I've written before -- a bit tongue-in-cheek -- about whether Twitter data could ever replace Nielsen as a better way to measure television viewership. I'm going to revisit this issue again, since it's clear that Twitter data can measure something very important to media companies, marketers and their agencies, that Nielsen television panel ratings cannot. Twitter data is capturing the long-elusive "water cooler" chatter that so many media companies and marketers are trying to influence.

Marketing is all about numbers. Whether you're building a brand or driving direct sales, you spend a lot of time diving into numbers -- but have you ever stopped to think about what those numbers really mean?

I don't think one can argue that all advertising is based on engagement with audience. If no one is paying attention, even peripherally, whom are you advertising to? So why does engagement sound like a dirty word when it is uttered in digital media?

The Super Bowl frees us up to shamelessly marvel at bigness. Sports fans and those among us with a penchant for big shiny things look forward to the scale of its fanfare, no matter who's playing. Media economists in our midst keep their fingers on the pulse of the big buy -- noting which advertisers are doing what for the big game, and what kind of bellwether that activity might be. But, equally as timeless as all this, is our inner consumer's fascination with the big ads themselves. We expect them to be magnificent. With this year's pre-game stir prompted …

"You work here, therefore we own you." That's the modus operandi for many white-collar employee agreements, which often assert that full-time employees should not take on any freelance work. My enlightened friend Dave Balter, founder and CEO of BzzAgent, recently challenged this antiquated policy. I agree with Dave. But I would build on the notion of freelance and suggest that such inclinations are often indicative of a entrepreneurial spirit. Employers should do far more than tolerate it. They should recognize this quality as a major asset, and recruit and cultivate it, accordingly.

A lot of people believe that just because a growing number of folks are using their laptops and PCs to watch video, the day will come when advertising support for video on the computer screen will rival or pass video on the television screen. I am not one of those folks. Video on the PC will never beat video on the TV for ad dollars. Here's why....

Everyone writes about the agency of the future, hypothesizing about the structure and the services they will provide, but just about everyone overlooks the fact that an agency is only as strong as the people that work there. People are what drive the relationships between clients and partners.

Every time someone receives a marketing message, he or she does a quick analysis: Did I get anything out of this exchange, and was it worth the inconvenience? This doesn't change with social media. So if marketers think acquiring a Facebook Fan one time gives them the right to "remarket" to people whenever they want, they are in for a very rude awakening.

This weekend, also following a week of iPad frenzy, I sat down with last week's New Yorker to read "Enough About Me: What does the popularity of memoirs tell us about ourselves?" by Daniel Mendelsohn. It turned my thoughts to the literally hundreds of conversations I've had with people in our industry about writing the book. That is, "the book" that is effectively our collective, exhaustive history -- the living, breathing history of the digital industry.

I'm a gadget guy. I love consumer electronics. But there's a critical flaw in the latest generation of devices: poor construction. Many devices I purchased in the late 1990s and early 2000s (and still own, believe it or not) still work like new. But it seems like everything I bought within the last four years has a lifespan of one to three years.