Portable People Meter does well in early tests Arbitron finds pocket device works in the field By Gabriel Spitzer Complaints about the traditional methods of how use of electronic media is tracked are legion, whether by diary or electronic devices for recording viewing and listening habits.
Inaccuracies abound, and of growing concern is that they only really track home use.
It now looks like many of those failings are a lot closer to being remedied. What promises to be a solution is under test in Wilmington, Del., and just-released results indicate that Arbitron s Portable People Meter is off to a good start. The PPM is a small, pager-sized device that measures a person s media consumption throughout the day. Arbitron reports that initial findings from a test group of 300 Wilmingtonians show that the device is being accepted and used properly by test subjects. Over 80 percent of the test subjects were found to be properly using the device, which involves taking the PPM from a carriage unit in the morning, wearing it all day, and replacing it at night, at which point the PPM uploads its data to Arbitron.