Reading the New York Times recently, I was very happy to learn that I could vote for my favorite new flavor of Crest toothpaste. Brilliant. My vote could make the difference between the commercialization of Lemon Ice versus Tropica Exotica. So imagine my disappointment when, just as I was preparing to register, I read that I was going to receive follow up e-mails to remind me how important it was to vote every day. Oh, dear. Why isn't once enough? Why can't I just go, vote, have fun, and move on? Do I really need to be drawn into an …

I almost didn't make it into media. Yep, I - who decided at age 16 that advertising was the career for me, who narrowed my pursuit of a personal calling to media planning during my sophomore year of college, and who subsequently did everything possible to learn about and get experience in the media industry - nearly didn't land in the sacred media waters at all. The reason? Those who recruited advertising people for a living didn't think I was right for a job in media. Specifically, it was the Leo Burnett Company, by far my No. 1 choice …

I'm sorry, I know all this new technology is changing everything, but people need a place to go to find programming, especially for new programming. 'Desperate Housewives' never would have become what it did without a network backing it, and people being able to find it on cable. People need a destination to find programming in an organized way." That's according to one of the leading, and for my money, one of the smartest cable executives in America. It's a provocative point. And, she adds, "People just don't want to work that hard." But here's a set …

My response to John Wanamaker's quip about not knowing which half of advertising is wasted: I don't care which half is wasted; I want to know what my sales per advertising dollar are. There's a lot of buzz these days about return on investment (ROI) on marketing expenditures. ROI is the new evolution - or revolution - in the offline world. But one group, namely direct marketers, was squarely centered on ROI long before the Internet began. ROI means different things to different people. I don't know why a simple concept like return on investment should require apocryphal interpretation. …

In August, MEDIA and online researcher InsightExpress conducted an unscientific poll of academics involved with media research and design, asking them to nominate the peers or institutions they believe are doing the best or most interesting work on the subject of media. Specific universities came up repeatedly on the topic of conducting media-centric research. For example, in response to, "Other than your own university, what other academic institutions do you consider to be the best in researching and defining the future of media?," several schools popped up frequently. They were: MIT, the University of Southern California, the University of …

Media Fabrics: Content and Context - A Storytelling Bonanza The four-sided table sits low to the ground and sports a plain glass top. It looks like any other coffee table; it is anything but typical. Dubbed the "interaction table," it uses LCD display and interaction technology to enable people to share photos, stories, games, and more. It is the creation of MIT graduate student Ali Mazalek, who's worked closely with Professor Glorianna Davenport, principal research scientist at the MIT Media Lab. The project is part of the Media Fabrics unit of the Lab helmed by Davenport, an accomplished documentary …

For generation Y, checking e-mail, the daily Weatherbug report, and friend-of-a-friend (FOAF) Web sites like the TheFaceBook.com have become as routine as getting an iced skim caramel macchiato every morning. The FOAF sites - also including Student.com - connect students through common social networks, schools, groups, and even parties. Advertisers range from Busted Tees to Vonage. In a symbiotic relationship, FOAF sites provide the target market and advertisers provide the cash to keep these sites afloat. Without this advertising, FOAF sites fight to stay alive (read: Friendster.com). This begs the question: Will advertisers trash other forms of …

Already a camera, a personal digital assistant, a portable game console, and soon an MP3 player, there is really only one thing left for the mobile phone to become - a credit card. Rest assured, with 180 million mobile subscribers in the United States alone, designers are working overtime to turn a cell phone into a direct payment device for everything from porn to convenience store purchases. As with most wireless developments, the approach is already de rigeur in Asia and Europe, where thirsty customers can use an SMS (short message service) message to buy a soda from some …

Whether or not advertisers should be faulted for muscling in on technical innovations that were never intended to accommodate them is the subject for a debate that won't be taken up here. The reality, in the case of Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, which was designed to streamline Web users' content intake, is that advertisers recognized a threat, and addressed it. "From its beginning, it was obvious that RSS was going to take more and more impressions away from sites as more users came to rely solely on headlines and teasers offered on RSS readers," says Bill Flitter, chief …

Movie ticket prices are up, attendance is down, and let's not even talk about the pre-movie show countdown, bombarding consumers with ads before movie previews. If that's not enough, enter Theater Advertising Solutions and its branded concession tray, aptly named Movietray. The company forged a multi-year agreement with Regal Entertainment Group making the branded trays available while Tom Cruise fights aliens and Johnny Depp plays with candy. The deal makes Theater Advertising Solutions the exclusive provider of Movietray in all Regal Cinemas, United Artists Theatres, and Edwards Theatres. "Movietray can be purchased on a monthly …