A widget got passed around the office the other day, and productivity came to screeching halt. I got hooked on this travel widget for probably upwards of 20 minutes over the course of the day yesterday. This is a perfect example of creating compelling content that people will choose to interact with and share, which is in line with your brand. But here's where everything isn't all good for the travel blog. After 20 minutes of my complete and undivided attention being delivered to their app, I had no idea who hd sponsored the widget.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the writers' strike. Most of my colleagues already had. I tried to avoid it but couldn't. I tried to stay unbiased, which for me is hard to do. I have an opinion, and a strong one at that. So I ask the parties that be, can we get to a resolution and quick? It's boring as hell in my family room.

I read my fair share of business books and marketing punditry. In the trendy stable are works by authors Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, James Surowiecki, Don Tapscott and Malcom Gladwell. On the more academic side are the likes of authors Gerald Zaltman, Clotaire Rapaille and Steven D. Levitt. All these guys are great, really. They've taught me a lot and informed my outlook. But none of them compare to Albert Einstein....

Are online media CPMs headed up or down? The question is on a lot of people's minds these days. We will certainly see ad rates go up this year for certain types of inventory, but I suspect that we are also going to see ad rates go down for a lot of other types of inventory.

After reading all the articles and editorials over the last four weeks about various groups touted as the "Agency of the Year" by various publishers, I find myself asking this question: Will 2008 see the first time that the Agency of the Year is not an agency?

Last week in "Media Metric Hypocrisy" I discussed the misalignment of critical metrics considered across various media (television vs. print vs. online). The obvious problem for advertisers and agencies being that it is difficult to compare advertising ROI across media when the metrics differ so widely. The irony of last week's Spin is that this week, actually probably while you are reading this Spin, I will be moderating a panel the topic of which is "Measuring Branded Communities to Optimize Your Advertising Investment" at the Digital Media Measurement and Pricing Summit.

It's that time of year again -- everyone is talking about football. Now that we're getting ready for the big game, I thought I'd get up to speed on who's advertising during the NFL's Super Bowl XLII.

Chris Wall, vice chairman-creative at ad agency giant Ogilvy, New York, recently said: "For small shops, the challenge is how to scale. Big brands do big things.... It is easier for us to get small than for somebody small to get big." Wall said that in context of what Ad Age described as retrofitting "a hulking beast of a company to compete in an increasingly media-neutral world, in which lean one- or two-office shops are beating their bigger brethren." Beyond this Ogilvy example, is it really easier for big companies to get small than for small to get big?

Are ad agencies and agency holding companies destined for some significant changes in 2008? I was part of panel discussion earlier this week at the Gridley Conference in New York that addressed that issue, among others facing the media and marketing services industries. The consensus of the panel was yes; structural changes are coming to the industry, and we may very well see some of them start playing out in 2008.

Among the hot topics from 2007, which are still hot in January 2008, are video and widgets; specifically, widgets in Facebook, since they're easy to use and easy to understand. I understand the business model because it's very simple -- create an application of some form that is viral in nature and monetize the eyeballs that are aggregated through the application. I get it. It's cool. But in all seriousness, why do I keep getting bitten by werewolves and zombies and vampires, and why do I keep getting thrown in an entourage, and why do I keep getting asked to …