Data firm reaches for Jupiter; Media Metrix acquires leading Net researcher.(Brief...

Web site traffic measurement leader Media Metrix Inc., seeing opportunities to develop new products and expand overseas, announced last week it will buy Internet research company Jupiter Communications Inc. in a stock deal initially valued at $414 million. The combined company will be called Jupiter Media Metrix.

The deal doesn't appear to be a consolidation in the usual sense, in which costs would be saved by eliminating redundancies. Media Metrix produces data by tracking Web traffic; Jupiter analyzes Internet data.

"We aren't doing the same thing," said T