I had a Dickensian Wednesday this week. Yes, it was the best of times and it was the worst of times, all in one day. The best of times was reading that Los Angeles Times article that has so many people talking. Many in our industry were glowing about the piece that ran this Wednesday with the headline Web Pulls Ad Buyers From TV. Other online outlets have covered the news value of this, so there's little point in reviewing the facts here. Let's just say that this article in one of the country's most respected newspapers, with references …

An old friend of mine sent me an e-mail a few days ago that went something like this... "Maybe you can help me out. I'm looking for sponsors for our podcast show." One has to be a friend to have a friend, so I dutifully visited his Web site and listened to a few of the shows. They were long, vulgar, semi-funny (in a junior high school kind of way), trying too hard, over the top, self- indulgent crap. In other words, they were just my kind of entertainment! These audio sagas were labors of love - pure life …

Podcasting is starting to get lumped in with blogs as one of the most significant hot new trends online. For those of you who don't know, podcasts are content delivered via the Web to your iPod that allow you to listen at your leisure. If you read the press, you might come to the conclusion that Adam Curry invented podcasting, but then again you might also believe that Al Gore invented the Internet.

The Victoria's Secret webcasts, the wild success of BMW Films, the sparring between Garry Kasparov and an IBM supercomputer - these are all things that were very widely distributed on the Internet in years past. Yet in terms of making media history through a specific moment shared by U.S. media consumers, can any of these compare to seeing the Beatles on "Ed Sullivan" or tuning in regularly to Uncle Miltie? I'd argue not.

If you are reading this, your life is probably fast paced. Every campaign, new business pitch, request for proposal, and the like comes to you with an 'ASAP' deadline. I feel like most of us are a bit desensitized by this now. Remember when you were a kid in the business? Do you remember the first time this happened? I do. It was as if I swallowed my heart. Now this is par for the course. I've lived like this for years and pressure seems to make me excel. However, I think the industry has finally gone too far.

Anyone who reads this space knows how seriously I take online privacy and consumer impressions of our industry. And, anyone reading last week's column knows how much I want to keep regulators and legislators out of our business as much as possible - even with legislation - just perhaps not such restrictive legislation, which now seems inevitable.

The technical definition of the Internet is fairly unimportant to this thought experiment. What I want you to think about is the conventional or popular definition. To non-technical people (which is most everyone), the Internet is a means through which they browse the Web and get e-mail. In their mind's eyes, they imagine the access point as their computer (desktop or laptop). In some cases, where the users are on the higher-end of the technology curve, they might think of the access point as primarily their computer and secondarily their PDA or, in rare cases, their cell phones. This is …

What do you think of the digital home? Over the last two years, numerous companies have focused at least an element of their strategies on the concept of the digital home; a home that is wired for connectivity and at the leading edge of the convergence between the Internet and other forms of entertainment. There would be digital video and audio streaming in through the TV or entertainment center, time-shifted to suit their needs and organized based on their desires at that moment in time. E-mail would be out of the den, and more integrated with entertainment.

Editorial guidelines for advertising predate the rise of the Internet by many years. Particularly in print advertising, marketers who place ads often want to know ahead of time about articles in any issues in which they advertise that could detract from their message. Similarly, these advertisers often want to know about opportunistic editorial that enhances their message, so that they can arrange for editorial adjacencies.

Look around. Anywhere. Yes, anywhere: On the train going to work, dropping the kids off at school, their soccer game this past weekend, the movies, meetings, the airport...anywhere. What do you see? Most likely the bulk of the people are on their mobile devices. If not they've got them close at hand - in their pockets, clipped onto their belts, floating around a purse. My guess is that their device is never more than a ring or two away.