By now, you've heard the news of the Rutgers freshman and violinist who committed suicide after his roommate secretly filmed him during a sexual encounter in his dorm room and posted it on the Web. It's a tragedy, and it's sparked a lot of debate about a "new dangerous era wrought by the Internet."

Today is going to be one of those columns where I get on my soapbox. I just received a "Continuation Notice" invoice in the mail from a media trade newsletter company. To anyone in my office without specific knowledge of our outstanding newsletter subscriptions (say, someone in accounting), one would think that this was a renewal notice. In fact, the mailing was very cleverly designed to make you think it was a renewal invoice. It was not. Notices like this -- marketing like this -- make me mad. I suspect that they anger you, too.

I read through the press coverage for last week's big announcements regarding Facebook Groups and the new ability to port my personal data to other platforms, but somewhere along the way I missed the point. I don't see why journalists had to drive down or fly over or go visit the Facebook offices for a series of seemingly "ho-hum" announcements.

The Economist has a great overview of the ad industry landscape titled "The return of advertising: The box rocks." The story paints a very hopeful picture, not only that ad dollars are coming back, but that those ad dollars might just be an indicator of the overall economy bouncing back. Aside from the wishful thinking around the economy bounce back, the most interesting part of the column is the direct call-out to the Internet's utter lack of a system of advertising to rival television: "Search engines and online banners are not nearly so good at making people aware …

We often talk about how nimble digital is, how swiftly it can be gauged and optimized. This implies in some ways that digital is easy. But we know better -- we know the complexities and how they in fact mount as we advance the medium. It occurred to me recently that given the way we regard and talk about digital, some things are truly easier said than done. And that's a bit of a trap.

The recent OMMA Global conference in New York was a good event. There were many interesting people and great discussions, spanning every corner of the digital marketing and media world. Something happened to me there that underscored a very important mandate: perspective.

According to a report in PC World, yesterday AOL's chief technology officer said that the company would continue to buy more media properties, and might even buy some traditional newspapers. I know that I swore off writing about the newspaper industry, but this is too good to pass up. Here are some of my quick thoughts on why AOL might consider buying newspapers.

Last week I attended OMMA Global in New York, where I listened to a number of panels and presentations regarding mobile: its effectiveness, its reach and other pertinent facts. I came out of all of the sessions asking the same question: Are our expectations for mobile possibly too high?

It is daunting and exciting to consider the number of ways that social media is affecting every aspect of how content creators and distributors operate. When you think about the questions surrounding the viewer/consumer life cycle and touch points, you can see just how pervasive change is going to be.

On a high level, Advertising with a capital A has a different stature now; its place is integrated into the marketing and media equation. It rarely stands alone. On a personal level, we recognize that our romance with Advertising has become more erratic. He's an old flame, a one great love who comes unexpectedly to town. At our best, we go to dinner; we laugh and we cry. We cannot put our finger on it -- but we are moved. And, then back to the day-to-day, a bit more blended into the commercial mix, he's there in the background, touching …