Hello, dear readers. As of day's end today, I'll be a free agent. Simply put, I quit my job (day job--not MediaPost writing) and I'm looking for a new one. So I am now seeing things through the eyes of the online consumer.

Listening to very serious pitches from media people telling my clients that they need to "engage" consumers gives me the giggles. I always want to ask, "you mean 'engaged' as opposed to being bored out of their minds by the ad campaign, right?"

I spent the week at Ad:Tech, chatting with lots of people about lots of great ideas. While I came away in shock concerning the growth our industry has seen over the last few years, I also came away wondering if everyone was paying attention to the details. I was wondering if everyone saw the forest for the trees.

Social tagging represents an efficient and accurate way to categorize content as it is created, or as it is linked. According to Technorati, nearly half of all blog posts are associated with one or more author-generated tags. This categorization forms the basis for a system that can determine content's relevance to a given subject. In other words, this could be the next wave in search, but it's also much more than that.

Remember a few years ago, when we all pulled out our presentations that aimed to set the stage by proving the Web's worth? It's funny how times have changed. I don't know 'bout you but I'm soooooo glad I don't have to spend precious moments going through that crap anymore.

How will an industry that has seen so little innovation in the past two years reach an estimated $30 billion by the end of the decade?

I'm here at the National Association of Broadcasters 2006 show in Las Vegas, with 80,000 of my closest friends. On the tech side, it may look like business as usual--but if you know what you're looking at, you can clearly see that versions of Moore's Law and Metcalfe's Law are actually starting to change the way the broadcast business operates....

As someone who recently decided to take a break from the agency world, I like to think I have an informed position on what needs to happen in order for agencies to remain successful. Since a number of people have asked my opinion on this very topic over the last few weeks, I thought I'd take a moment to share it with all of you and get your thoughts.

In informally speaking with a number of ad sales reps over the past several weeks, I find that, anecdotally, the No. 1 complaint regarding doing business under the IAB/AAAA Standard Terms and Conditions is that agencies and marketers are still habitually late with creative.

Put on your consumer hat for a moment. Do you notice online seals? If so, do they alter your surfing behavior in any way? How about your purchasing behavior? Are you concerned about your privacy online?