A lot of media forecasting was going on this week in New York City. UBS held its 37th Annual Global Media & Communication Conference and the leaders of virtually all of the leading media companies participated. There have been a lot of press reports from the conference, but here are some of my notes on the presentations:

Ad networks are not new, and they aren't going anywhere anytime soon. They provide a viable solution for buying mass audience at an efficient price, along with optimization opportunities that don't exist on smaller, stand-alone sites. That being said, what I find interesting is that a number of agencies are building their own versions and selling them to their clients. Still, if I were one of those clients, I'd have some questions to ask.

It's hard to communicate the magnitude of Google's real-time search debut, but I think my friend's status update sums it up: "Google's launch of real-time search will change your life, whether you know it or not." If you're in media or marketing, you can count on an even more pronounced change.

In two very different settings, two comments were made over the past week that have stuck with me. Both resonate within a shared context, and are wise in their simplicity. These statements led me to a third realizaation -- about brave industry friends.

While Washington spends our tax dollars debating online advertising's encroachment on privacy, I wonder if unprotected smart phones are a bigger threat. I recently found a BlackBerry on the ground near my home. I picked it up with hopes of returning it to its owner. There was no obvious contact information on the casing or the home screen, though I still had no problem identifying the owner.

Monday is going to be a big day for the digital marketing industry. In Washington, D.C., The Federal Trade Commission is hosting "Exploring Privacy," the first in a series of public roundtable discussions "to explore the privacy challenges posed by the vast array of 21st century technology and business practices that collect and use consumer data." I'm among the invited speakers. So, I'm using today's column to solicit some ideas and advice on issues and points that you would like me to share with the commission and its staff.

Have you developed your core WTF strategy? Your WTF strategy refers to "Web site, Twitter, Facebook" (what did you think I was talking about?). These three components are the new hub for customer and audience interaction.

Thank god, there's an end in sight. We are closing in on the end of "social media" as a standalone concept. Media has always been social in nature, but not until recently have media creation, augmentation and peer-to-peer distribution been so easy as to necessitate its own category and terminology.

Ever so slightly doped-up on tryptophan, I am flashing back to a particular Thanksgiving past. I believe the year was 1998. I still recall sneaking upstairs to my email after Thanksgiving dinner, checking on some mundane client business, only to discover what to this day remains the most hilarious unfurling of "reply-all" disasters I can identify.

I was reading some articles and catching up over the weekend when I came across an article in the British edition of Marketing Week written by Jamie Matthews, who's at an agency called Initials Marketing. Matthews was writing about the shift from advertising back to marketing, which is a topic near and dear to my own heart.