How did new media shape the candidates' message? It helped turn it into a popularity contest. Obama's inexperience and youth was transformed into a referendum on charisma. In essence, it was a triumph of brand marketing, reducing a critical leadership choice to a popularity contest. The race seemed secondary to how it had been democratized and compromised by the Internet.

The quest for ad dollars is going to be a grueling, inefficient exercise until interactive solutions connect advertisers with their individual target consumers. There is no quick or easy fix, but a universal system of quantifiable connections would go a long way to solving the problem.

If the consumer is digital media's new platform, then local is one powerful killer app. TV stations can reach out to local consumers with an online relationship model to manage their connections and integrate local resources. By some metrics, local TV stations are unlocking the key to generating online revenues--even in a weak economy.

With other media companies expected to join Viacom in lowering advertising growth estimates, the industry faces critical questions. How bad will it get, especially for more disadvantaged broadcasters? Could this be the tipping point when television's historical share of domestic ad dollars fails to rebound?

When CEO Eric Schmidt declares, "the Mobile Internet business will be bigger than the PC-based Web," it is Google's next major business model. And that's what worries Microsoft chiefs Bill Gates and Steve Balmer.

Strategic buyers with cash reserves and needy sellers with strained balance sheets will continue driving media and Internet deals. However, the rush remains on hold until banks and private equity jump back into the fray. Nearly $4 trillion in deal funding is sitting on the sidelines in the U.S.

Although Google-bashing has been elevated to sport, the decade-old $175 billion change agent has created a new corporate paradigm--something that more companies need to do in troubled times: innovate. It's not a luxury; it's a long-term necessity.

Economic salvation means examining everything through a transformation filter--how to reinvent companies and develop new business models. Then test, modify and thrive. With traditional business models eroding, companies have everything to gain by masterminding the use of interactive connections to lower costs, improve profits and establish more productive constituencies.

Jeff Bewkes will have more than $9 billion in cash from the complete separation of Time Warner Cable later this year, sufficient funds to make the acquisitions and restructuring moves necessary to revitalize the parent company. With the next stage of personalized mobile interactivity at hand, he'll need to get TW into more agile digital shape.

The cable industry may finally be on the verge of achieving parity in television content and ad pricing, but it faces formidable challenges for increased local and national ad dollars and wireless users. All this coincides with the cable industry's Project Canoe. Operators refer to such initiatives as"offensive" responses, but heir surest, quickest impact could be their set-top boxes.