TiVo To Match TV Viewing With Internet Activity

TiVo announced a deal with Quantcast, a Web audience-measurement startup, that will allow it to track the Internet activity of about 35,000 DVR customers and sell that research to advertisers and media companies. The PowerWatch for Quantcast service, to be available from TiVo later this summer, combines data from the DVR company's existing 35,000-household PowerWatch ratings panel with Quantcast's direct-measurement offering that tracks views on more than 10 million Web destinations. Members of TiVo's PowerWatch panel are anonymously paired with a Quantcast ID when their DVRs connect to the Internet, allowing the companies to track visits on sites with the Quantcast tags. Customers of San Francisco-based Quantcast, which launched in 2006, include NBC, Hulu.com, CBS, Viacom and Fox Entertainment.