C'Mon Measurement People

It's always bothered me that the different internet measurement firms *never* have the same data; you would think that since one of th primary features of the internet *is* measurability that Comscore, Nielsen/NetRatings and others would be within 2-5% of each other - but no.

Data released by the Pew Internet confirms that measurement is still an art and not a science:

"Pew Internet Project data from June 2004 show that use of search engines on a typical day has risen from 30% to 41% of the internet-using population, which itself has grown in the past year. This means that the number of those using search engines on an average day jumped from roughly 38 million in June 2004 to about 59 million in September 2005 – an increase of about 55%. comScore data, which are derived from a different methodology, show that from September 2004 to September 2005 the average daily use of search engines jumped from 49.3 million users to 60.7 million users – an increase of 23%."

One says 55% growth in a 15-month period, the other says 23% growth in 12 of those 15 months - and both stats are thrown out by yours truly. My preferred method of arriving at industry-best stats are to average out what the top ratings firms say.

Please, someone fix this!