When last we reported , John McCain had pretty much ceded social media to the already brilliant Obama strategy but instead had set up his own, quite effective search engine strategy to get to the undecided and independents â€" those most likely to use search to find out where the candidates stand.  Many observers including this blog and Reprise Media Managing Partner Joshua Stylman publicly drew attention to this disparity in resource allocation.

I decided this week to NOT do the weekly round-up, suspending it for the sake of the economy. Hah, for real though, Ad Week gave us all enough to chew on that there wasn't time to look at some of the tidbits and trifles that normally stud my weekly round-ups like so many raisins in an oatmeal cookie.

John McCain announced on Wednesday that he would be pulling all advertising and suspending his campaign while he hurries back to Washington to help "fix" the nation's ailing economy.   A number of observers have wondered why the campaign would have to be suspended   and from the looks of McCain's search advertising the candidate is wondering the same thing.

It seems like every few weeks Google launches a product â€" a knowledge resource )Knol(, a browser )Chrome(,  a phone )the G1(, a personal deodorant )QScore â€" the Smell of First Page Ranking( 'OK I was joking about the deodorant but still' When your share price is still north of $400 and you are insanely profitable I suppose it's your corporate right to launch whatever darn products you want. It ain't no thang but a chicken wing and all that. The question I have is,

It's Ad Week here in New York which means a big tent in Bryant Park, leggy models pushing away their tuna nicoise at fancy outdoor cafes and Tim Gunn running around in a tizzy. OK, wait, that's Fashion Week " my bad. Ad Week is totally different. One way you can tell it's indeed Ad Week is that Advertising Age's Digital Bites Series has a killer official event.

We figured that inviting the attendees at this year's OMMA New York event to come on down to the Reprise Media Wi-Fi lounge to play the hit video game Rock Band would attract some interest. What we didn't expect were the throngs of folks lining up to click the sticks, strum the guitar and even to sing their hearts out. This was especially true around cocktail hour when inhibitions were low and the need to belt out "Living on a Prayer" were at a peak.

Stop by the Reprise Media Wi-Fi Lounge at OMMA Global in New York this Thursday and Friday where we promise to rock you - with hit video game Rock Band no less. Relax, take some time to hit the laptop, and then play your heart out against the best rockers in the industry. Even better are the 2 free tickets to see legendary rock band The Who which we are giving out in a random drawing, just for plugging in. Also, just for my SearchViews fans, Thursday only,

Reprise Media had another highly successful yearly Offsite event yesterday at the Bowery Hotel on New York City's onetime-skid-row-turned-hip-Mecca boulevard The Bowery. Although we had a series of informative and eye-opening sessions I think my favorite was a presentation from influential Morgan Stanley online and technology analyst Mary Meeker who, as the kids say, "dropped some crazy knowledge." Meeker is a big adherent of online video,

Last week I wrote a post about the SEO benefits of Twitter but today I'd like to discuss the SEO benefits of Flickr and how you can optimize your Flickr profiles. In fact, last week's post made me realize how rarely businesses consider the integration of Social Media into their larger SEO strategy. We touched on this when we talked to AdAge "Editor at Large" Matt Creamer about Reprise Media's optimization of his name across several platforms ,

This week left me more confused than ever over what animal it's OK to apply lipstick to: It's OK for pitbulls but for pigs it's a no-no? Has PETA weighed in on this? What I do know is that it's always OK to apply lipstick to Cure frontman Robert Smith and that Conquistadors run a little small. Here's the rest of the news that failed to make Page One of our SERP's. AOL â€" You've Got Olds Saul Hansell at the New York Times asks some great questions,

Yesterday I blogged about some of the big themes around the recent United Airlines stock selloff and the old bankruptcy news article that sparked it, all while working in a charming Western-themed metaphor. Today, I want to touch on just the reputation management aspect of the story through paid search and SEO which I think remains unexplored â€" until now. Just to recap briefly,

For a good chunk of the 90s and even the 00s people have referred to the wide-open constantly evolving online world as akin to the "Wild West" â€" lawless and wild with plenty of things happening away from the prying eyes of strangers. Well that's been dead for quite some time now and yet companies and individuals persist in acting as if it's still true. The recent unpleasantness caused by an archived article on the Florida Sun Sentinel's website is a good example.

Let's face it, we're all vain to a certain extent. But sometimes you can learn from your own vanity. This was the case yesterday when I decided to perform a "vanity search" for my own name. After plugging my name into Google, much to my surprise, my most recent tweets made up 20% of the first page of the organic results. Granted, I'm not exactly an internet celebrity with tons of content out there mentioning me, but this was still unexpected. Intrigued,

One of the first posts I did for SearchViews asked whether Obama would be America's first search President. At the time Senator Obama had just emerged from a bruising primary battle with Hillary Clinton: his more sophisticated search engine and social media strategy was a major contributing factor to his win.

It's now autumn in New York which aside from being an atrocious Richard Gere/Winona Ryder flick also means its 90 degrees for some reason. Drill baby drill! The shortened week means a shortened round-up but don't worry â€" it's all good. First let's get the rest of our Chrome biz out of the way: Google:  "OK, We Don't Own You" Google went a mite overboard perhaps with their initial Chrome browser terms of service agreement. Lines like, " By submitting,

Posts from tech sites a-plenty showing their preliminary numbers for Chrome have been multiplying like Tribbles in my Google Reader now that Google is including its new browser in their analytics. Most tech sites I've seen have a similar Chrome share to SearchViews â€" around 6% of browsers used to visit. SearchEnglineLand has the highest Chrome bling at a whopping 10% - looks like they are regular geek magnets.

I had an interesting conversation recently with Reprise Media's Media Coordinator Mark Rosenberg. In all of the talk this week about Google's new Chrome browser and earlier in the Summer about Microsoft's new IE 8 neither of us have seen a whole heckuva lot of examination into how the privacy modes on these new browsers will affect search marketing. When you are aiming for a quick response from your target user this is not a big deal.

I've mentioned before how helpful it is to be married to someone who knows little about the world of search and social media and likes it that way. When I asked her if she wanted to try Chrome she looked at me with concern and said "Is that a street drug?"  Similarly she has never really understood why anyone would use Twitter. Is it a message board? A blog? An instant messaging tool? A chatroom?

Google sure knows how to make a splash. In between a major hurricane, a holiday weekend, the start of a political convention, and a controversial VP nominee announcement the Googleverse let slip via a comic book)!( that Chrome, their much rumored Internet browser, would be available for download today. Look for the leaked comic book to be the new hot marketing and PR tool this year.

As one set of delegates prepares to fly out of Denver and another set prepares to fly into Minneapolis we saw history made this week.   America has embraced a historic first â€" the first major motion picture based on a social media site. Yes, Facebook : The Movie is expected to friend screens at a theatre near   you sometime next year. Aaron Sorkin, the man responsible for A few Good Men , The American President ,