• by February 9, 2004

Okay, I promise. One final comment on the Janet Jackson flap -- really.

I think AOL should have continued with its plan to stream the Super Bowl half-time show -- even without the blur dot. Just think of all the traffic to AOL.com - a destination the company is trying to use as a teaser gateway to attract broadband subscribers. More broadband subscribers mean a potentially more valuable audience, which means more advertiser dollars - at least that's how it's supposed to work.

It's sort of ironic that CBS faces charges of indecency by the FCC given its Survivor broadcast. Interesting how pot-bellied Richard Hatch struts his stuff on primetime once a week with the blur dot covering his privates, and the FCC is incensed over a breast. Then there's the daily barrage of sex, violence, and drugs all over primetime, and porn all over the 'Net. By the way, wasn't there also a lot of crotch-grabbing on the half-time show? Sheesh.

By the way, tomorrow Initiative and Carat make final presentations in the estimated $200 million AOL media review - that's offline media. Starcom apparently withdrew from the contest on Friday. No word on why it withdrew but maybe it has its hands full with Coke. A decision is expected by Friday. Not-so-elegant-segue: The Mydoom virus is making headlines again, at least according to Nielsen//NetRatings which today reports that traffic to Symantec SecurityResponse increased 176 percent to more than 2.2 million visitors for the week ending Feb. 1. About 2.3 million unique visitors flocked to the McAfee site, up 86 percent from the previous week. MediaPost's The Riff reports receiving about 20-30 virus messages per hour on Friday.