Did anyone else see the section in Time magazine last week that dealt with the evolution of wireless technology and how it is starting to be incorporated into the everyday life of the average consumer? The articles were rather basic, but the part that got me excited was the section devoted to the various gadgets and gizmos that are being launched to provide consumers with wireless access to many of the devices they use every day.

Sometimes I feel as if some of the work our industry does to isolate the effects of online advertising in integrated campaigns is like the never-ending pursuit of the Grand Unification Theory.

If you've been following my columns, I left the agency world as a casualty at the end of this past June. Since then, I've been running an online consulting gig, vowing never to go back to countless hours of backing into full time equivalents (FTEs), job codes, client codes, red tape and political BS.

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.