Any of you involved in media over the past decade now knows that computers and networks offer more than a new way to deliver content or ads: They give everyone more opportunity to assume the roles of authors - of creative participants - in an increasing variety of venues.

At year's end, we decided to brew up a special concoction to accompany our cover story on the trends influencing the future of media in 2007. So we scoured the marketplace for high-end teas (on the expense account, of course), boiled the water, soaked the leaves, and enjoyed a cup or two of jasmine and Earl Grey. But then we realized something: Nobody here knew the first thing about reading tea leaves. So we got on the phone and consulted a few real-world oracles to find out what's in store for media in 2007 and beyond. Some of their predictions …

It's no secret that once-dominant media brands are under assault. Readers and viewers are turning to less-established outlets to access news and entertainment, and anyone with a keyboard and an Internet connection can post his own take on world events. Despite high-profile efforts - moving Katie Couric to the evening news, for instance, or creating free newspapers targeting 18- to 34-year-olds - traditional media companies are still struggling to figure out how to maintain their audience in a fragmented, interactive era.

Well, it's December. And seeing as I'm not one to break from tradition, here's my year-end prediction. Get ready - it's a biggie. I predict that in 2007, we'll see the start of a massive migration away from marketing budgets and promotion, and a dramatic trend toward certain forms of consumer media, especially the kind that can stimulate buzz and generate traffic, both online and in stores. How do I know this? From watching mass marketing history repeat itself.

It wasn't so long ago that when you mentioned Direct Response Television (DRTV), consumers and marketers alike conjured up images of pitchmen cutting copper pennies with Ginsu knives.

In this new world of communications, in order to succeed we all have to have an insatiable curiosity about the world around us. If you stop learning, you die - or at least you won't have a future in our ever-evolving industry. Today our business is more exciting than ever before. So many amazing things are happening - old models breaking down, dynamic new models forming, and all of it happening in such condensed time.

So who cares about measurement? Perhaps that's an odd question in a column called "Taking Measure." But the fact is that no one really wants to know the ROI of previous marketing efforts. What smart marketers want is to find indicators of what might or might not work in the future. And there's the rub: The past is not always a good indicator of the future. Things change. Strategies evolve. Competitors come and go. Technologies disrupt.

The advertising research foundation (ARF) is making a valiant effort to champion "engagement" as the future of communications metrics. Its insistence that the metrics be reliable, valid, and predictive is exactly right. ARF's definition, arrived at this summer, announces: "Engagement is turning on a prospect to brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context."

Hey, what's the big idea? How do you move from insight to action, from ordinary to extraordinary?

There is a temptation in revolutionary times to throw out everything that came before. I've known such would-be Jacobins in the online media world. Everything and everyone that came before at best "didn't get it," and at worst wanted to use their weight, mass, legal prowess, and cash to co-opt or squash innovation.