Earlier this month came reports of a global study from Nielsen in which consumers rated Internet advertising at the bottom when it comes to trust as compared to offline media. Specifically, 63% said they trust newspaper ads, 56% trusted TV spots and magazine placements -- while search ads got a trust thumbs-up from just 34%, and banner ads were trusted by just 26% of the respondents. Online ads have one-half of the trust of offline ads? Wow! All this time we thought that we were all working on the worlds' greatest and most-loved consumer medium. Apparently not.

A cultural tipping point, a concept given definition and made famous by Malcolm Gladwell's phenomenal study of cultural epidemics, "The Tipping Point," is the point at which an idea reaches a critical mass within a society, and in effect gains its own momentum. Engineering cultural tipping points through marketing and advertising has long been the goal of brands for their products. However, the new social media landscape has given rise to an interesting phenomenon. As advertisers and agencies rely ever increasingly on individuals to pass along their marketing message, the advertising and marketing messages themselves must now achieve their own …

Let's look at some numbers, shall we? According to various industry research tools, approximately 40% of online advertising dollars are allocated to search. That leaves approximately 60% allocated to online display ads. Of that remaining 60%, approximately half is allocated towards ad networks. This means that about 30% of total online advertising dollars are allocated towards non-search and non-network inventory. That 30% gets allocated towards the portals, the targeted content sites and what I like to refer to as "catalytic media."

In today's sliding online landscape we need to keep a close eye on the care and feeding of consumers. What they say about our brands (and our clients) can shape or break them. User-generated content provides the online universe an even bigger microphone to shout with. No matter where you search, you can most likely find product/service reviews from people -- real reviews, not brand-biased reviews.

"You have no idea who I am, I haven't taken the time to get to know you, and now I'm going to pitch you my client's product. Now, please write about it!" Sadly, this has been the spirit of a growing number of emails landing in my inbox.

With all of the funding from venture capitalists, and with offline media companies trying to build online media franchises, everyone is launching ad-supported Web sites. Of course, this flurry of activity, and competition, is freaking out some folks who have historically controlled the ad world, but is also freaking out some investors who are learning that there are virtually no "barriers to entry" when it comes to creating and publishing ad-supported Web content. They now publicly wonder if we are going to see this intense competition pull down online ad rates and eventually find that many of these ventures will …

Have you ever sat through a long-winded, totally irrelevant, and completely un-engaging, boring presentation? I have. More than once. Our industry is notorious for talking about ourselves endlessly. We make broad, sweeping statements about how our idea or our technology is the best thing since sliced bread and how our platform will "totally change the way consumers interact with media," but that's all pretty bogus.

Is Nike a consumer-products or a new-media company? It sounds like a ludicrous question, until you consider the shifting resource focus of Nike's brand gurus highlighted in this week's Louise Story article in The New York Times. "We want to find a way to enhance the experience and services, rather than looking for a way to interrupt people from getting to where they want to go," says Stefan Olander, global director for brand connections at Nike, in the article.

Ah, just what I love to hear: big brands mandating more of a digital push. Better late than never, guys. That being said, I'm a bit unlike my comrades. I don't believe that digital media should be a certain percentage of the overall media spend generically. I see percentages thrown in pitches and media plans with no real rationale behind it. Simply put, it depends on the brand and what the media objective is.

"I just don't have time for all these social networks!" the head of a prominent social network told me this week. "How can anyone be in so many places at the same time?" a prominent advertising exec asked me. And "I keep getting spammed by everyone's stupid trivia questions," we've certainly all complained It seems more and more people are suffering from social network fatigue, which I'm now coining socialnetworkitis.