New tool meters mobile content usage

A new tool to meter usage of mobile phone content could help kick-start the market for mobile advertising.

MeterDirect, launched Monday by M:Metrics Inc., is an "on-device" service that measures how smartphone owners use mobile content such as games, videos and music, providing useful information for advertisers to plan media strategies.

The service, targeted at advertisers, mobile phone operators and others, "gives a much more granular look at mobile content consumption, similar to what media buyers and planners expect in the Internet," said Paul Goode with M:Metrics.

As part of the service, a select number of smartphone users agree to download the MeterDirect application to their phones and allow the software to track how they use mobile browsing, messaging, multimedia and general applications such as games.

The application records, for instance, what Web pages are clicked, how many text messages are sent and received and which games are played. The data is retrieved at the end of each day.

The service will be initially available in the U.S. and the U.K., where 1,100 smart phone users have agreed to download the software.

M:Metrics plans to extend the service to Germany, France, Spain and Italy later this year. The goal is to have about 1,000 people using the application in each market.

The market for mobile entertainment services is steadily growing but is "still not spectacular," largely because of the costs associated with using these services, according to Goode.

Ad-sponsored services would be one way to help boost demand, he said, and a service like MeterDirect will provide advertisers with the information they need for their media planning.