I worked at one of the largest marketing communications agencies at the beginning of my career. After three years, I was recruited to startup life by one of my clients, and I never looked back. While the startup pace is more intense and unpredictable, there are many things about it that appeal to me, especially: team vision, pride in building something big, accountability and speed. These cultural dynamics result in a pace of innovation not often achieved at big companies.

Hacking into email and apps accounts and removing documents is stealing. Publishing those documents is just as wrong -- and only promotes more stealing.

Applications are the new Web sites. Think about it; in a distributed media environment where syndicating content is the core of a user interaction strategy, applications can become as important, if not more important, than your actual Web site. This is especially true when you consider that mobile is rapidly growing in importance as it becomes standardized on three primary platforms: iPhone OS, Android and Windows Mobile.

It has famously been said that to attempt the same thing over and over again and expect a different result is a definition of insanity. One could also argue that perseverance has a similar definition. I guess that means that one could easily be remembered as a lunatic or perseverant, depending if the outcome ever comes out in their favor. It's with this thought rolling around in my head, that I read -- and choose to write -- about the latest research on Internet brand advertising.

Compared to the rest of the news-consuming community and those who only take the paper on the stoop, we are voracious content consumers. Most of us also directly handle the currencies of content and drive its livelihood in one way or another. Because of where we sit, our stance on certain things is important. It occurred to me while immersed in the Columbia Journalism Review's,multipart "No Free Lunch: How to Split the Tab for News," that it's not enough for us to share cursory opinion. We cannot just kinda care whether content must be free; about the opportunities represented by …

Fast-forwarding through TV commercials is not only pleasurable for viewers, but good for advertisers. That's right! Todd Juenger, vice president and general manager of audience research and measurement for TiVo, points to his company's DVR user data and says that fast-forwarding through television commercials is a sign that viewers are engaged with the programming. He suggests that's a good thing for advertisers making such media investments.

What is the "real" value of advertising to business enterprises? Is the ad business dying? Will advertising ever bounce back to what it used to be? Between the financial crisis and the TV upfronts, a lot of folks are asking a lot of fundamental questions about advertising these days.

Every once in a while you notice something new and it makes your scratch your head and think. My most recent example of this comes from having witnessed a number of brands running TV commercials where they feature an iPhone application and nothing else, but what I find most surprising is that the least expected brands are the ones using this strategy to connect with a consumer!

Some time ago I wrote about Google's attempts to develop the universal advertising OS (operating system) of choice in "Google's Latest Olive Branch To Agencies." This column, way back in early 2008, actually referenced an even older column by Robert Young called "Google... the OS for Advertising," which he posted on GigaOM way, way back in 2006. Besides these, and other commentary about Google's efforts to own the advertising OS of the future, little progress has been made toward Google's advertising OS, or any other advertising OS, becoming a universal reality. That is, until Microsoft announced recently that it would …

Everyone wants a gut as reliable as a GPS. Most of us spend a lifetime getting acquainted with our own gut instinct and assessing how much we should trust it -- or back it up. Back-up comes through trusted friends, peers, mentors, market research, thought leaders, rivals, competitors or whatever real-life analysis and knocks are needed to make us feel sure our decisions and paths are solid. But, outright back-ups aside, we generally realize over time that we all have our own level of instinct vs. external validation. There is no rule on how much a gut should be your …