365 days ago, I wrote that there were no words to describe the terror or express the sorrow. It wasn't a 'business-as-usual' kind of day. Today isn't either. Words are still simply inadequate. Please take this as a minute of silence for the victims of a tragedy the magnitude of which will forever remain immeasurable……… ………..

In addition to Zenith downgrading their projections for the future of ad spending and AOL predicting their financial results would be below expectations for the year, yesterday did bring some good news to the ad world.

With the waves American Idol has been making on television, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the hype has spread online.

Before I send you off to the weekend with some truly valuable research stats, a quick housekeeping item: We received an overwhelming response to our Forecast 2003 registrations. There is still room, but it’s going fast. If you’re interested in attending, you'll need to register at mediapost.com/forecast. Once again, the theme of the day will be forecasting the year to come – for better or worse. We’ll have industry luminaries debate everything from online creative, email, and CRM, to agency consolidation and a slew of other hot topics. It’s at the Yale Club on Thursday. Sept. 26. That’s less than …

With all this talk about things that go pop on the screen, you may be surprised to find that only 9.2% of all companies advertising online use pop-up ads.

A few weeks ago, when New York Times Digital and CBS MarketWatch refused to run the now famous Sony ad that looked too much like an advertorial, the ad world was somewhat shocked. Interestingly enough, move that scenario offline, and no one seems to mind at all.

One piece of news that I expect was largely ignored by the ad world last week (as everyone was enjoying the last few days of summer away from their desks), was the extension of the search distribution agreement between Overture and InfoSpace.

If it’s the rich and famous crowd you’re trying to reach, your target market is shrinking.

As summer 2002 winds down and e-tailers start preparing for the holiday rush, Nielsen//NetRatings has taken a look back at years past and proposed some strategies to consider for the upcoming holiday season.

One of the things that went almost unnoticed this week was DoubleClick’s announcement that they will adhere to stiff privacy restrictions and pay a $450,000 settlement, all to ward off a 30-month investigation into its practices of gathering Web users' personal information and surfing habits.