Remember when it was sort of cool that Carrie "Googled" her Russian artist boyfriend on HBO's "Sex and the City" last season? When "to Google" someone meant finding out on the quick who they were or what others had written about them, it was apparent that this brand of Search Engine had piqued the public consciousness in a way that made it clear what Google meant: Finding the right information fast.

As summer approaches and the sun shines later in the day, you can expect to see one of the most cluttered ad environments in recent history, and I'm curious as to how this will affect the interactive industry.

Yes, kids, it's that time of year again. When the dogwoods are in full bloom, the city streets begin to throw off their old scents, and the casual rollerblader and cyclist can be found in great numbers along the Hudson.

Amidst the thousands of "buy my crap" messages you're exposed to everyday, how many of them extend value to you beyond the product message?

Being in the online space, you have to nod your heads when I ask if you think we get slammed for "intrusiveness." To me, the offline world is suffering from microfragmentation of media. It's a sea of clutter from billboards, to taxi tops, to sidewalks, to wireless devices, to coffee cups to urinals. Now there's a new way advertisers have added to the clutter: Sports marketing.

One of the predictions I made last September in my attempt to be way ahead of the year-end predictions was that consumers and Web professionals would continue to not understand online privacy.

On April 29th, the first light against the darkness since Google built a pop-up blocker in its tool bar, shone for all in the industry to see. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) issued guidelines to its membership and the publisher community at large for the governance of pop-up and pop-under ad units.

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone! This past week, I spent some time on the east coast with family and friends and I faced the inevitable question from my relatives of "What do you do for a living?" This is always a great question to be faced with, but it can also be a very eye-opening one as well.

I think it's about time that we started proactively educating consumers about how data is used to target advertising.

Many are unaware America Online (AOL) launched a kid's version (KOL) of it's service last September. The features are robust and include customizable welcome screens, a new Batman comic strip, a kid's Internet radio show, and of course - Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Within two months, traffic to the site ranged from 700 hits to 2,000 hits daily. According to Forrester Research. KOL is now seeing a 150% increase in traffic.