This article by Michael Fertik originally appeared at the Huffington Post.

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We’ve heard it all before, the Internet is a game changer, it brings transparency, it delivers immediacy, democratization of content, accessibility. What it also brings — something we’re just beginning to understand the significance of — is measurability. The data sets we have at our keyboarded fingertips are nothing short of awesome, from Twitter mood maps to international economic indicators to advancements in medical recording.

The Web’s measurability is front and center in the three-way Florida Senate race. Particularly for the two trailing candidates, Kendrick Meeks and Charlie Crist, the race has been a tight numbers game of how to capture the unclaimed ballots, discover undecided constituents and pivot messaging based on those findings.

The questions we ask today: How do the candidates measure up online? And how do measurements affect their campaigns?

Democrat Kendrick Meek is a 6’3″, 250 pound former state trooper and current Congressman. He’s got a large presence, but is it echoed online? Facebook followers: 23,276. Twitter followers: 5,812. Websites: 3. Meek is by far the least active in social media of all the candidates. He trails the frontrunner Rubio 22 points in the polls, compared to Crist’s 14-point disadvantage.

Here’s how Marco Rubio’s play card looks: 39 year-old son of Cuban immigrants and a former speaker of the Florida House. Picking up 43% of the vote, Rubio has led in every published poll since August.

Facebook followers sum 130,088. Twitter followers: 17,402. Websites: 3. His Facebook fan base is more than double the size of Meeks’ and Crists’ combined. Television ads for Rubio urge viewers to sign onto his Facebook page instead of the campaign’s website. Through Facebook, Rubio prompts a more direct conversation with his audience. Facebook also allows the campaign team to better monitor voter reaction and support.

Charlie Crist: 44th and current Governor of Florida, running on the Independent ballot. Facebook followers: 29,231. Twitter followers: 7,433. Websites: 4. Pragmatic, politically gifted and “always sporting a healthy tan,” why isn’t this long-time politician with a large network making the most of social media?

Crist could learn from his Republican opponent who beat him in the primary–a strong foundation of online support and engagement helps a candidate better understand constituents and make judgments based on real-time discussions.

In the case of the three-way Florida Senate race, the numbers highlighted are critical indicators of campaign health. The numbers also beg the question, are Crist and Meek focusing on the right measurements, are they tapping into the value and the analysis that can be derived from social media?

With online measurability we gather, we evaluate: how many individuals visit a site; how many people click an ad, an article, a link, a YouTube video; how many followers on Twitter. The Web also lets us measure that which isn’t directly numbers-related; it provides a basis for qualitative analysis. We build an understanding of the intriguing individual from our distant past, using the sum of their online content to dictate who they are now in their adult life. We assess candidates (political, job, suitors) based on the social media networks they participate in or the revealing online images that make up their digital self.

Let’s turn our qualitative lens on the race, focusing on the most contentious elements for the Florida Senate seat, message match. Here’s the shakeout:

Message Match: Rubio 5, Meek, 4, Crist 1.
Charlie Crist is the odd man out, running on the Independent card, without the clear support of a single party. The arc of drama in Campaign Crist has been the spectrum of his political allegiances, from right to middle to left. Crist has changed so many times, the Internet thinks he’s red, blue and purple. Campaign Purple is not coming across as a pretty color in this race.

Flogged for his allegiances to Obama as a Republican, Crist quickly changed camps when he lost the Republican nomination to Rubio. He then found his Moderate mojo and is now geared towards the left — making for a confused constituent who knew Crist as a Republican just six months ago. Crist has changed his position on many platform issues as he tries to capture votes from Kendrick Meek.

Meek on the other hand has had focused and coherent messaging; he’s a Democrat looking to represent the middle class working man and woman. His path to Congress was a relatively easy one, running unopposed in the Democratic primary and challenged only by a third-party write-in candidate in the general election. It’s also argued that he was a shoe-in for his current position on the 17th Congressional District; the electorate is majority African-American and voted for the Democratic presidential candidate with more than 80 percent of the vote in 2000, 2004. The analysis — Meek may have been accustomed to an uncontested battle and was not prepared with the necessary social media campaign chops for this heated race.

The measuring stick tells us: Rubio, you win this round with Meek a close second and Crist at your heels. From my stance as an online reputation expert, my advice for both the trailing candidates is to better engage your audience online and pull out all your messaging guns.

In his last article for the Harvard Business Review, Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik talked about the downside of using performance-based bonuses as compensation at a start-up company. For his most recent column, Fertik explores the differences between large companies and small companies, offering advice for people making the transition from the former to the latter.

Read on for an excerpt of the article:

Moving from a big company to a small one is an exciting step for many successful managers. But some of the habits that made you successful in a larger company may prove destructive at a small one. Whether you are founding or joining a small company, here are some ideas to keep in mind to make the job as thrilling as possible and you more effective.

Forget influence- and empire-building. One of the qualities most consistently visible among successful larger company managers is that they know how to build influence and consensus for their initiatives within the organization. Similarly, acquiring a larger footprint of direct reports is often a sign of success at large businesses. These instincts kill small companies. Establishing and wielding influence may help you move resources in your direction in a large business. But it’s essentially a rent-seeking exercise, intended first and foremost to shift a growing portion of the limited budgets of people and funds toward your team and away from others. While the final goal may be to grow revenues or market share, that’s not the chief interest. Influence- and empire-building become ends in themselves. At a smaller company, that kind of behavior will simply create a tax on everything the business does. Instead of moving forward, the enterprise will go sideways.

Check out the Harvard Business Review for all seven of Michael’s keys to switching from a big company to a small one.

In today’s Quick Hits, Facebook has plans to improve targeted advertising, NPR and ABC News take a look at social media and politics, and Google is still on Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart’s radar.

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Canadian Privacy Commissioner: Google Privacy Breach “Still Unresolved”

Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has always been one of Google’s fiercest enemies when it comes to privacy issues, and she wants the company to know that as far as her office is concerned, the Street View data privacy breach is “still unresolved” until Google confirms that it will follow her recommendations. When you contrast Stoddart’s policy to the United States, where the FTC has cleared Google of any privacy violations, it becomes easy to see why American privacy advocates are disappointed with their government’s response to the issue.

Republicans Winning Elections on Facebook

If the mid-term elections were held on Facebook, the Republicans would win hands down. According to this ABC News article, “Among U.S. House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates who have Facebook profiles, Republicans have more than twice as many fans as their Democratic opponents.” While the number of Facebook likes a candidate has does not necessarily reflect the number of votes they will receive, it does provide a glimpse into which candidate’s base is more mobilized and which candidate has more momentum heading into election day.

NPR: Politics in the Social Media Age

This article from NPR goes into deeper analysis of why social media support may not necessarily transfer to actual votes by analyzing several recent political races in which candidates used social media tools extensively as part of their campaign outreach. A sidebar of Key Moments In Digital Politics is also interesting.

Firsthand Account of a Firesheep Hijacking

Computerworld’s Sharon Machlis writes a firsthand account of how easy it is to take over someone’s social media account using the Firefox extension Firesheep. With her permission, Machlis downloaded the extension and logged onto her co-workers Facebook account. She later used the extension to scan the available accounts of other journalists at a conference. With little effort, she would have been able to gain access to dozens of accounts, demonstrating the power of the program.

Facebook Applies for Ad-Targeting Patent

According to a CNET report, earlier this month, “Facebook filed for a patent to further hone its ad-targeting technology so that ads can be based on what a user’s friends interests may be. The reason for this, it appears, is so that Facebook can better serve ads toward users who have not filled out their profiles with enough information for traditional ad targeting.” So, even if you keep your profile secure, you may still be served ads based on what your friends like.

In today’s Quick Hits, online business listings become even more important, a group of bullies gets busted for their Facebook scheming, and we ponder the power of texting as a social distraction for teens.

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Business Listings Become More Important as Google Launches Smart Search for Places

We already know that a strong Google presence is important for businesses, but with Google’s latest enhancement to its “Places” feature, a positive online reputation has become even more vital. Google recently rolled out a new smart search product that will automatically show users a list of mini-pages with photos, reviews, and more if the search engine assumes you’re searching for a place. Google’s Place Search product manager Jackie Bavaro says that 20 percent of Google searches are for specific places, so this will no doubt be an important change to the way individuals find information about new businesses. Bavaro said, ““We are now organizing the world’s information around places. Each place is really its own results page, dynamically connecting web pages.”

FTC Absolves Google in Wi-Fi Snooping Case

The Federal Trade Commission has ended its investigation into Google’s accidental collection of data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks via the company’s Street View cars. Interestingly, at the same time that the FTC is letting Google off the hook, other countries around the world are restarting their investigations over the recent admission that Google may have collected usernames and e-mail passwords in addition to the more benign Wi-Fi payload data.

Is Texting Worse than TV?

This lengthy piece from ABC News explores the issue of texting and social media use among teens, posing the question, “What’s worse for the teenage brain: six hours of texts and facebook or six hours of TV?” Offering insights from a number of experts including child psychologists and real-life parents, the article concludes that as long as parents keep their children engaged with their responsibilities, using technology frequently is not that big of deal.

Middle School Students Suspended Over Plans for Bullying Day

A group of middle school students in Newfane, New York have been suspended from school after using Facebook to create an event dedicated to harassing another student all day. The would-be victim’s mother saw the event, which even included a death threat from one student, and notified school officials. Social networking websites like Facebook have made it easy for bullies to plan their actions in advance like this, significantly increasing the trauma that a bullying victim is forced to go through.

Head of Arkansas Department of Education Criticizes School Board Official’s Anti-Gay Facebook Posts

Tom Kimbrell, the head of the Arkansas Department of Education has gone on the record to condemn comments from Clint McCance, the Vice President of the Midland School District. Earlier in the week, Gay Rights advocates discovered numerous inflammatory anti-gay posts McCance had made on his private Facebook wall. Referring to homosexuals as “fags” and “queers” McCance even suggested that “they all commit suicide.”

Improving the Social and Economic Benefit of Sharing Data

In an interesting column for Huffington Post, Eric Rothenberg, founder of the URSULA Project, discusses individual privacy rights and how companies unfairly access and use personal data without offering anything in return. Rothenberg proposes that companies offer consumers some kind of incentive for sharing data, an idea that has been floated by a number of other experts in the privacy field.