Now, Amazon video on demand, itunes, hulu, clicker and others are not in the business of giving up their data. How can i convince then to share viewing data with a small startup? Can this approach work in dealing with the big boys (Nielsen and Tivo)?
Also the content providers themselves may have contracts with Amazon, Apple etc which prevents them from sharing that data with any 3rd parties and is exclusively available to them.
I don't know how analogue / digital TV ratings work in the US, but in the UK it is compiled by a company (BARB) by having a representative sample of people having their TV viewing measured by extra equipment installed in their homes and then extrapolated to give the 'real' viewing figure.
I am thinking maybe a similar idea could work for net based viewing with a desktop / browser plugin.
- Collect their demographic - Provide an incentive for people to sign up (weekly prize draw, monthly prize draw) - Perhaps even sell it as a social aspect (allow us to collect data on what you watch will help give you good programming in the future).
On the other hand, look at the current shift for net-based viewing - a lot of it is moving onto TV based set top boxes (Google TV, new Apple TV and integrated into TVs themselves). These are all walled gardens and I can't see you having any chance of getting that data. Apple do not even publically give you a regional breakdown on their device sales (for Europe at least), so the chances of them sharing this data are nil.
Who's your target market here? Google l4m3 and hit me up, I can answer most of your questions on this if you can give me some more data.
I'm very open to sharing the results with my partners. However, slicing the data partitioned by their competitor will surely not work across the board.