The annual meeting of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) is kicking off today in Phoenix and, as you would expect, everybody is talking about digital. Today's Wall Street Journal, in a headline about a research report released to coincide with the event, went so far as to suggest that "digital" was the password to this year's meeting.

Health is the new black! I am referring to the fact that the health category is generating lots of buzz again as the new category "du jour," and is fast becoming the next big area for funding. The buzz started a few weeks ago when rumors started circulating that Google was making a play for WebMD while building its own health information storage system. That deal hasn't materialized as of yet, but ever since I've been hearing from VCs and angels alike as they all recognize that the health category is one of the most highly utilized portions of the …

This week I came across a doctoral study (http://www.wfanet.org/docfiles/A2061D1412.pdf) examining the nature of the relationship between advertising spend and economic growth that really caught my interest (in case you are wondering, yes, I think it's sad that I just typed that sentence...). From the conclusion: "Analysis of all of the objective data relating to the developed countries clearly demonstrates that the media and non-traditional media advertising investments carried out by companies stimulate and promote consumption, innovation, competition and the dynamism of specific economic sec¬tors associated with advertising: media service providers, non-traditional media, etc."

Remember when Internet advertising in the early days was called new media? It's funny, every now and then I still hear the term used in that way. Like the industry, the term has morphed into the new "new." What could fall under it? Streaming audio and video, video uploads and downloads, RSS feed, social media, downloadable music, blogs... the list goes on.

Did you know that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in planning the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that most of the hijackers were Iraqi? Of course, I'm joking. Saddam Hussein was not directly involved in planning the Sept 11, terrorist attacks, and most of the hijackers were not Iraqi. The problem with this counter of accurate information, however, is that denials and clarifications can actually contribute to the resilience of popular myths. This paradox is according to Shankar Vedantam at the Washington Post, who recently published a fascinating analysis of several recent psychological studies on falsehoods.

We all know that online advertising has the capacity to do extraordinary things when it comes to delivering highly addressable and measured advertising. How is it then, many ask, when you go to most Web pages, you get the same old ads that you see everywhere, and you rarely see ads that are truly relevant to you?

Once again, the music industry is getting screwed. Oh, well. If you blinked, you might have missed it, but Radiohead announced this week that their new release, "In Rainbows," would be made available for purchase online for whatever you wanted to pay for it.

The new arms race between Microsoft and Google will change the face of advertising forever, and it's a good thing for the Internet ecosystem. There is no way Microsoft will ever give up on search, nor should it. But it certainly seems to have taken to heart an old adage with a new twist: If you can't beat 'em at search... make search less valuable (you didn't really think I was going say "join 'em," did you?).

I don't know about you -- but I am beat from last week. Those of you who were at Advertising Week most likely share the same sentiment. There are about 200 events during the 5-day period in NYC.That being said, I like to pull out the common threads -- what's buzzing or soon to be. From what I heard, everyone was talking about the impact of social media across the board.

This week at OMMA New York I participated in the "emerging metrics" panel, moderated by David Smith of Mediasmith. David's an extremely smart guy, and I have the utmost respect for him. His decision to probe new metrics in a practical, media-buying-and-planning campaign context was laudable, especially for an audience more in the mood for quick, actionable takeaways. But the more I thought about the parameters of our discussion, the more it became a problem to me.