A few weeks ago, I was just getting ready to turn in for the night when I heard a loud noise come through the window of my apartment. It was one of those noises that people living in New York might have dismissed as background noise pre-September 11th, but I took notice of it and ran to the window to see what was going on.

Just when you think our lives can't get any harder working in the online biz... Have you heard the news? The Internet is said to be swarmed with hacker activity yesterday through day's end today.

All sorts of organizations are out there to find out what is wrong with this thing or that. Even if a problem has not been expressed, somebody's going to get others to see a problem. This time, it's paid search...

Since you will hopefully be taking some personal time, I thought I would take this column to comment on a personally interesting issue. Once again, the topic is the music industry and specifically it is Pearl Jam (who if any of you know me very well, is my favorite group).

In talking to many of my buyer friends outside the realm of interactive, I've been hearing the same old tale: Broadcast is underdelivering. Generally, I'm not hearing that the number of spots is a problem. Rather, I'm hearing that TV is seriously underdelivering audience.

Well dear readers, I officially write to you as an ex-agency person. So much for the Darwinian theory as it applies to my gig as a VP, Director of online media. Yep, I've joined the bandwagon of casualities; I've been laid off.

Quincy Jones wrote that "Everything Must Change." In my book, change is a good thing. It keeps life interesting. And given that everything is a little different in California, interesting times is a blessing, not a curse.

"The more a man can forget, the greater the number of metamorphoses which his life can undergo, the more he can remember the more divine his life becomes." - Either/Or Soren Kierkegaard

In the online world, as in the offline world, the value of the Sponsorship is sometimes overlooked. Sponsorships surround the target and ensure relevant reminders that the brand exists. Soft Drinks and Beer advertisers alike have taken full advantage of these models as supplements to their more traditional forms of advertising, but there is one model that has surprisingly not been pursued and that would be the sponsorship of WiFi.

RTFM - This is Internet shorthand for "Read The Frickin' Manual." (I'm using a less offensive word for the "F" here. I know you'll understand.) RTFM is one of the older cutesy-pie Internet acronyms and it originated in online tech support communities.