MUMBAI:The Nielsen Company has begun public beta testing of Hey! Nielsen, an online social network site for a diverse range of pop culture enthusiasts who are eager to make their voices heard to Nielsen clients and other decision-makers in the entertainment industry. Developed with Affinitive, a pioneer and leader in word-of-mouth (WOM) and social media marketing solutions, Hey! Nielsen could be an effective mechanism for Nielsen to explore -- and define -- a wide variety of experimental media and marketing research says a report.

Nielsen will also launch Oye! Nielsen, a Spanish-language version of the website in January.Although the site is still under test and development, users will be able to participate in the site`s main functions during this test period. Members will be able to voice opinions and grade their favorite music, TV show or movie. Members will have profiles and the ability to build a network of "recommenders," or friends, giving like-minded members the ability to share ideas about additional sources of entertainment they might like. Nielsen BuzzMetric`s BlogPulse.com, a key input into Hey! Nielsen monitors nearly 60 million blogs every day. A significant percentage of the blog buzz deals directly with entertainment, and this data will be woven into the overall Hey! Nielsen Score. The development of Hey! Nielsen has been a cross-company collaboration within The Nielsen Company including Nielsen Media Research, Nielsen Entertainment, BuzzMetrics, Nielsen//NetRatings, Nielsen Games, Nielsen Wireless, Business Media, ACNielsen, and Custom Research. In this way, Nielsen can access the unique assets housed in each of these groups and others, and eventually offer products and services to the clients of these businesses.The site, which was open only to Nielsen employees for closed testing over the past few months, is now open to the public at www.heynielsen.com.