Last week, Dave Morgan sent a warning shot across the noses of newspaper publishers everywhere with his piece called "Newspapers, Now or Never." What perplexes me is how newspapers could have given up the natural marketplace advantage they had in the first place--the fact that they're the focal point for how news affects a community.

know it's a cheesy headline. I myself cringe when I see the phrase in a presentation, etc. However, this is a bit different. I am really talking about being out of the box--the television, that is.

Q4 is upon us. I love Q4 because the NFL makes it perfectly acceptable to sit around every Sunday and enjoy the view from my couch with a few brewskis to help pass the time. When I get to work on Monday, though, a stack of discrepant invoices is there too, right where I left them on Friday afternoon.

It's make-or-break time for newspapers. Over the last couple of months, I've spent a lot of time talking to newspaper companies about their digital futures, particularly when it comes to advertising. While I've had these kinds of discussions with them for many, many years, the current plight facing the industry has made these discussions take on an immediacy that I have never seen at any point in the past 15 years. They know that their future is now and that they had better figure it out fast.

Bundle, un-bundle. Bundle, un-bundle. The agency business is cyclical, and for many years we've witnessed clients shifting from the bundling of services to un-bundled services. However, some of the news I've read over the last few weeks appears to signal that this cycle may finally be coming to an end.

Last week, fellow Spin writer Cory Treffiletti explored the notion of what constitutes a "hit" in today's fragmented music landscape, where personalization and niche interests now rule over a marketplace that was once dominated by artists with mass appeal. Some of the forward-thinking folks on the fringes of the music business see a label-less future coming for music artists, in which the majority of revenues and profits are not derived from record sales, but from touring and merchandise sales. It's an interesting concept....

OK, user-generated content is hot. However, I just don't get the whole YouTube craze--and Google's buying it for $1.65 billion. Is it me, or does this seem like lawsuit after lawsuit waiting to happen?

I have the utmost respect for BusinessWeek and its editorial staff, but I'm disappointed we had to endure another round of sensational cynicism around Web metrics confusion, this time with a Web 2.0 spin.

I have written several times in the past about my good friend Tom Deierlein. Tom, as many of you know, is the COO of Dynamic Logic and was called unexpectedly to serve in the U.S. Army in Iraq. Tom was wounded by a sniper in East Baghdad on Saturday, Sept. 9.

A lot of people who know me well know I harbor a (not-so) secret desire to be a rock star. I'd love to be like Bono--to be on stage in front of thousands of people singing a song and having the crowd sing along with me. That feeling must be utterly amazing, but unfortunately I can't hold a tune with a backpack and my guitar prowess ain't so hot, either....