One of the biggest reasons that some companies still avoid social media is because they think it’s too hard to measure the return on investment.

Facebook is set to announce a plan to tackle this issue head-on, through a partnership with Nielsen. According to The Wall Street Journal, the companies will be unveiling a product called Brand Lift on Tuesday.

Brand Lift will “measure the impact of … ads on Facebook through polls that Facebook will show its users who have seen the ads. Facebook will then compare the users’ responses to those of other people who didn’t see the ads and package the data for advertisers.”

That sounds like a solid way to tangibly measure whether or not ads on the site perform, which could represent a big step forward in Facebook’s ability to attract advertisers and get them to spend more on advertising to the social network’s 300 million users. On caveat, however, is that you will have to be a Nielsen customer in order to use Brand Lift.

While we haven’t yet seen a demo of the platform, expect more details to be revealed tomorrow.

One of the biggest reasons that some companies still avoid social media is because they think it’s too hard to measure the return on investment.

Facebook is set to announce a plan to tackle this issue head-on, through a partnership with Nielsen. According to The Wall Street Journal, the companies will be unveiling a product called Brand Lift on Tuesday.

Brand Lift will “measure the impact of … ads on Facebook through polls that Facebook will show its users who have seen the ads. Facebook will then compare the users’ responses to those of other people who didn’t see the ads and package the data for advertisers.”

That sounds like a solid way to tangibly measure whether or not ads on the site perform, which could represent a big step forward in Facebook’s ability to attract advertisers and get them to spend more on advertising to the social network’s 300 million users. On caveat, however, is that you will have to be a Nielsen customer in order to use Brand Lift.

While we haven’t yet seen a demo of the platform, expect more details to be revealed tomorrow.

lots of garbled text, testing the manual blog import

check check check

I am all for kids using computers, and toys that are integrated with the web. However, there were a few systems displayed yesterday that irked me.

Story Something is digital storybook system that allows parents to create personalized versions of kids stories, substituting characters names, locations, and so on with those of kids, parents, hometowns, and so on. The CEO, Jim Rose, started his presentation by pointing out that parents spend an infinitesimal fraction of times with their children everyday. This apparently has motivated him to start a company to make it possible for parents to receive personalized bedtime stories for their children directly to their iPhone, without any active work.

As a friend of mine, Miko, said today when I described it to him, “Guilt-free bad parenting.”

Wouldn’t it be better to actually spend an additional 10 minutes with your kid, maybe reading “Good Night Moon”?

Then there was Toybots and their animatronic Woozee, that looked like Spike from Gremlins. One of the features of this 21st doll is the ability to read bedtime stories, even using Mom or Dad’s voices. I confess I had an image of Mom and Dad downstairs, watching Dancing With The Stars on TV while the spooky Woozee is reading Good Night Moon to Bopsy for the hundredth time.

There’s just something icky about this. Ersatz caring, robotic toys rocking our children to sleep, and an increased distance within families.

I am all for kids using computers, and toys that are integrated with the web. However, there were a few systems displayed yesterday that irked me.

Story Something is digital storybook system that allows parents to create personalized versions of kids stories, substituting characters names, locations, and so on with those of kids, parents, hometowns, and so on. The CEO, Jim Rose, started his presentation by pointing out that parents spend an infinitesimal fraction of times with their children everyday. This apparently has motivated him to start a company to make it possible for parents to receive personalized bedtime stories for their children directly to their iPhone, without any active work.

As a friend of mine, Miko, said today when I described it to him, “Guilt-free bad parenting.”

Wouldn’t it be better to actually spend an additional 10 minutes with your kid, maybe reading “Good Night Moon”?

Then there was Toybots and their animatronic Woozee, that looked like Spike from Gremlins. One of the features of this 21st doll is the ability to read bedtime stories, even using Mom or Dad’s voices. I confess I had an image of Mom and Dad downstairs, watching Dancing With The Stars on TV while the spooky Woozee is reading Good Night Moon to Bopsy for the hundredth time.

There’s just something icky about this. Ersatz caring, robotic toys rocking our children to sleep, and an increased distance within families.

I am all for kids using computers, and toys that are integrated with the web. However, there were a few systems displayed yesterday that irked me.

Story Something is digital storybook system that allows parents to create personalized versions of kids stories, substituting characters names, locations, and so on with those of kids, parents, hometowns, and so on. The CEO, Jim Rose, started his presentation by pointing out that parents spend an infinitesimal fraction of times with their children everyday. This apparently has motivated him to start a company to make it possible for parents to receive personalized bedtime stories for their children directly to their iPhone, without any active work.

As a friend of mine, Miko, said today when I described it to him, “Guilt-free bad parenting.”

Wouldn’t it be better to actually spend an additional 10 minutes with your kid, maybe reading “Good Night Moon”?

Then there was Toybots and their animatronic Woozee, that looked like Spike from Gremlins. One of the features of this 21st doll is the ability to read bedtime stories, even using Mom or Dad’s voices. I confess I had an image of Mom and Dad downstairs, watching Dancing With The Stars on TV while the spooky Woozee is reading Good Night Moon to Bopsy for the hundredth time.

There’s just something icky about this. Ersatz caring, robotic toys rocking our children to sleep, and an increased distance within families.

So here’s my second installment of the vacation updates. After breakfast of smoked bacon and eggs, we got the pork loin ready and left it to smoke for the next few hours. We had a gorgeous day to go out fishing and I caught my first fish fly-fishing! It was a tiny one but it still counts right? After touring around in the boat for a few hours and smelling the hickory smoke drifting down the lake we decided to call it a day and go for some good eats. Check out the pics.

asfsadfsdfsdaf

So here’s my second installment of the vacation updates. After breakfast of smoked bacon and eggs, we got the pork loin ready and left it to smoke for the next few hours. We had a gorgeous day to go out fishing and I caught my first fish fly-fishing! It was a tiny one but it still counts right? After touring around in the boat for a few hours and smelling the hickory smoke drifting down the lake we decided to call it a day and go for some good eats. Check out the pics.