Fisheye Analytics has recently thrown its hat into the online monitoring ring with a new formula for calculating advertising equivalency (AVE). For a long time, this was the de facto method of measuring and assigning monetary value to PR coverage. However, figures are often inflated and based on flawed metrics, which has led many agencies to discover that there’s much more to measurement – especially when you’re talking about online activity.

Once upon a time, software-based sentiment analysis was the new kid on the block for online monitoring companies, which for a while separated a few agencies from the pack. Whether this was a good thing or not is a different story altogether, as people quickly worked out that no technology could accurately tell the difference between the intricate nuances of the human language.

This new concept from Fisheye – which provides both monitoring and brand analysis – takes sentiment, editorial credibility of the source, overlap of media audiences and repeated mentions in a single source on the same day into consideration.

Founded around research from the INSEAD business school in 2008, its clients include the World Economic Forum, Axa Insurance and Nikon (who all add a level of credibility to the company’s work). However, the scope of its coverage seems exhaustive, with online, traditional, print and television media all included. For the most part, companies that proclaim to provide this breadth of monitoring are either terribly expensive – or tend to miss things.

Cynicism aside, as part of the push for the new service, Fisheye carried out some analysis around the value of various Olympic athletes. The company calculated the amount of online news and social media coverage received by all the gold medal winners between February 12th and March 1st 2010, then quantified this  in terms of its average daily online reach (based on unique views for over 20,000 news sources). As well as the total marketing value of that audience, calculated using a proprietary algorithm that looks at online advertising rates, sentiment of the article and credibility of the source.

Unsurprisingly, American skier Lindsey Vonn is by far the most valuable brand online generating nearly $65 million of online coverage during Vancouver 2010 according to this method. Her image as a sex symbol, for example, has helped boost coverage of her online. 13.5% of mentions during this period referenced either her sex appeal or her appearance on Sport’s Illustrated’s Olympic preview cover (pictured left) and annual swimsuit edition, both published just before the Vancouver games.

It’s a far more comprehensive method of assigning value to online coverage, and if you had to, this is probably a good formula to use. However, of the 20,000 new sources that Fisheye tracks – what if you’re best customers are reading something else? Articles may appear in media that don’t reach a client’s target audience or which, while generally positive, may not contain the client’s key messages. As such, they do not contribute to achieving a client’s objectives. Conversely, articles that are negative may not necessarily be strategically significant.

Monitoring is definitely evolving, and this new formula from Fisheye shouldn’t be sniffed at – but it’s not the be all and end all. It’s too easy to rely on a service like this to provide a nice big figure at the end of a campaign and be done with it, but there has to be more to it – a link to sales objectives, traffic to a brand’s site or even an improvement of customer service.