• by December 17, 2004

The week wouldn't be complete without mentioning Time Warner's agreement to settle federal investigations into allegations of improper accounting in the company's America Online unit. Time Warner on Wednesday said it will cough up $510 million to settle charges stemming from investigations by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission into AOL's ad bookings from 2001 and 2002.

Time Warner agreed to pay $300 million in penalties to the SEC and $210 million to settle its case with the DOJ. The $210 million figure includes $60 million in penalties; $150 million is earmarked for litigation settlements, which would imply that there are more cases to settle and more legal fees.

It took a half billion dollars to make the long-running probes go away. That's a lot of dough. It took nearly as much cash for AOL to buy Advertising.com - a $435 million dollar deal. But one might argue that beyond the cash, this left the folks at AOL and Time Warner corporate rather whipped. The headache lingered and contributed to delays in all sorts of plans including an initial public offering of Time Warner Cable.

And yet, Time Warner will need to re-state earnings for 2001 and 2002, once again, and it will have an independent analyst review accounting for several deals done between 1999 and 2002.

Who can forget when all the details about over-inflated ad revenues at AOL started seeping out. It was one bad news day after another. AOL stopped touting big multi-year deals with advertisers. Time Warner's Global Marketing Solutions Group was positioned as a "creative, solutions-oriented" marketing entity, instead of a "deal-making" body, and technology/e-commerce and barter arrangements were dead letters. Many of AOL's rock stars quickly became persona non grata.

Segueing now to the sights, sounds, and (e)motion of the season: So far, the 2004 award for the most interactive, fun, and stunning holiday e-card of the season goes to R/GA, New York. The interactive creative shop's card was issued by Karen Spiegel, the agency's doyenne of media relations, and was absolutely fabulous. Yes, it was ab-fab.

The card itself was comprised of a stunning array of animated red blocks that popped and burst to form a big 2005. The blocks then formed a replica of R/GA's building on W. 39th Street. The card's recipients, including the Minute, were invited to create their own sculpture and submit it to the online gallery. You could move blocks around, add and delete them, fill in blocks, and turn on sound. There were "send to a friend" and "save to the gallery" features.

The card was fun and engaging - i.e., buzzwords for "immersive online experience." Keep those cards, letters, chocolates, and kisses coming.