Last week I wrote about the possibility that the cookie - or, more precisely, the data harvested from it - is not the only thing that should concern us when advertising products and services to people. I dared suggest that singular reliance on the myriad data we can get might not be the solution to all our marketing problems. Would it surprise you that a lot of readers were upset by that? I did say that cookies help, and I very briefly sketched out some of the ways they do. What I tried to do was simply caution against …

I was having dinner this week with a colleague and we got to chatting about the six-year cycle. The six-year cycle refers to the period of time it takes for Internet advertising elements to get hot again. In the 11-year history of Internet advertising we see that certain elements return about every six years. For example, in 1996-1997 the best place to put your money was in search. At the time, we were referring to banners within search inventory. In 2002-2003, search once again became the hot topic, but this time it was in reference to text-based advertising.

Inspired by the trials and tribulations of Mark Naples this past week, I wanted to talk about something similar to what he's been grappling with recently - the extent to which the purveyors of "proprietary" technology in our industry can expect the inner workings of their technology to remain hidden.

We all know that online ads have been sold for over a decade now. We also know that a few years ago a term was coined for Internet audio that wasn't so cookie-cutter and pixilated. After much thought and debate, the term rich media was born. It seemed apropos for interactive media units that incorporated streaming audio and/or video. Finally it was something us Net-heads could sink our teeth into. Hell, we thought it would get us closer to offline creative.

Last week, I stuck my neck out with the assertion that there is a preponderance of search engine marketing firms (SEMs) who make specious claims regarding their "proprietary technology." The point was this: If we all "invent" a cool bid management tool, that does not necessarily imply that there are differences among these tools. It also does not imply that open source technology is anything special. What I was trying to stress was that the best SEM firms live and die on the same value proposition that the best agencies live and die on - the relationships they attain …

The cookie has been a subject of debate from the moment of its inception and throughout most of the life of the commercial Web. From the time the first crumb of a cookie allowed for tracking of actions taken by a particular individual surfing the Web, marketers and advertisers grew excited by the prospects. Tracking media consumption at a user level foretold of great things to come in marketing.

Many of you know I read just about everything I can get my hands on. This endless pursuit of information allows me to view the world from the eyes of the average consumer, through the lens of popular culture. Viewing things through this set of eyes allows me to attempt to understand human behavior and how it affects advertising and marketing. Typically, this is rather effective, however one article I read this week threw me for a bit of a loop.

Given a recent Association of National Advertisers (ANA) survey that indicates accountability is the top consideration among senior marketing professionals at large companies, I have to wonder how certain alternative marketing tactics have gained ground recently. Online marketing has striven to make itself as accountable as possible with respect to marketer communication goals. We have the ability to measure both brand metrics and direct response metrics better than any other medium. There are online marketing programs blazing a trail into understanding the effect of online advertising on moving product off the shelves in the packaged goods category.

Everywhere you look someone is talking about search engine marketing (SEM). Sales in the United States from advertiser-paid search results are expected to increase 25 percent this year to $3.2 billion, up from $2.5 billion in 2003, according to eMarketer. I couldn't attend the Search Engine Strategies show recently but my colleagues said it was still clad with clutter. Everyone claimed to have "proprietary" tools, killer services, and the best solution out there. Well that's a lot of crap.

Tough to take this headline seriously, isn't it? That's what all headlines begin to look like, however, when the dozens of search engine marketing (SEM) firms exhibiting at yet another bursting-at-the-seams Search Engine Strategies (SES) event start their PR engines.