company Quantcast has some interesting numbers on mobile browsing in the United States, and it’s preparing to release some of those statistics, across vendors. Earlier today, the company put up a teaser blog post, showing two graphs, one of them representing the share of mobile Web consumption in the US per mobile OS.
As you can tell, Quantcast concludes Android is storming ahead, now taking up a 25 percent share of total mobile Web consumption in the US. Apple’s iOS, meanwhile, is seeing its share decline, from approximately 67 percent in May 2009 to 56 percent in August 2010. → Read More
The web measurement firm Quantcast has appointed ex-Yahoo! MD Philip Macauley to lead the company’s operations and expansion into the UK market.
Macauley spent ten years at Yahoo!, where he was most recently Director of Business Development and Commercial Relations.
His tenor at the Internet giant saw him take on various “senior roles” including “driving media agency relationships as Agency Sales Director and leading the company’s publisher efforts as Head of Publisher Partnerships.” All of which would appear to make Macauley a very good fit for Quantcast. → Read More
Audience measurement company Quantcast has poached Julio Pekarovic away from Google to become its new chief financial officer. Pekarovic worked at Google for the past seven years, most recently as Vice President, Global Sales Finance Operations.
In addition, Quantcast has appointed Michael Blum as General Counsel; he was previously at Silicon Valley law firm Fenwick & West. → Read More
A month ago, Jason Calacanis went on a rant about why everyone should boycott comScore. He felt they were using sketchy tactics to bully people into their pay-to-play model for measuring web analytics. He also noted that their free competitors like Quantcast, Google, and Compete would soon eat their lunch. Both Quantcast and Google (Analytics) offer direct counting of pageviews (but even these methods can be abused). But you may wonder how exactly Compete gets its numbers? It appears, that some sketchy tactics are (or at least were) employed, as well.
We were recently pointed to this post from last month by Ben Edelman, a Harvard privacy advocate. In it, he details the data the Upromise toolbar collects and sends out. This toolbar is used by college students looking for savings on various items across the web, and can be quite useful. But until a few weeks ago, it appears they were also sending web browsing (and more personal) data to Compete without anyone’s knowledge. Writes Edelman: → Read More
Jason Calacanis, our partner over the years on the TechCrunch50 conference, wrote quite a rant yesterday about analytics company Comscore. His argument: that Comscore has vastly undercounted traffic and visitors over the years, and is now formalizing “their extortion ring” by offering to track traffic more directly (and the numbers are generally much higher) via tracking pixels for a $10,000/year fee.
You can read the whole post over at Calacanis.com. He doesn’t pull any punches (in fact he goes on a tangent about punching bullies in the face as a kid) He suggests that companies refuse to pay Comscore for the service, and that investors short the stock.
Comscore investor Fred Wilson laid into Jason with a couple of comments on a copy of the post on Posterous. He also randomly dragged me into the argument (I think he’s still mad about the Zynga stuff): → Read More
The mobile Web grew 110 percent in the U.S. last year and 148 percent worldwide as measured by growth in pageviews, according to a new Quantcast Mobile Trends report (embedded below). Even so, the mobile Web accounted for only 1.26 percent of Web consumption in the U.S. (and 0.99 percent worldwide).
Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch drove much of this growth. In the U.S., Apple has a commanding 65 percent market share of mobile Web access as of the end of December, 2009. Only 41 percent of that is from the iPhone. The other 24 percent comes from the iPod Touch, which has been growing rapidly as a mobile Web device even though it only has WiFi. Globally, Apple also dominates in every market except Africa (where simpler and cheaper Java phones still rule).
Android isn’t really much of a player yet outside the U.S. But inside the U.S, Android is coming up fast, with 12 percent market share. Android is now the No. 2 mobile Web operating system, recently beating out Blackberry’s RIM OS, which has an 8.7 percent market share. → Read More
Audience measurement company Quantcast has raised $27.5 million in a third round led by Cisco Systems and joined by Polaris Venture Partners. Other previous investors, namely The Founders Fund and Revolution Ventures also participated. The Series C round brings the total of capital injected into the analytics company to a healthy $53.2 million.
In the announcement, Quantcast says the extra funding will primarily be used to support the adoption of its recently launched Quantcast Media Program. → Read More
Web metrics service Quantcast has closed $20 million Series B in a round that included Founders Fund and Polaris Venture Partners. Quantcast offers a “new media measurement service” that competes with companies such as comScore, HitWise and Alexa. Quantcast combines directly measured audience data with panel-based estimates to deliver third-party metrics on websites for advertisers or others seeking traffic data. Participants in Quantcast’s direct measurement program include Fox, CBS, Belo Corporation, AccuWeather, Slide, and IDG. As part of the deal Ken Howery of Founders Fund and Mike Hirshland of Polaris Venture Partners will join Quantcast’s Board of Directors. The new funding will be used “to support burgeoning demand for its direct-measurement audience service and related solutions.” CrunchBase Information Quantcast Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
