Barack Obama's campaign is gradually edging towards the $5.5 million mark. The Democratic presidential hopeful's campaign has spent about $5.45 million according to the latest Federal Election Commission filings that report online ad expenditures into August. As always, though, there's some lag time, so expect more August expenditures to show up in future reports, and in turn, in ClickZ's Campaign '08 Obama Spend-O-Meter . In keeping with the campaign's ongoing approach ,

The Great Schlep has launched with this genuinely funny - and impactful - video featuring Sarah Silverman exhorting her viewers to get their butts down to Florida to convince their Jewish grandparents to vote for Obama. Sponsored by JewsVote.org, the microsite offers all the ammunition anyone would ever need to convince Zadie and Nana to vote Obama, down to a talking points PDF download addressing topics such as "He's Black! Let's talk about it!

Sick of it yet? Me too, which is why I'm declaring Advertising Week V officially over one day early, and calling the game for technology. Despite the Mad Men-driven nostalgia for simpler - you might say more instinctive - times that was palpable all over town this week )well, all over Midtown anyway(, every meaningful announcement and panel was about their opposite: efficiency, analysis, and above all, platforms.

In New York City Mapquest directions mean nothing, and Google Maps are great for locating what block an address is on, but not so good for directions. I practically live and die by HopStop , and love the mobile version when I'm on the go. It gives directions for New Yorkers, and those in Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, D.C. Google this week released a map to plan trips using public transit in and around New York City .

The curtain went up last night on MySpace Music, a joint venture with major labels and indie distributor the Orchard to provide free ad-supported music streaming. The cool kids say the service has a good shot. That may be, but at some point it'll have to answer marketers' concerns about the effectiveness of display ads on an audio-based service. The alternative - radio-style audio ads - is anathema to digital music listeners but may be inevitable. After all,

Are you using all of your company's customer touch points to reinforce your brand and market your products? Digital marketing pro Jack Aaronson will offer some tips during a ClickZ Webcast on Monday, Sept. 29, 2:00 PM EST/11:00 AM PST. Aaronson, CEO of The Aaronson Group, is a contributing author to ClickZ Experts ROI Marketing column. He's a sought-after expert on enhanced user experiences, customer conversion, retention, and loyalty.

With the cost of paper and fuel rising, will digital magazines take off? Zinio , a company that distributes over 1,000 digital magazines titles, is betting on that. As part of Advertising Week activities, I swung by Zino's launch of the "Read Green Initiative." There, David H. Gilmour, an entrepreneur who purchased Zinio last year, and Jeanniey Mullen , Zinio's chief marketing officer and a ClickZ Expert,

Social causes will get an enhanced profile in social media under an initiative launched today by interactive agency Deep Focus and the Advertising Council. The goal: to help social causes develop social media strategies. The Advertising Council develops public service advertisements )PSAs( that have typically appeared in magazines, television, and other offline media.

This sort of playing around won't help much with YouTube's little monetization problem, but gosh I like it.

Word is T-Mobile today unveil its new mobile phone, called G1, that uses Google's operating system called Android. PC World mag speculates the phone will include free Gmail from Google. Analysts predict the Google phone will unlikely match last year's debut of Apple's iPhone. "I doubt that anything can match the hoopla that has been created by Apple,'' IDC analyst Shiv Bakhshi told Bloomberg News .

Chrysler CMO Deborah Meyer said the auto and truck maker has dedicated 30 percent of its advertising budget to digital. "We think it's a good number. Now the challenge is to optimize on digital and what's in other media as well," she said in an interview with ClickZ after addressing the Interactive Adverting Bureau's Mixx conference in New York. She declined to disclose Chrysler's annual advertising and marketing budget. Chrysler, she said,

Yahoo's taking it from all sides over its impending search ad partnership with Google. The latest group to complain is The World Federation of Advertisers , which has requested that the European Commission's Directorate-General for Competition block the deal. The organization of organizations believes it will be a detriment to competition and increase ad prices worldwide. In part to foster a dialogue with advertisers concerned about the deal,

Another international group has come out against the Google/Yahoo search deal, calling it a raw deal for global as well as U.S. advertisers. The World Federation of Advertisers )WFA( is asking the European Commission's Directorate-General for Competition to block the deal on the grounds that it will have a "detrimental effect on competition, result in price increases and reduce the options available to advertisers worldwide.

So all of a sudden, my West 55th Street block in NYC is lined with those dreaded "no parking due to film shoot" signs attached to every available lamppost. Project name: eBay. A quick check with the mayor's office of film & tv would doubtless shed some light, but perhaps you readers can, too. Wassup? A feature film? TV show like maybe the show eBay announced six years ago ? Commercial? Share any info in the comments section, please.

Well, I was wrong. Staffers at the Interactive Advertising Bureau apparently are dog people, according to IAB VP Public Policy Mike Zaneis. Not only did he correct my original claim that the IAB likes fluffy kitties , he called me out in front of an entire room's full of people at last week's OMMA show! )He spoke on a panel about the IAB's approach to self-regulation and enforcement of online advertising guidelines.( It's a dog-eat-dog world, folks.

Congratulation are in order for my colleagues over at the event programming team at Search Engine Strategies )SES( and Search Engine Watch who've been promoted. They are part of the team that works to develop the global SES Conference and Expo series, Webcasts , and training initiatives . And, they work with search marketing experts to ensure the events offer the highest quality learning opportunities. So here's the scoop - straight from Gary Lynch, managing director,

In case you were wondering what Google's stance is on whether or not its deal with Yahoo is bad for competition, it's official! It's all good. Following his comments on ad pricing concerns related to the Yahoo/Google search ad pair up, Google President, Advertising and Commerce, North America Tim Armstrong responded to questions regarding competition today. Armstrong also managed to jab arch nemesis, Microsoft, noting,

Mitch Oscar , who knows more about iTV than practically anyone else, recently moved from Carat to MPG. He took his Collaborative Alliance with him. Once a conference-room size event, today's powwow of media executives, analysts and technology providers from both sides of the analog/digital divide spilled into the street outside NYC's Helen Mills Threatre. They gathered to share learnings,

"It's a little bit scary [from a traditional publishing perspective] to see one advertiser paying for the whole endeavor." -Josh Quittner, Editor-at-Large, Time Inc. "I'm over that." -Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief, Wired magazine. The two conversed for an hour at OMMA today, touching on new ad models, Google Chrome and social news sites like Digg.

Since launching six months ago, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar said the online video site has picked up 90 advertisers. The site, a joint venture between NBC Universal and Fox Corp., has also partnered with 90 content providers. "Content partners are seeing a dramatic lift to overall online business. Fox has seen overall online business more than triple since March 12," Kilar said while speaking at the OMMA conference today in New York City.