Geoff Ramsey, the CEO of eMarketer, the aggregator of all sorts of data on the online universe, is calling for an industry standard to benchmark online ad revenues.

Day one of the Interactive Advertising World Conference and Expo and the event looks like it's off to a roaring start. I'm impressed with how many people are here; the Hudson Theater was overflowing with people and the upstairs balcony was full. People seem to be networking like crazy when they aren't listening to the panel discussions. The Interactive Advertising Bureau says it has at least 2,100 people registered for the exhibit hall and the conference at IAW. Hey, that's a lot of people!

Today Tyson Foods, the chicken and TV dinner people, announced a cross-promotional integrated marketing deal with Viacom. The deal, engineered by Tyson's media agency Havas' MPG, will focus on the theme of the company's ad campaign - "Powered by Tyson," created by MPG sibling Arnold Worldwide.

We all know that consumers are booking most of their business and leisure travel online these days.

I don't think there's anyone out there in the advertising and marketing universe who hasn't been burning the midnight oil over the last few weeks.

Big news from Yahoo! today. The online giant scooped up Musicmatch, the music download service, for $160 million in cash.

It's all over the business pages today. WPP Group, the big, bad British holding company acquired U.S.-based Grey Global for $1.3 billion in a combination cash and stock deal.

The first annual Advertising Week in New York City starts Sept. 20. There are tons of events, and at least some of them are sponsored by MediaPost and our partners. We want you to know about them, in case you don't already.

Corzen, a provider of market research and intelligence, today reports that revenues for the top three online job boards rose 38 percent in the second quarter, versus the same period a year ago. During the second quarter of 2003, print recruitment advertising in newspapers increased just 20 percent, according to Newspaper Association of America estimates.

One guy handles client negotiations and billings. Another serves as the creative czar, and a third manages client interactions and accounts.