About a week ago I was in a meeting with an executive of a global business-to-consumer brand. He snickered and said, "Half the company would want to write a blog if we let them."

Could you imagine if the City of New York banned advertising in Times Square? How about advertising in all public spaces? Well, that's exactly what the city of São Paulo, Brazil, voted to do last September, by a vote of 45 to one, and it took effect January of this year. Madison Avenue has mostly swept this story under the rug, but it's real -- and daunting.

The last few weeks have been dizzying in the online ad industry. Google is buying DoubleClick for more than $3 billion. Experian is buying Hitwise for more than $400 million. Hachette is buying Jumpstart Automotive Media for approximately $100 million. And, to start off this week, Yahoo said it is buying the 80% of Right Media that it doesn't already own for $680 million and will be the primary sales channel and ad-serving provider for Comcast.net. So, if you are like most folks inside the industry, or are just an observer, you've been trying to figure out what this all …

With all the changes taking place and all the consolidation being led by Google and Yahoo, it can be very easy to overlook the moves being made by the holding companies. Over the last year the holding companies have been quietly amassing a number of investments and partnerships that diversify their portfolios and prepare them for the inevitable shift in the media buying model.

We have all been told, "Be careful what you wish for." One wonders if this truism shouldn't bear careful consideration by News Corp, given its current monetization ambitions through brands achieving "Never-Ending Friending." While this report may accurately reflect individual successes in social marketing methods, the mass adoption of these methods and, more important, the subsequent mass "gaming" of the marketing methods, will destroy the most valuable social media property of the digital generation.

I remember a few years ago, my mom whispered the words "online dating." It was her answer to how a friend of ours met her boyfriend. Skip ahead four years. My mother now has several friends that have met significant others online. While she isn't announcing it to the world, she isn't whispering the word anymore, either.

You know the interactive advertising industry is desperate for talent when you receive an unsolicited pitch from a recruiter inside a major digital agency intended for someone else -- someone who has no business being considered for that position. And when you redirect the pitch, the recruiter asks if you, similarly unqualified for the job, have "any interest in this opportunity."

If you want to understand what the future of marketing could look like and how to be successful at it, I have found the book for you. It is PryoMarketing by Greg Stielstra. I was fortunate to be speaking at the Mountain Travel Symposium last week -- the end-of-year get-together for the ski and mountain travel industry -- and got to hear him speak. It was the first time that I have heard someone truly make sense of what is behind social or word-of- mouth marketing, and present a very practical approach to making these techniques work in the field.

What's happening in the world of search? The entire buzz as of late has been focused on Google buying out or partnering with everyone on the planet, but what's really going on with that business that started it all? Remember that little tool that we all use at least 10 times per day?

It's not often I'd take the bait and disagree with the director of research at the Oxford Internet Institute (part of OxfordUniversity), but I am feeling bold today. I think the universal "we" all need to take a step back. By "we" I mean the advertisers, the agencies, the researchers, the technologists and the strategists -- all of the proponents of new media, or the Web 2.0 communications revolution. By "we" I mean me, and if you're reading this, I probably mean you, too.