The quest for accountability begins and ends with search; on digital communications.(Digital)(use of search engines by marketing firms)(Viewpoint essay)

Advertising Age, October, 2007 by Rubel, Steve

Byline: Steve Rubel

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to meet some of the pre-eminent thinkers on search from Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and up-and-comers such as Like.com. This has profoundly shaped my thinking about how the web giants are so much more than big stadiums that aggregate eyeballs. They are an end-to-end suite of brand-reputation management and measurement services-many of which are free.

Other than perhaps God, Buddha or Jiminy Cricket, search engines know more about humanity-our wishes, hopes, dreams, fears-than any other entity, online or off.

The future for advertising and PR agencies remains in developing and driving the big idea, and the ones that will be most successful in this quest are ones that use the full suite of...

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