Good post from Marc about Ning and their approach to the adult issue.

Just a note here that we broadly agree with his statement:

Fourth, bear in mind that you can’t believe any of the Internet measurement companies for any kind of accurate external analysis of Ning usage and traffic — or, for that matter, usage and traffic of any web site other than perhaps the very largest.

I’m talking about Compete, Quantcast, Alexa, and even Comscore — none of their data maps in any way to numbers or patterns we see in our own server logs and activity metrics.

We have posted before on issues with the major companies’ measurement methodologies (e.g. comScore’s measurement of Facebook users), and surfaced numerous issues with Quantcast (whom we admire for their efforts) and Alexa numbers being treated as gospel and sometimes even in how directional they are. Having worked at Jupiter Media Metrix and Nielsen//NetRatings, I’m quite well qualified to opine on these issues. To be clear here, our intent on the article was neither to embarrass Ning.com, nor to hold these measurement services up as having any definitive data in this regard (especially since many Ning networks use their own domain names) but we just found it to be a very interesting tidbit that was ultimately stumbled upon by Valleywag.

I for one welcome discussion on the impact of, and often over-reliance on, the measurement services and the fact that their methodologies and the shortcomings thereof are not typically addressed by the mainstream press. If any press folks are reading this, we’re happy to comment , just contact us via this form.