Back in November, I reported on the merger of Seattle area startups Fyreball and Reach Machines and how the combined company was working on new technologies to track messages that spread via word-of-mouth. Today, the company is formally introducing itself under the new name Meteor Solutions.

Meteor, which is led by former Bungie Studios head Pete Parsons and former Starwave producer Ben Straley, believes its offering will resonate with companies that want to track how ideas move from one person to the next.

“People are more likely to check out links sent from people they know and follow recommendations from friends than they are to respond directly to most advertising," says Straley. "For the first time, Meteor enables advertisers and publishers to track their content as it’s passed along from person to person and understand the impact word of mouth is having on ROI."

Meteor is backed by angel investors and is nearing completion on another financing round. Its customers include Ayzenberg Group, Bungie, Capcom, and Besthesda Softworks, with the company saying that customers utilizing the Meteor Web traffic measurement system have found that they receive 20 percent of their online traffic through blogs, email and social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

The Meteor system helps clients determine how many visitors arrived via various methods as well as their behavior once they land on a specific Web site. It is also working on a product called Meteor Ignite, which helps advertisers and publishers create new games and other activities to attract users.

The original Fyreball system was a consumer-oriented service designed to share videos and photos, though it was scrapped last fall. The Fyreball Web site now offers this message:

"We apologize for the recent Fyreball downtime. We truly appreciate your interest in Fyreball as well as your continued support and enthusiasm. We're actively working to restore Fyreball on a separate system to ensure you can continue to enjoy and use it! "