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According to my sources, Steve Case's Revolution Health has signed a deal to act as the exclusive ad rep for DailyStrength.org and its 40 MM+ pageviews with minimum quarterly revenue guarantees. The deal reportedly includes traffic assignation in comScore.

However, word is that Revolution may not issue a press release on the deal because they may be afraid ComScore is looking at whether Revolution really fits within the Health category. The representation of advertising and traffic for Daily Strength, a social networking platform that could be best described as a "feel good Facebook-lite," isn't likely to help their case.

WIthout making its numbers so readily available for analysts such as Citi's Mark Mahaney to misinterpret, expectations for Google's first-quarter revenues never would have sank to numbers the search giant so easily reached. All it took for Google to blow past them was a smidgen of international growth coupled with a plunging dollar.

Could it possibly be because she's not happy with the numbers that ComScore is reporting for her client — or, worse, the numbers NextNewNetworks is asking her to pitch? I'd like to point out the Association for Downloadable Media is giving a presentation on video advertising standards tomorrow at Ad:tech. Maybe Hammerling should give them her support instead of taking passive-aggressive stabs at companies working in the space. That seems easier.

ComScore's report triggered reactions in the financial community on two concerns: a weak outlook for Google, and a soft U.S. economy. Our search data does not lend them direct support. Softness in Google's paid click metrics is a result of Google's quality initiatives. That resulted in a reduction of paid listings and the opportunity for paid clicks to occur. Reduction of paid listings existed throughout 2007 and was offset by improved revenue per click. Indicators point to the company continuing to do well. If this improved quality is real, should we expect an increase in the paid click rates? Not necessarily. If ads are more relevant, consumers need fewer clicks.

One-word version? "Oops."

MySpace has only added 8 million users since last year — and lost users since October. Valley darling Facebook has nearly doubled its user base, jumping from 19 million to almost 35 million users. Live Spaces and Hi5 have lost users, while Bebo and, incredibly, Friendster have added users, though they are still nowhere near the market leaders. The site with the big focus on business, LinkedIn, has more than tripled in size since last year — but shows almost no growth the past 3 months.

Leaving aside December, which is a likely outlier for engagement thanks to the holidays, Facebook, Bebo, Hi5 and LinkedIn all show growth between December 2006 and November 2007. Only MySpace and Live Spaces show a drop during that time period — a particularly ominous sign for News Corp.'s MySpace. At 196 minutes per visitor, it's still light years beyond any of the smaller sites. Friendster, which had shown strong engagement growth, up to 109 minutes in October, fell to under 70 minutes in November before plummeting to 40 minutes in December.

As Creative Capital points out, the News Corp. earning announcement next week will give the first insight into the money numbers from MySpace — and we'll know if the slowing growth is affecting the bottom line.

The researchers argue that Sears fails to disclose its relationship with ComScore. Mentioning the tracking application and its purposes pages into a dense privacy statement and end-user l icense does not count, they say. Sears disagrees, but the Federal Trade Commission may well think otherwise. The FTC has recently set standards for disclosure and consent related to third parties installing tracking software on users' computers. The required disclosure should be clear, prominent, unavoidable, and separate from any other licensing agreements.

While Sears is taking all the flak for the tracking software, it's really the problem of its business partner, ComScore, and the entire Internet-tracking industry. Why the deception? Because the benefits from the software flow to ComScore and other usage trackers, not the users being tracked. If Sears flashed even a token $5 discount at these people, you can bet they'd gladly hand over their privacy rights.

Facebook and ComScore have yet to elaborate on the big discrepancy. But there's one possible explanation rooted in ComScore's panel-based methodology. The other big discrepancy noted by CPM Advisors was in the 18-24 demographic; Facebook counted 50 percent more users than ComScore did in that age bracket. Here's a possible reason why: ComScore's software tracks the sites a single computer goes to. If a parent gives his kid an old laptop to take to college, that's instantly someone in the 18-24 demographic miscounted in the 35+ category.

Inside the advertising community, this is a well-known problem: In September and October, as students return to school, the numbers from ComScore, NetRatings, and other panel-based measurement systems become inaccurate. Over time, the panels get corrected, and ComScore's numbers return to their usual level of accuracy. For people in the know, CPM Advisors has uncovered exactly nothing.

But it does raise another issue. With the rise of sites like Facebook, where users have motives to report their age and gender accurately, it's not clear how much longer advertisers will tolerate these seasonal discrepancies. The promise of online advertising is that media buyers won't have to treat numbers as a matter of faith. Who can you trust? In that answer lies dollars.

In response to purely speculative figures announced in the press regarding the number of downloads and the price paid for the album, the group's representatives would like to remind people that ... it is impossible for outside organizations to have accurate figures on sales.

However, they can confirm that the figures quoted by the company ComScore Inc are wholly inaccurate and in no way reflect definitive market intelligence or, indeed, the true success of the project.