IMRB International is planning to launch an Audience Measurement service for the Internet industry in India, MediaNama has learned from multiple sources. A part of the plan was to distribute USB drives with software that will track users Internet habits. IMRB already collaborates for Industry research with the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). While sources told us that this is an IAMAI-IMRB project, on being contacted IAMAI President Subho Ray told us that it's an independent initiative of the IMRB. The project is being led by Balendu Srivastava, and was expected to be launched in December. We've contacted Srivastava, and are awaiting a response. On why this is needed, and the opportunity for IMRB Frankly, this is a much needed initiative, since there is no reliable third party data available on the Internet market in India. Media Planners use multiple sources of data, primarily to compare websites - including information supplied by publishers, data from Comscore and charts from Alexa in order to assist in media buying/advertising decisions. Google has also recently opened its AdPlanner to all Google subscribers, but - the data isn't very accurate. At the same time, we'd like to fisk through their methodology before taking a call on the accuracy of the data. IMRB will compete with Comscore, which charges companies between $15,000 and $31,250 in India for an annual subscription to data, depending on the metrics that they have access to. Several publishers use Comscore data to pitch to Media Planners, but at the…
