I don't see how a positive answer to that can really be disputed. I've always thought that the real promise of the Web for marketers and publishers alike resided in the increasingly precise segmentation that self-selecting readers (and buyers) provide. Advances in software development make it possible to take that so much further and discern not only what someone is reading or buying, but what they were reading or buying - or considering - before.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of ad serving lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my office door. "Must be a rep," I muttered, "tapping at my office door-- I don't remember making a meeting," and hopefully nothing more.

Everyone knows the Internet is a great place for testing messages, but how do you correctly go about implementing a test that can be truly indicative of future performance? I get asked this question often, and I figured I'd give some top-line answers here, just to get started.

As an industry, we've done a great job of determining what Online's value proposition should be to the marketer. It's taken us time, and the pursuit of the answer to the question "Why Online?" has led us down a few dead ends, but by and large we've made our case.

Are you the type that goes through airport security with ease, taking your laptop out of its case, your mobile phone off your hip, your PDA or some other device out of your pocket, and carefully assembling them in the proper grey bins prior to walking through the scanner? If so, are you aware it's been said folks like us may have a compulsive disorder? (As if the online space hasn't given us enough of a rollercoaster ride already.)

A few months ago, I warned that we who do business on the Web should be wary of well-intended legislators who were crafting new regulations and, for the first time, legislation that would change the way many of us do business.

So your client and your agency have stuck you with an impossible goal based on a fantastic assumption. And when faced with the specter of failure due to a global dearth of purple unicorns, the proffered panacea to the client's fear was the CPA buy.

One of my oft-repeated issues is the concept that our industry has the tendency to overcomplicate itself. Over the last few weeks I have been working with a number of peers to find more efficient forms of structure and organization in the agency environment in an effort to increase overall efficiency and one of the issues that we came across was that it's hard to develop a clear structure to service an industry that is ever expanding and hasn't yet realized the scope of its own responsibilities.

I completely disagree with Cory Treffiletti's assessment last week that the Internet is hampered by an "inability to deliver local advertising to the same level of effectiveness as other forms of media."

I woke up this morning and it was 30 degrees outside. I was ready for baseball in October but not seeing my own breath quite yet. Seems like others feel the same way. However, the pre-holiday push appears to be making its way to a mall or PC near you. Yes, fellow marketers, it gets better: US shoppers are ready to shop, shop, shop online.<