On this day of mourning it seems inappropriate to even think about anything other than the lives that were lost and the families and friends that were forever affected by Tuesday's catastrophes. But everywhere you turn there's talk of hope and the need to go on. Carefully and compassionately. This week, the media outlets that are generally interested in ad dollars above all else, reminded us all that they are made of people, and people matter far more than doing business. Most broadcast stations forgot about making money and dedicated themselves to commercial-free coverage of the 9-11 aftermath. Many …

Many of our readers responded to my column yesterday. Some agreed that the web let us down in terms of providing information on what was going on around us, some emphasized that email and instant messenger were saving graces on the day of chaos none of us will ever forget. More importantly, however, all agreed that the web can help us through the aftermath. If we all pitch in. The first corporate altruism story of the day came out of Amazon.com. The giant e-retailer's pages are usually littered with ads, but today the majority of their homepage is occupied …

Most of America woke up this morning desperately hoping yesterday's events were just a bad dream. It wasn't. The images we saw and the sounds we heard were real and that reality will forever haunt our memories. Now we must raise a flag, just like those three firefighters did in the World Trade Center rubble, and try to move on. It will be hard. The airwaves are, and will continue to be, full of terror coverage. So are the print pages and the web. And predictably, everyone is praising the web, specifically email and instant messengers, for connecting people …

As the day’s events unfolded, it became very clear that today would not be a day I would highlight the newest developments in online advertising. It’s just not a 'business as usual’ kind of day. The magnitude of the tragedy that has befallen our country is immeasurable and there are no words to describe the terror or express the sorrow. Please take this as a minute of silence for the victims and join us in our thoughts and prayers for their families.

Looks like the rich media movement lost the vote of Jupiter Media Metrix. The research company today released results of a study which found that U.S. consumers are more likely to revisit websites that are fast loading, customizable and more informative than those that offer rich media or content delivery to wireless handsets. According to Jupiter, "businesses should assess the needs of their website visitors before investing in costly, high- profile development features such as non-PC transactions or rich media." I hate to think that we work in an industry where the above common sense suggestion requires a …

I hate to forecast that yet another Internet ad company will soon bite the dust, but I can't resist an "I told you so."I'm talking about the CueCat. Several newspapers and magazines over the last year had printed bar codes alongside some stories that, when scanned by the CueCat (a mouse-like device manufactured by privately-held Digital Convergence), linked the reader's computer to a website for additional information and advertising. An interesting idea, right?Well, it looks like it didn't quite catch on with consumers. Earlier this week, Belo Corp., which introduced the CueCat on the pages of the Dallas Morning News, …

Here are some useful end-of-summer stats from Jupiter Media Metrix that you can save for future reference, such as your last week of August 2002 online campaigns. It looks like as people geared up for long-weekend excursions over the Labor Day holiday, they turned to the web for maps, driving directions, and weather forecasts. Traffic to map sites Encarta.com and Mapblast.com rose 42% and 23%, respectively. Also, JMM says that before people purchased their BBQ supplies or packed their bikinis, they visited WeatherBug.com (+29%) and Accuweather.com (+20%) to make sure they could leave the umbrellas behind. The …

In case you're wondering whether or not you should try streaming ads, this latest study may shed some light on the subject. Most "streamies" - those who have watched or listened to streaming media online - first experienced Internet webcasting in the last 12 months according to a new study by Arbitron and Edison Media Research. The study, "Internet VII: The Internet & Streaming: What Consumers Want Next" finds that 56% of audio streamies and 49% of video streamies say they first began tuning to Internet audio and video in the past year. From July 2000 to July 2001, …

I certainly picked a good week to go away. The advertising industry was quiet. Really quiet. But I did miss one very encouraging event last week - the Toyota Camry 2002 campaign launch. There seems to be a good amount of buzz surrounding this launch and with good reason. The online portion of the campaign, featuring a wealth of advertising n AOL and MSN, is said to be the largest in the company's history. Steve Jett, Toyota's national car advertising manager, says 5% of Toyota's entire ad budget of well over $150 million will be spent online. …