Here’s what ad networks struggle with—to either run what ads make the most money or else be forced out by other ad networks willing to be shadier than them.

via How To Spam Facebook Like A Pro: An Insider’s Confession.

• James Lamberti, SVP, Search & Technology, comScore
• Steve Rubel, SVP & Director of Insights, Edelman Digital
• Don Springer, President & CEO, Collective Intellect

Debra Aho Williamson from eMarketer, who was the moderator, didn’t have to ask too many hard questions as the panelists were more than happy to disagree with each other. There were three key issues:

• The difference between measurement and insight
• Approaches to measurement
• The role of standards

“Measurement doesn’t necessarily lead to insight” was a point Steve Rubel made a few times. He was implying that much of the new-fangled data collection and measurement focused on social & conversational media brought little value and insight to brand marketers. That may be true in general but in fast-changing environments it is rather difficult to say a priori what data one must collect and what analysis one must perform to achieve insight. Insight tends to be serendipitous and in my experience I’ve found that serendipity tends to correlate well with data availability. It’s hard to see what you can’t look at.

comScore’s Lamberti was emphatic that measurement doesn’t need to  be reinvented. Although conversational media and traditional media are rather different on a number of axes–reach vs. engagement campaigns, large vs. low volume, targeting value vs. targeting advocates, pushed messaging vs. dialog, etc.–the fundamental measurement is the same. Don Springer’s take was that one does, in fact, need fundamental advancements in measurenment in order to track key metrics such as number of conversations, share of voice and sentiment change. I think I fall on the side of Springer here. What’s the equivalent of sentiment change measurement in traditional Web analytics? Tracking star ratings or equivalents is insufficient since they won’t tell you want a blogger is thinking about a product or brand.

Steve Rubel and Don Springer really got into it when they discussed standards. Steve’s take was that w/o standards much of the measurement conversations are meaningless as they are about apples vs. oranges. At one point Don said “standards stifle innovation.” Both positions have truth in them but that’s topic for a longer post. I have to catch a flight back to Boston.

Update: the panel was also covered by PaidContent.

In my six years at Polaris, Plinky is the fourth company that I have helped launch and the second company I have co-founded. Last fall I decided to switch my focus fully to helping entrepreneurs launch companies. Many of the entrepreneurs I’ve talked to are looking for help. There are not that many people in the venture business who both know how to do this and have the bandwidth to do it well. Think of me as a serial co-founder who helps shape the idea, raise capital, build the team and execute. I have founding equity in the companies, which aligns my interests with the entrepreneurs’. In order to have time to partner and engage deeply with my co-founders, I have stopped doing traditional investments and taking board seats, although I remain a partner at Polaris and 100% dedicated to building companies that Polaris invests in. My partner VCMike did the Plinky investment and will be on the board.