Akamai Will Track Usage of Net News - The Boston Globe

Akamai Will Track Usage of Net News - The Boston Globe

Little-known company hopes index raises profile

By Robert Weisman, Globe Staff | August 18, 2005

CAMBRIDGE — Akamai Technologies Inc., which hosts Internet content for other companies, including some of the world’s largest online news providers, today is set to introduce a ”Web traffic report” that will offer a real-time look at Internet news consumption globally.

Paul Sagan, Akamai’s president and chief executive, said the index could raise the company’s profile, though Akamai will not seek to profit from it — at least not initially.

Sagan, a former broadcast journalist and media executive, said Akamai’s goal was to contribute to the understanding of the habits and trends of news consumers. ”It’s not commercial,” he said. ”It’s purely because we think it’s interesting. . . One of the things you’ll be able to see is what kinds of events drive people to turn on their browser to news.”

”People have decided the Internet is how they want to be informed,” Sagan said. ”And this is one of the ways I think we’re all going to get a better understanding of when are people choosing to get informed and what’s driving some of their habits or their interests.”

Peter Christy of the Los Altos-based Internet Research Group states,

”It’s really a new form of operation for them,” said Peter Christy, principal at the Internet Research Group in Los Altos, Calif. ”Akamai has huge internal knowledge of what’s going on in the Internet, but until now they’ve provided very little of that knowledge to the public. If it turns out to be valuable enough to people, they can monetize it.”

20 August, 2005 |

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