Estimating influence is a delicate balance of art and science. People are drawn to quantitative methods because scores are easy to understand. The downside of reducing influence to a number, though, is oversimplification. Lately, I’ve been looking at  Klout , the popular new tool that bills itself as “The Standard&# for influence measurement. The more I look at it, the less I like it. It is “the emerging standard&# for measuring influence online, said Klout Marketing Manager Megan Berry in a podcast interview with Eric Schwartzman last month. Beyond Followers. MORE >>

Today someone said something which still has me reeling hours later: “Facebook will eventually replace websites.&# Was this person the first to ever have said it? Surely not. But it was the first time I’ve ever heard an actual person say it, and I’m telling you, it freaked me out that someone could honestly believe something so crazy to be true. was taken aback at the time and didn’t respond; now that I’ve had a few hours for it to sink in, let me say here what I should have said then: THAT IS THE WORST IDEA EVER. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Numbers. MORE >>

Uh oh. Edelman is in trouble again…this time over a media request from Ragan about  Best Buy On. Mark Ragan , who most of you know if you’re in the PR industry, asked one of his reporters to contact Best Buy to interview them about their new On, the new “magazine&# they’ve created for customers. Mark, like a lot of us, see the trend of companies becoming publishers and wanted to know more about what Best Buy is doing in order to provide a case study to his readers. Pretty darn good exposure, if you ask me! So far, so good. Friday, Jan. Monday, Jan. Come on! MORE >>

What are the best third-party tools for advanced Facebook analytics? It’s a question I’m asked fairly often so I thought I’d do a round-up of options that are worth checking out. It is fair to say that Facebook is getting better at providing this data itself; the latest version of Facebook Insights offers a wider range of data than ever before. But many still find it lacking so a number of companies have stepped in to try to fulfill this need. ve also left out the feature and pricing information as this frequently changes. Simply Measured. EdgeRank Checker. Buddy Media. Socialbakers. Webtrends. MORE >>

Tweet By now, we are all aware of how social media is changing the way we communicate with each other. Social media has made it easier for us to connect with people both close to us, businesses we have an interest in and not least people across the world. And now, we also begin to see how the education industry is joining the game. We are beginning to see lectures in the form of online videos and podcasts, as well as using Skype, Twitter and Facebook as platforms to discuss and share materials from the classroom. Thus, the web plays a big part in facilitating the future of learning. MORE >>