Yep, you guessed it. Latinos are one of the fastest-growing demographics online. So what does this mean to us? We need to take a look at what seems to be a generation gap. One study revealed that 75% of U.S.-born Hispanics were online, as opposed to 43% that were born outside the U.S. One key to predicting online usage seems to be language: Those who speak English fluently tend to go online, while only a third of Latinos who just speak Spanish go online.

Blogs, boards, buzz and, well, more buzz! Since my job is at the center of measuring all this stuff, I get to hear how a lot of marketers and agencies are aligning around this emerging area we call consumer-generated media (CGM). And that begs the question: Who will own this space?

Google is a big company that is leading the online ad industry at the moment, and it tend to take pretty aggressive steps to get even better, which is always nice to see in a market leader. While I have been critical in the past of some of its attempts to leverage its strong search position into a brand advertising position, I want to call out two initiatives that have recently been written about that I think are very, very smart.

NIN (or for those of you who aren't familiar with them, Nine Inch Nails) has been and continue to be one of the most influential and ground-breaking bands of the last 15 years. Being the music-obsessed junkie that I am, I cannot help but appreciate what NIN founder Trent Reznor has done for alternative as well as mainstream music -- and now I appreciate what he is doing for online marketing just as much.

I wanted to give a preview of what I will be arguing on my OMMA Hollywood panel "Is the Future of advertising 100% Google?" If what is being proposed is, will Google be the end-to-end solution for all of advertising, I think it's actually pretty easy to argue against. But if we are asking if Google could potentially become the most efficient and effective system through which all advertising opportunities are bought and served, than you have a more interesting debate.

I keep hearing it. Everyone's talking about You Tube, My Space, social networking and user-generated content. Well, I certainly can't delve into all these topics in this short column. However, let's bring it to the surface: what's up with the digital space? Are we doing more than talking about this stuff? Or has it become bulletized nomenclature among meetings, brainstorm sessions, presentations and fodder for columnists like me? I'm a little sick of wanton banter.

I try to limit my opining in this column to areas where I'm either extremely passionate, or believe there are emerging digital-media trends in need of further probing and discussion. With a bias toward consumer experience and social media, I've pondered in the past year a variety of human topics, like mourning, game mechanics, identity management and exposure, salesmen psychology, fatherhood and parent communities.

Today, on behalf of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, I am testifying before Congress on proposed legislation to combat spyware. While that may seem like a black and white issue that should be easy to write and talk about, it is more complicated than it would appear. I assure you that any time you get involved in public policy issues, things are never black and white, but instead constantly changing shades of gray.

The world around us has been changing dramatically for the last 15 years, but the last six have by far and away been the most exciting. For the last 12 years I've been fortunate enough to be surrounded by many of the exciting, energetic people who are responsible for these changes, which means I've been exposed to the cutting edge of technology, marketing and digital media. Even today I have the opportunity to continually evaluate new companies and technologies and hypothesize how these will be applied in the general marketplace. So I thought this week I would share a few …

The question I keep coming back to is this: Does a content-rich portal like iVillage guarantee the formation of sustainable online community? To date, the answer is a resounding no. In order to understand what's ailing iVillage and every other content producer, search engine or portal attempting to grow a social networking community around their online traffic, one has to understand two rules: 1. Using content to create community and using community to create content are two extremely different beasts. 2. Creating community for the purpose of monetization first doesn't work in the long run (unless you think you can …