It's certainly not our personal mission to make Google a cause célèbre, but we have a special place in our hearts for any company that challenges Nielsen Media Research, the bumbling audience analytics firm headed toward further catastrophe by David Calhoun, the former General Electric vice chairman. Google recently unveiled Google Ad Planner, a new framework that combines website metrics with media buying, which is supposed to replace the guesswork employed by companies like Nielsen and comScore, which use a complicated and mostly flawed mixture of audience panels and computer logging to tell clients how many people visit a website, and what type of people they are. Google, which collects metrics data itself, directly from websites that carry its tracking code, wants to challenge these industry leaders in a market they've long owned, and which media buyers have always had to rely on to know where best to spend their millions in ad buys. Except now that the service has debuted and the biggest media agencies have had a look, it appears Nielsen isn't in much danger of no longer holding clients hostage.

CONTINUED »

Is Arianna Huffington's group blog getting more traffic than the indefatigable Matt Drudge? Third-party sources who are often completely off base say yes! Nielsen Online says HuffPo snagged 3.7 millino unique visitors in February, to Drudge's mere 3.4m. comScore's numbers are tinier than Nielsen's, but report the same trend: HuffPo's 2.3m to Drudge's 1.6m. Maybe Bill O'Reilly's ambush tactics are working in her favor? [Boomtown]