The Web is learning privacy lessons the hard way: making mistakes, taking heat from the press, regulators and the public, and then retroactively fixing those mistakes. Today, both the mobile and TV industries are just starting to embark on targeted advertising. Both could learn some valuable privacy lessons from the Web industry's experiences. Here are my top 10:

Do you ever get the feeling that you're swimming in the deep end? Are there days when you just can't get moving because there's so much to do that you don't know where to start? Don't worry, you're not alone; this feeling is something most people experience on a fairly regular basis.

I have spent the last two days in the world of cable television at the CTAM Summit in New Orleans. And even though I was asked to lead two discussions, I have to admit I am lost. As an "Internet guy," I am very used to standards and iteration being the oxygen that keeps businesses alive. On the Web, businesses that do not innovate quickly die, regardless of their size. Constant improvements of user interfaces are the norm, not the exception.

Marketers, especially those digitally inclined, have tended to view the local small-business person as a bit of a caricature -- that is, someone with presumably limited resources and planning savvy, trying his or her damnedist to get up to speed on how to peddle wares and services in today's marketplace. But those of you paying attention noticed that these folks -- at least those committed to taking hold of their destiny -- were some of the earliest adopters of perhaps our most effective direct-response digital media: search. All you had to do, even five years ago, was attend search conferences …

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.