searching for obama

The Search for Search — Jordan McCollum at Marketing Pilgrim says that Serph, the online reputation management tool, has come out of Beta, providing a great rundown of the site's pros and cons.

McCollum justifiably questions where the content is coming from and whether it's really as exhaustive as it could/should be. In this case, I don't think it is, if only because, in doing a search for my name, it didn't pick up content that I know is out there.

The question that it brings up for me — in relation to our clients is this — while Serph might give them a flavor of what is being said and elevates social media to the top, shouldn't they really be looking at the search results for their brand (or other relevant terms) on Google (or MSN or Yahoo! or AOL) -- which is where the consumer is more likely to be encountering them?

The People Count — I went out with my friend Denielle, a Barack Obama supporter, last night. I'm still on the Edwards train — and have been since 2004 — but I don't dispute that Obama is dynamic and appealing and his campaign has been doing great stuff with social media.

(Of course, I managed to convince Denielle that Hillary Clinton is this cycle's Manchurian Candidate, so both of our guys should just pack it in.)

This morning on MyDD, Jerome Armstrong justifiably praises the Obama campaign for their new effort to quantify their fundraising efforts by the number of donors, versus the amount of money raise and puts the numbers up against people-powered Howard Dean's numbers in 2003. The conclusion? The numbers will dwarf Dean's, but will still not dominate Obama's fundraising efforts overall. Smart stuff.