In the very active debate over online consumer privacy the voices of the agency and, by proxy, the marketer. are absolutely crucial. Matthew Greitzer, vice president of search marketing and head of Atom Systems, recently sat down to chat with Omar Tawakol, CEO of BlueKai to discuss privacy, best practices, and agencies' roles in the great debate.

So you got a Kindle for Christmas and downloaded Ulysses for free and thought, This isn't so bad. Then you bought an iPad and a New York Times subscription and thought, Gee, this is pretty convenient. You might even think the the reading experience is just as good or even better. But what about the mixed medium that relies on pictures as much (if not more so) than words to tell a story? We are talking of course about comic books and graphic novels where, according to artist Frank Santoro, "the background is as much a character as anything else." …

Whether you're a World War II buff looking for photos of B-17 bombers, an Ax Men fan who missed last night's episode, or a high school student doing research for a term paper on King Tut (due tomorrow!), the new history.com is the site to visit - at least that's what A&E Television Networks, which owns History (formerly known as The History Channel until it got grandiose), hopes.

The new troubadour sits behind his computer clicking a mouse, angling a webcam and strumming a guitar, while he spills his heart out from a stage that could be anyone's bedroom. The digital age - in a record industry that's still indelibly fractured - has forced a swing of independent artists to become more clever and ambitious than ever before, and ultimately reliant upon no one but themselves to get their audiences.

Mobile phones are getting all the action these days. Consumers eagerly buy them, bloggers can't stop talking about them, and advertisers who are savvy enough to spend some dough on the small screen are reaping early rewards. According to research firm Dynamic Logic, advertisers who use mobile phones to peddle their products are enjoying big bumps in brand awareness, especially when compared to online advertising.

DSPs, or demand-side platforms, are hot. The online trade press is full of articles and commentary, but the definition of a DSP is still amorphous. Is it an agency exchange buying business unit like Cadreon or VivaKi? Or is it a technology platform that enables exchange buying?

Most great ideas often start with, "Wouldn't it be cool if you could ... ?" To which someone (usually somebody's mother) inevitably replies: "Now why would someone want to do that?" At least, this has been my mother's response to almost every new invention since the color TV. She immediately rejects anything that threatens the medium, format or routine with which she's already comfortable.

Spring cleaners have more products to choose from than ever before, including a whole new host of potions that (at least) promote themselves as being "green." A March 2010 report from market researcher Mintel shows that 35 percent of consumers say they will still pay more for "environmentally friendly" products, despite the recession. A similar study (from Penn Schoen Berland, Landor Associates and Burson-Marsteller) echoed the results of the Mintel survey.

There's no dearth of primetime TV shows about families. For the launch of NBC's Parenthood, the agency Ignited used video as the key play for its digital campaign. Ignited was aiming for a broad target: 18- to 49-year-olds, with a slight skew toward older and female. In fact, this particular show, more than most, seems carefully designed to hit this broad range, chronicling the lives of several generations and several kinds of parenthood, from career mom to baby daddy to matriarch and patriarch.

We've all been talking about local search for ages now, and you may be thinking that this is just another article recycling the same ideas once again, but I truly feel it's important to remind all business owners with brick and mortar stores, who are also engaging with online shoppers, how vitally important it is to have your local search ducks in a row. All it takes is a few minutes of searching to see how quickly the major search engines are expanding the index of search terms that get local preference. Additionally, I've read on Google's blog that they …