How can optimization harness the explosion of social media activity? Mike Perlman of Web measurement service Compete suggested it can be used to test consumer views about a brand both pre- and post-exposure to a Web site. So you can develop metrics to gauge how much chatter a site visit is generating about a brand on sites like Twitter and Facebook, and of those exposed to landing page did, they at a higher rate go to social media platforms to talk about your brand in particular way. On the pre-exposure side, you can look at how much traffic is coming from …

Motista, which provides online consumer market data to Fortune 1000 companies, Wednesday announced closing $4.5 million in first-rounding funding from El Dorado Ventures. In connection with the investment, El Dorado partner Tom Peterson has joined the company's board. Motista is also moving its headquarters from Rockville, Maryland to San Mateo, California. Prior to co-founding Motista in 2007,  CEO Scott Magids ran MTECH Ventures within the University of Maryland while the company's other founder and chief product and marketing officer Alan Zorfas spent 25 years in the agency business, including at Mullen Advertising. Read more here.

Is mobile measurement still an oxymoron? Panelists agreed that there's still a lack of standards and a fragmented landscape when it comes to mobile metrics. Shiven Ramji of Nielsen believes the inherently more complex nature of mobile will mean there will never be a single measurement system (not even from Nielsen?) to solve the problem, but instead a mix of approaches including a panel-based measurement and tracking server-based logs. Even Eric Rickson of mobile metrics firm Webtrends conceded its difficult to find consistency across multiple mobile ad networks. "Where easy to get data from AdWords, it's hard to go across …

Joe Laszlo, currently director of research at the IAB, is set to move into a new position: deputy director of IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence, it was revealed at the OMMA Metrics conference, where Laszlo is speaking on "Online Measurement: Friend or Foe to Marketers?"

Dr. Robert Groves, the director of the U.S. Census and director formerly of michigan research center spoke at a morning general session of the Advertising Research Foundation conference with Guy Garcia, author and CEO of Mentametrix about the award and what the new numbers reveal. He said the 2010 data represents both traditional and digital efforts backed by a $300 to $400 million media spend to get younger Americans to send in the Census form. "It was a gigantic coalition of agencies and federal folks," he said, adding that besides hiring some 600,000 canvassers, efforts included digital and social media …

Mark Leitner, president of global practices and consulting services at the Nielsen Company gave the morning keynote at day three of the Advertising Research Foundation conference in New York. He said the 75th anniversary of ARF reminds him of his mother, also 75 years old. "And there are several similarities," he said. "Both the ARF and my mother provide me with 75 years of wisdom and perspective; both challenge me to be my best; both are non- profit enterprises; they are excited when I visit and provide financial support; and every time I see them they say I'm doing really …

Participants in the OMMA Metrics "Measuring Social Media" panel on which marketers are doing a good job in the field: Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, Involver: Levi's John Lovett: Web Analytics Demystified: Dell Jonathan Mendez: Yieldbot: Intuit (Turbotax) Ben Straley: Meteor Solutions: Microsoft Mendez also noted that "Xbox is the best social platform out there,'" with Straley adding that, as porn with the web in the '90s, "games are  driving innovation in social."

Foursquare is working on a new algorithm called Explore that will recommend new places for users to check out based on their history, as well as the history of people they "like." Writes Business Insider: "This is a big deal, because the promise of Foursquare has always been not just to help you share your location but to use that data to make recommendations and affect what people do." To boot, "It's also a great potential business -- if Explore works, we're sure plenty of restaurants and bars would pay to be at the top just like they might …

Facebook admits that about 20,000 children are kicked off Facebook every day for lying about their age, The Daily Telegraph reports. "Despite efforts to enforce the strict 13 years or older age limit some children still slip through the checks," explains the Australian publisher. Facebook's chief privacy adviser Mozelle Thompson told Federal Parliament's cyber-safety committee: "There are people who lie. There are people who are under 13 [accessing Facebook] ... Facebook removes 20,000 people a day, people who are underage." While the world's top social network has mechanisms to detect liars, Thompson admitted: "It's not perfect." Australia's Labor MP …

Groupon president and COO Rob Solomon is stepping down, BoomTown's Kara Swisher first reported on Tuesday. "It's not clear what the reasons for Solomon's departure are, but the move seems to be sudden," writes Swisher. "It is also unusual given the fast-track trajectory of Groupon, which is currently considering an IPO at gigantic badillion-dollar valuations." Groupon CEO Andrew Mason on Tuesday sent an internal email to staff about Solomon's departure. In the email, sources tell Swisher, Mason said Solomon was moving back to "'God's Country' in Woodside, CA" from Chicago, where Groupon is based. Solomon joined Groupon about a …