After nearly 50 years of selling to avid consumers indulging in an orgy of consumption, marketers now face the post-credit-bubble consumer: awash in debt and possessions, hoarding cash, and skittish about the future. The challenge, one of the biggest in half a century of advertising, is selling into the "New Frugality."

after giving Wired editor Chris Anderson our impassioned plea to participate in the Future of Media (the event, not the actuality), we came to have a dimmer view of the future. Or maybe media.