In surveying several burgeoning areas of our industry -- including the emergence of new types of companies such as DSPs, RTBs and the like -- I realized something. Entirely new levels of skills development are required for the marketing and media professional who must say current and ahead of the curve. In a way it's unfair, but it's also incredibly exciting. We are not talking about "re-skilling" necessarily, but depending on how you've been oriented, there's a whole new standard for keeping up.

I don't attend many industry conferences, but there were a few this past July where I noticed something peculiar: the head shots of many of the speakers used in event publicity and promotions were years out of date. Compared to their current real-life appearance, many of the speakers' headshots portrayed them with far fewer gray hairs and wrinkles, and an abundance of retro hairstyles and yesterday's apparel. This stood out like a sore thumb.

I know the last thing that local media companies need is another Web-driven disruption in their markets, particularly one that could take a big chunk out of their revenues in the next few years. But I believe that location-based Web services will take 20% to 25% of the annual revenue out of local media's current advertising base within four years. That spend will be displaced by promotion and marketing fees paid to these new location-based services or applications that run on top of them. To the incumbent companies, these new services will be like craigslist on steroids.

For years there was little to no seasonality in online because it was masked by the overall growth of the medium, but in the last two to three years publishers have been seeing signs of a seasonal advertising flow for advertisers: many advertisers appear to decrease their spending in the summer months. I found this odd, so I did a quick, informal survey and reached out to 10 marketers and 10 publishers whom I know. They all agreed the trend exists; their advertisers tend to spend less in the summertime, not because of any perceived decrease in traffic during those …

There are two major tactics marketers can take to reach consumers in mobile: build applications with enough utility to attract consumers, or pay to place ads (or some other brand integration) in applications that have built a critical mass of users. But as mobile enters its next phase, it's interesting to look at the parallels between where marketers are today with mobile and how social network marketing has evolved.

Ghosts are something I think about a lot. Especially when I travel to San Francisco -- a place where I lived and worked for about 11 years, starting in 1993. I have been here all week, working, visiting friends, sharing meals, sashaying through old haunts. All of this is done, as you may imagine with the ghost reference, with intensely mixed feelings. For after all, this is the Bay Area, the Peninsula, Silicon Valley -- and I was here during very formative, dramatic years personally and professionally.

I just got an HTC Evo for my birthday, and it is awesome. The phone has been reviewed widely, so I'll sum it up via Engadget : "[I]ts magnificent list of specs reads as though it was scribbled on a napkin after a merry band of gadget nerds got tipsy at the watering hole and started riffing about their idea of the ultimate mobile device." Or, as Gizmoso says, it's a "warmachine" and it's got "guts."

Fair warning: I'm going to get on my soapbox ( just this once). This morning, I was very happy to read that a federal judge has temporarily blocked the implementation of key parts of Arizona's new immigration law. This ruling, I believe, is not only a good thing for the country; it is a good thing for the advertising industry as well. Why? Simply because the U.S. is not producing enough technology workers to go around and this debate has a chilling effect on real reform that would assure access to the best and brightest tech minds who want to …

The antithesis of a partner is a vendor, and there is a simple point of differentiation. A partner is a valued relationship. A vendor is an order-taker. A partner is someone who adds value beyond the exact words of a contract, where a vendor does exactly what they're told and nothing more. Many people ask me what's wrong with the marketing services business. My two cents: too many companies and too many people are vendors; not enough are true partners.

What does it mean to do "social media marketing"? In talking with various brands and agencies, there are extremely wide-ranging thoughts on what tactics, goals and, most important, resources should be allocated to social media. Let's settle the debate: All marketing is social media marketing.