A recent story in the new york times bore a telling headline, "Even if You Can't Buy It, Happiness Is Big Business." It's true. The happiness trend has not appeared out of nowhere. In fact, it is an expected correlate of an increasingly materially affluent society, a pattern of development called "post-materialism."

More than 14 years have passed since wired magazine launched hotwired, the first ad-supported Web site. One would think 14 years is long enough to establish a media business that is safe for advertisers, transparent, free of deception and devoid of outright fraud. Unfortunately, advertisers and agencies must still constantly look out for many deceptive and fraudulent practices.

Hollywood has made a habit of giving loud shout-outs to madison avenue lately. tnt's dramedy Trust Me about Chicago creative directors - created by former Chicago creative directors - is the latest. Meanwhile, the Emmy Award-winning Mad Men is on amc featuring Don Draper, a creative director during the so-called "creative revolution" in advertising in the '60s. And let's not forget Revolutionary Road, the Sam Mendes film based on the classic Richard Yates novel about Frank Wheeler, who is not an adman per se, but a familiar type of toiler in the marketing department of a business-machine brand during the …

March madness is one of the most exciting sporting events of the year. A significant portion of America watches the tournament unfold - and advertisers invest large sums to access that audience.

It's funny how times, and topics, have changed over the last year. We've gone from talking about seizing opportunities and exploring new platforms and emerging media to simply surviving to see another day. All it took was a little worldwide economic crisis to redefine our business priorities. Case in point, in the July 2007 issue of Media, I wrote about the newly announced Sony Home, a 3-D virtual world and community where gamers could meet, interact, play games, watch videos, listen to music and even own and furnish virtual homes - all via extremely customizable avatars.

I am developing a new campaign called madvertising for a client that makes cream for sore joints. The multiplatform operation capitalizes on viral marketing, using telephony and Internet resources. Through intensive research we have discovered the most influential people within the Sore Knee Syndrome (sks) community. We plan on calling and emailing these thought leaders multiple times a day. The goal is to get these people really mad - mad enough, in fact, that they tell 10 people about the company.

Economic turmoil. Tight budgets. Cautious consumers. With conditions like these, one formula for a successful year will be making marketing programs work harder than ever. A good place to start is search, because that's where your customers are most likely to start.This month, T3's Anna Russell weighs in on getting the most from natural search and prioritizing unpaid and paid search as part of the overall mix.BUY: Take Advantage of What's FreeImplement smart, simple tune-ups.Anna Russell: The easiest thing clients can do is ensure …

Is this the dawn of the sponsored car? Carmakers - even once-technophobic, domestic ones - are deploying sophisticated new communications systems that can feed traffic, data and more targeted and complex information into autos. And they can do it today on existing networks - no advanced, yet-to-be-rolled-out wireless schemes or blue-sky broadband technologies needed. These systems work now.

So let me start with one of the most ironic things I've seen recently: a magazine cover story titled, "How to Save Your Newspaper." What's so ironic about that? It was on the cover of the Feb. 16 issue of Time-- a magazine that arguably could use some advice about saving itself. The issue was 58 pages, including front and back cover, and carried 14 and two-thirds ad pages, and I'm pretty sure one was a public-service freebie.

Are we, at long last, about to step into another dimension? After - no joke - more than a century of development, the media planets are finally aligning to let the illusion of depth creep into tv, movies, games and out-of-home displays. Some stubborn issues remain, but solid, if limited, steps are being taken toward fooling our minds that 2-D media is actually something we can reach out and touch.