There was a time, not too long ago, when you could post an auction on eBay and have a reasonable expectation that the person buying from you was a vetted member of the eBay community. Much more importantly, there was a time when you had a reasonable expectation that sending money to someone with a bunch of positive feedback was a good idea. You could reasonably expect to receive the merchandise within a reasonable period of time. And, for the most part, the goods would be more or less what you were expecting.

At the OMMA event last week, and once again at the Las Vegas Internet Marketing Association event, I came to a conclusion that we, as an industry, do everything possible to make our work as difficult as we can. What I mean is that we are structured to fight the direction in which we are headed and we overcomplicate every issue we face.

At the recent OMMA West conference in San Francisco, leading ad critic Bob Garfield gave a riveting talk about the issues covered by a piece he has written that has been reverberating throughout the media landscape over the past several weeks. Speaking of chaos to come as major marketers derive less value from broadcast spends, Garfield delivered a wakeup call to the planners, buyers, publishers, and advertisers in attendance at the conference. And the message was clear - the online media infrastructure is not yet ready for the potential influx of dollars that major marketers may consider spending as they …

On the heels of OMMA West, I had a lot of time to reflect upon the comments I heard and the discussions and panels I was a part of. Many of us have been in the space since the first online ad was sold over a decade ago. Certainly to the likes of traditional media folks, it is not a long time. However, for all of us that have remained in the space, it has been one roller coaster ride.

On the heels of OMMA West, I find myself thinking far more about what attendees told me after panels than about anything else from the event. Part of this stems from the usual desire to learn and improve, and part of it probably results from what one attendee really took me to task over.

I had the pleasure of attending the OMMA Conference and Expo in San Francisco this week. One of the things that made the event truly interesting was listening to Bob Garfield's (Advertising Age, Editor-at-Large) Keynote address, "The Chaos Scenario: what happens if the old media/marketing model collapses before the new model is built?" Not only is Mr. Garfield a fantastic public speaker, he had a wonderful way of simply communicating some very complex concepts and technological realities.

Many things are changing as the ad industry shifts toward a more accountable model, but one of the most overlooked and interesting changes is happening in the media planning arena. The most important thing, which we tend to overlook, is that the industry is shifting away from a demographics targeting-based model toward a psychographics-based model.

Online advertising has more targeting options than it has ever had, and behavioral and contextual marketing are two of the hottest concepts in the space. While these concepts are not new to most interactive agency planners, they are relatively new to many clients. And as with anything new, many clients are still in a period of adjustment regarding targeting and how they'll use it to achieve online objectives.

I was thinking about a study I was asked to participate in recently. First of all, it is rare that I can actually participate at all. I'm sure like you, we are considered to be biased by the careers we keep. We also spend lots of money to get a peek in the tent of consumer insight in regard to the brand we represent.

When I was just an itty-bitty columnist, I used to hear my parents complain bitterly about commercials on TV during "The Brady Bunch" and other programs I was permitted to watch. Over the years, this complaining sort of became like a dull roar, as even cable stations seemed determined to pack as much monetization into each program segment, and my clan watched less and less TV.