By Steve Hasker, President, Global Media Products and Advertiser Solutions

As the Super Bowl media cycle winds down, it is hard to ignore the event as a win for social TV. Consider the numbers for Super Bowl XLVII, one of the most watched TV events ever: it drew an average audience of 108.7 million viewers and inspired 26.1 million Tweets. When the lights went out in half of the stadium, the audience turned to Twitter, proof positive that the way audiences interact with TV programming has changed forever.

While the TV industry has ascribed value to its viewing audiences for decades, today’s question is how to understand the value of that social TV activity. Nielsen's mission is to measure the entire audience, including today's vital social TV component. Through our recently announced agreement with Twitter to create a social TV rating that builds on our SocialGuide platform, we’ll be able to provide that answer in several months.

Today, Twitter announced the acquisition of Bluefin Labs, a social TV analytics company, to augment their data science capabilities and in-house social TV expertise. This will help them create innovative new ad products and consumer experiences that build on our collaboration with Twitter and our earlier acquisition of SocialGuide. We look forward to developing the new products and research to help networks, agencies and brands gain a full understanding of their audiences. Stay tuned as we push forward, working with our clients and looking toward the upfront season.