del.icio.us tags 02.03.08

At e.politics, Colin gives Obama's team their due: they are managing to bring online and offline organizing together to raise money and deliver votes. It seems obvious, but it didn't happen for Dean in 2004 and Obama is kicking ass and taking names. As Colin says, "These folks are really using the web rather than just throwing things online."

John Bell manages to ruffle a few folks feathers with this post about the need to measure word of mouth with quantitative metrics. I'm with you, John, we can keep flapping our lips about the value of word of mouth, but until we can explain it to the guy with a check book in a language he understands, we're just a bunch of dreamers. I get the ad equivalency model (BzzAgent does it), particularly if you're thinking about trying to make it clear to marketing folks who are turning over part of their ADVERTISING budget to pay for a word of mouth program, but John's "attention factor" sounds a little too mushy at this stage. I agree with what is at the core, but I'm not convinced it won't fall flat when the budgets are being divvied up.