We all know the difference between interactions where someone smiles versus when someone does not. When people smile, the experience more often than not is pleasant, if not enjoyable. In circumstances where people don't smile, the experience is often negative or forgettable. Smiling is one of the most powerful methods of conveying thoughts, moods, feelings and emotions. Which begs the question: If smiling is so influential, why isn't it recognized as a fundamental value in every aspect of business and marketing?

Yes. It's true. I'm leaving AOL and heading back to the start-up world. I've had a great time at AOL and am very bullish on its future, but the prospect of starting a new company in this market was just too great. Why? What's so good about the current market? Well, it's pretty simple. While I've been fortunate to have been able to launch two successful start-ups in the online advertising market, Real Media in 1995 and TACODA in 2001, I don't think that, in either of those cases, the same level of opportunity existed that is out there today. …

I write this column week in and week out and have been doing so for seven years now. While I was deciding on a topic for this week's column I was reminded that it was also Valentine's Day tomorrow -- and since this day is all about the heart, I decided I should write about a topic that was also about the heart: sports.

I watched the election coverage over the weekend. It seems the news media have taken to making bold statements and speculations on social media's -- specifically MySpace and Facebook's -- role in the increased turnout among young voters. There are few people who are bigger proponents of social media's potential than myself ("Social Media's Election Effect"). However, to simply assign a causal relationship between people's interactions within social media ("Social Networks And Politics - 'Snakes on a Plane' 2?") and people's actions in the real world without understanding or explaining is at best meaningless, and at worst irresponsible.

Am I the only one that thinks I've granted permission too much? Let me back up for a second. At least once weekly I get an email asking me to connect with someone in the business, a colleague, a recruiter, a salesperson -- you name it I get an invite. While they say it's good to be popular, give me a break already. How many "friends" or connections can one person truly have?

A colleague of mine who helped build one of the earliest proprietary online services wisely noted that one of the most significant and inevitable forces shaping the Web is sophistication. That's right -- no matter which new, promising service you consider, it's only a matter of time before its users mature, inherently changing the dynamic of the entire marketplace. Search advertising, the foundation of the online advertising economy, is no exception.

We've seen the online world change a lot over the past 15 years. We've seen several shifts in the key battlegrounds for control of the value generated by consumers' use of online services.

Online video is our little baby. At first she crawled, then she started walking and just recently she's getting into the running-around stage, where she's harder to control and learns really fast, sponging up everything that she possibly can! Soon our little baby will be a little adult and will have all the problems facing every other adult, or in this case every other mature industry!

Besides making Monday a miserable and unproductive work day, the Super Bowl is a great example of why no media buy can really ever be done in a vacuum. A few times during the big game, fans were prompted to visit MySpace.com to view and share the commercials they see during the game. The idea that is so intuitive, yet so hard to practice, is this: For today's brands to get the most out of their traditional media buys, they must have a plan to extend those campaigns into social media.

Once again I am disappointed by the Super Bowl ads. (Not to mention I am really let down that the Pats didn't win.) Is it me? Do I have false hopes? Years ago I remember the ads being entertainment. The sizzle was the steak.