A contact recently invited me to join her network on LinkedIn, a professional networking site. Like Tribe, Ryze, Friendster, and a host of other networking sites, LinkedIn members invite people to join their network and what starts out as a small group, grows fairly quickly into something larger and potentially more valuable with each addition.

So, I'm wondering whether Howard Dean's blood-curdling primal scream in Iowa last week might be construed as a new form of media.

Media behemoth Time Warner reported earnings today and while the company's cable and film divisions reported a fourth-quarter profit, its online unit posted a seven percent decline in fourth quarter revenue. Time Warner's quarterly revenue increased six percent to $10.9 billion in all sectors except for America Online.

When an online bellwether like New York Times Digital appears to be going strong, it must say something about the improving health of the entire industry. A rising tide lifts all ships, right?

Last week's settlement between Playboy and AOL over trademark infringements in keyword advertising doesn't mean the issue is dead.

Maybe it was the bone-chilling cold and the open bar. The hip venue didn't hurt either. But whatever it was that drove more than 500 New York-area interactive media professionals to 212's launch party last night, there was no denying a palpable and pervasive energy.

Question du jour: Who's minding the [ad sales] store at AOL? After only a year in the company's top ad sales job, Lisa Brown, AOL's exec-VP of Interactive Marketing, left earlier this month. Brown, appointed by AOL-CEO Jon Miller for whom she worked at InterActive Corp., issued a string of mea culpas last year for AOL's shoddy relations with marketers and agencies. She pledged to improve relations and build a world-class sales organization. She said all the right things.

Tomorrow night, 212, a new media group positioning itself as an interactive advertising club for New York-area online media professionals, is throwing a launch party.

Greetings! It is my great pleasure and privilege to embark on a wholly new adventure as the new executive editor of MediaPost.

Ebay, MarketWatch.com, DrudgeReport.com and NASA.gov? Thanks to the exploits of the Mars Explorer, NASA's Website rocketed 217 percent for the week ended Jan. 11, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. It was the fastest-growing at-work destination for the week, with 2.3 million unique visitors. There were 1.7 million unique visitors to NASA.gov at home, up 48 percent.