If it could happen to me, it could happen to you: online banking fraud. Not the fraud that automatically comes to mind though. Not the kind we all write about. No one took my identity and went on a shopping spree in multiple locations at the same time. In fact, it took me a long time to be able to pinpoint just what was happening to me.

Increasingly, any television without TiVo or some other digital video recorder is perceived to be a broken television -- and if not broken, then often near unbearable! While I witnessed the DVR's arrival and since have baked its benefits into my life, it's important to note I was born into a world where the television remote-control was already ubiquitous. That ubiquity is probably why I've always taken it for granted -- until recently. With the death last week of Dr. Robert Adler, co-inventor of the television remote, it's time to pay tribute to this great man and his invention.

It's nice to see the online advertising industry growing up. There was a time when all most publishers cared about was the quantity of their page views. It was also a time when all advertisers cared about was the number of clicks on their ads. There was a time when any and all traffic was viewed as good traffic. No more. While suspect numbers and unquantifiable quantities are still counted, gone are the days when they were the currency of the realm.

This year is big. This is my very last year in the hallowed demographic of 18-34. Being an 18- to 34-year-old male in America has been good for me, but I guess it's time to move on and make room for someone else.

As the use of social networks grows across every demographic grouping, their role in shaping the future of our government will increase exponentially. At current rates, significant social network adoption outside of the youth group will occur even prior to the 2008 elections. But is this round of hype about social networks changing the political landscape a portent of the sea change to come, or it just another case of "Snakes on a Plane"?

The Internet has become a major channel for online travel planning and booking. For leisure travelers, pricing is key. Online consumers can zoom through reams of content on multiple Web sites to find the best price to book a trip. Then, the weird thing is, they tend to call their travel agents to book the trip.

Did you know online social networks are about much more than socializing? An article in the journal Science calls for Web-based alternatives to traditional disaster call centers, similar to social networking sites MySpace, Wikipedia and YouTube. I can relate, as the most reliable travel information I received during this week's Valentine's Day winter storm came not from airline or agent call centers, but from fellow travelers texting and chatting with me!

I've written several times in the past about our online industry colleague Tom Deierlein, Dynamic Logic's COO, who was unexpectedly called up by the U.S. Army in November of 2005. He was deployed to Iraq last year, to help build public projects in Baghdad's Sadr City. As most of you know, Tom was seriously injured this past Sept. 9 when a sniper's bullet shattered his pelvis, and since then he has been at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Knowing how much he means to so many in our industry, I thought that I would devote this …

Today is the day when you grab ahold of that "special someone" and tell them you love them (hey -- you know who you are)! Love is in the air, it's flying all around and it makes you feel all tingly inside, so why not explore a little of the landscape of love online!

Why a weekend of in-depth reports on who gets Anna Nicole Smith's house? Because that's where the ratings (read: money) is, and shame on us for allowing ourselves to be so enamored by the sensational -- but even more important, shame on the "legitimate" news stations for giving in. Many of us may assume that choosing stories based on profits is an evil of big media, right? Don't worry; the digital journalism revolution will save us, right? The truth is, I am worried for the future of journalism because of the Web 2.0 fragmentation of media and other factors.