In this issue, Caroline Krediet, planning director at Taxi New York, annotates our Frankenstein's-monster version of the consumer. Oh, it's alive - and it wants everything from warmth to sweet-smelling underarms to mother's milk.

Social Medium, MediaPost8:30 a.m. Wake up to the sound of NY1 on the HDTV. I love Pat Keirnan. While the coffee's brewing in my craptastic coffee maker, I grab my BlackBerry to check for messages. Yup, a missed BBMessenger blip from my pal Gail.9:00 a.m. checking MediaPost email while drinking craptastic coffee. Email myself a to do list10:00 a.m. Finish syncing iPod (added N.A.S.A and readded The Bird and The Bee), grab camera battery our of charger and stuff it in camera, snatch BlackBerry off the charger, head out for walk to work10:00-10:27 a.m. Things I eyeball on the way …

When brands and their agencies plan communications together, a component that largely gets overlooked is what to do within the company itself. Internal communications is a massive group of channels, and in the past couple of years it has become clear that what happens inside company walls is as important (if not more) as what is said outside.

At the height of the dot-com frenzy, san francisco taqueria Casa Sanchez offered free burritos for life to anyone who'd get a tattoo of their logo. Forty tattoos later, they had to cut off the promotion. Surfing the wave of social media frenzy, Jason Sadler, a Jacksonville, Fla., Web designer, may not be permanently stamping his body, but he is selling advertising rights to his chest - in the form of a company's logo T-shirt. Every day in 2009, he will wear a different shirt, selling off torso space for a price that rises by the day: January 1 sold …

Daytime talk-show star Oprah Winfrey decreed that the once-for-nerds Kindle e-reader is now mainstream. Like anything her O-ness blesses, the unit rocketed into the top-selling slot on Amazon (for electronics, this time). With flat-panel tvs now commodities, attention is shifting to the next generation of alternative displays: so-called flexible and printed electronics. fpes include everything from thin solar panels to printable displays. And the media- and marketing-savvy should pay attention: Flexible displays further blur the line between paper and electronics. Like paper, they flex, reflect light, are absurdly durable and most important, render an image without power - which opens …

Now that we can watch pretty much anything online, whenever we want, access is no longer the big issue - experience is. As the Internet becomes a more ubiquitous delivery mechanism for entertainment, electronics companies and content partners are working to reconcile online content delivery with the traditional, relaxing, lean-back TV watching experience that most viewers still want in their homes.

With many different media delivery platforms, how do consumers choose? The past year brought a number of studies suggesting that more and more consumers are using the Internet to view video content. Many of these studies, however, report on general consumption, and while a global understanding of consumer behavior is certainly useful, most major advertisers need to understand consumer action as it relates to ad buys they are considering.

We live in an age where the rallying cry "the consumer is in control" has almost become a cliché. That said, how then do we embrace that most mercurial, yet powerful, of touch points - word-of-mouth? Some seem to believe generating word-of-mouth means motivating others to spread our marketing message. Others argue if marketers should do anything at all, just seed the idea with the brand's biggest fans and then get the hell out of the way. But if we really want to incorporate wom, ways exist to draw on research to ensure we develop cohesive, scalable and repeatable strategies.

It is more crucial than ever for advertisers to make sure they are getting maximum bang for their buck. One way is to implement an effective geotargeted campaign.

In 1926, the sports editor at The Daily News pitched its founder, Captain J.M. Patterson, with an innovative promotion to reach the "Sweeneys," Patterson's mildly patronizing name for the common man. He laid out plans for a city-wide amateur boxing tournament, hosted by the News. Patterson signed off, and thus began one of the more unique and successful newspaper promotions in American history: the New York Golden Gloves.