It's as good a time as any to return to the origins of advertising. Media takes a look at the definition of advertising as advanced in the book: The Economic Effects of Advertising by Harvard professor Neil H. Borden.

For any discipline, including advertising, there is a science and a philosophy. When people strive to understand quantifiable, repeatable processes, they are focusing on the science of a discipline. When they create theories to tackle questions unanswerable by the science of a discipline, they are working with that discipline's philosophy.

They say that 2007 is the year for mobile marketing. I think they said the same thing about 2006 and some of them probably said it in 2005. But the idea of marketing to the more than 201.7 million U.S. consumers carrying mobile devices (Source: 2005 eMarketer) is so promising that marketers, agencies, media properties, and carriers are all ready to do it.

I've been pondering the endless possibilities of how digital technology and, more specifically, the Internet, have changed entertainment. Of course, I'm full of my own biases on the subject and it would be very easy for me to jump to conclusions. But being a planner, I thought I'd do a little research rather than rely on anecdote and subjective experience.

Is branded entertainment going through a mid-life crisis? Judging by some of the sound bites at last month's Madison + Vine conference staged by Advertising Age in Beverly Hills, it appears that some of the leading proselytizers of the be revolution have traded in their rose-colored glasses for a few sessions on the analyst's couch.

Is the video iPod a marketing mirage? Maybe yes, maybe no.

Once the bastion of pirates, BitTorrent has raised the white flag, joining forces with the same studios it previously clashed with. The company, whose file-sharing software helped spread pirated entertainment content on the Web, has inked deals with 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and MTV Networks to distribute the their movies and TV shows online.

In April, an unusual event will happen in the digital world. IBM will take Forward View - its e-newsletter for small to mid-sized businesses - offline to garner readers to who prefer to sit on the train and read.

The biz is booming. Fueled by the $11.1 billion sale of media, market research and measurement firm VNU last year, 2006 finished with a record 151 media deals.

MTV's broadband channel Overdrive hasn't exactly been a hit: Consumers have been tuning in to MySpace or YouTube instead. So what's a media giant to do? Get niche.