Is the cable TV subscription business ready to break? Most think it can't keep growing unchecked. Will Internet-driven Web video bypass and kill cable? Will connected, smart TVs do it? Many think it might. Will a double-dip recession cut into viewers' ability to pay those growing monthly bills? Will Netflix (or a similar player) break its back?

Dear AOL and Yahoo: Please, please, please pull it together and get your respective company headed in the right direction!! Whether you merge or not, I don't care -- just get your respective messes cleaned up and start moving ahead in a positive direction! I've been working in digital marketing since 1994, and I've been writing this column since 2001, and this is the first time I've ever written an open letter to a company, much less two. Consider this a last-ditch effort. Consider it pleading and begging. Consider it what you will -- but please, at the very least, …

We've all heard the knocks about working at an agency: low pay, long hours, and that it can be more of a guild than a profession. But I believe that everyone would be well served by working at a media agency for some period of time. Here's why:

New York City. The school playground. I was 12 years old. I looked across at Leslie. Wow, I thought. She's beautiful. If only I were friends with her, I bet people would like me more.

You know what our industry needs? We need more mentors. Forrester is now predicting that the Web advertising business is going to surpass TV advertising in 2016. That means more attention, more focus, and more to do for all of us involved. It also means more challenges, more opportunities for solving problems -- a task that's easier for the experienced. So that's what a mentor can bring to the table.

As digital marketing takes on many more forms than ever before, the multiple-tentacled beast requires an organization alignment that most marketers are just beginning to recognize -- the hard way. The days of traditional and digital marketing being managed in parallel should be behind us. However, in reality it is difficult for marketers to adopt a truly integrated and consumer-centric structure because the existing silos in place within most organizations are restrictive. So what's an ambitious marketer to do?

Thanks to our shift in media habits, even non-scrapbookers like me are likely to end up with a record of who we were and who we have become. And when someone passes away, as a close friend did nearly a year ago, we can look back on these records and bring the presence of our loved ones back into our lives. But death also brings up issues that are new to the digital age, and as yet unresolved.

You almost never see politicians stopping at the online business in local office parks or downtown loft spaces -- unless you're in Silicon Valley, of course. Visits to online businesses, many of which are run out of homes, downtown loft spaces or in low-rent office parks, have never been high on most politicians' agendas. They don't make for traditional vote-getting photo-ops. We in the digital industry need to change that.