Over the last few years, we've seen much discussion on the desire/want/need for an Interactive Gross Rating Point (iGRP). During the last few weeks, as agencies and advertisers considered how to allocate their dollars in the upfront season, this question has arisen again--but as much as I feel it would be great to have an apples-to-apples comparison for evaluating media, I've come to the belief that an iGRP is not the answer.

If you haven't already, try this exercise as part of your ongoing online media efforts: work with one of the broad-reach ad networks to pixel-tag your site and serve ads to folks who have already visited your Web site. Compare the results of this remessaging effort to those of your existing network buys. You should see a huge difference in performance.

Online advertising is hot. So hot in fact, that pundits lately have increased projections for the potential size of the online ad market, some now predicting that U.S. online ad expenditures could hit $35-50 billion by the end of this decade, up from $12.5 billion last year, according to IAB/PWC.

Amidst the excitement surrounding online word of mouth (WOM) and consumer-generated media (CGM), many marketers and agencies are allocating disproportionate attention to two areas. The first area involves overt word-of-mouth marketing campaigns, and there's no shortage of those among even the biggest marketers these days. The second area includes consumer-generated works that spawn organically and somehow achieve enormous virilaty and reach.

What we've been seeing take place in the UGC arena to date represents the easy stuff; the "no-brainer" ideas. The current trend to invite consumers to create advertising or create content that integrates a brand or the brand message represents the simplistic means of creating content, but within this content, we see some glimmers of future light as well as some possibilities for smothering the idea before it even takes off.

If you're a die-hard "Lost" fan like me, you've noticed some fake spots for The Hanso Foundation, the shadowy organization supposedly behind much of the show's mystery, running amidst the legit commercials....

I hate "Big Brother" antics on the Internet... well, mostly. Do you know the Internet is being compromised in the U.S.? "Free speech" is one of the best and worst aspects of our beloved online world. Well, dear readers, the government keeps trying to regulate it.

It was the hottest thing two years ago, wasn't it? Pay-per-call was all the rage long before anyone made a dime on it....

Relationships --whether physical or in the virtual world--are the fabric of life, and one inevitable fact in life and relationships is death. So it is natural that as the Internet and social media become more ingrained in people's lives and identities, death and mourning will follow accordingly....

I've said it before and I'll say it again: pop culture provides the best source of insight into American advertising and marketing. If you want to know how to tap into the collective consciousness, just check out a little pop culture.