Can you believe the Internet advertising business is 17 years old? When kids turn 17, they typically go off to college and try to "find themselves." Depending on how they were raised, these 17-year-olds are either well-mannered or an utter mess. I would like to think that I was well-mannered, but I'm sure I had my moments. My question to you is: If you had the chance to sit back and think introspectively about the Internet advertising business for a moment, what would you think about?

As big as the news is that Keith Olbermann is going to CurrentTV, it seems the biggest opportunity may be Current's pledges to innovate on how digital distribution will complement broadcast distribution. Much of the debate on putting premium content online has always ce

As I sometimes do, upon getting up in the middle of the night to chat with my dog Bruce, last night I peeked at my buzzing iPhone on the kitchen counter. (No, I don't keep it on the nightstand. I prefer sleep when it's time to sleep.)When I make this jaunt to the kitchen, I never know what kind of alert might await me. Well, this time it was all HuffPo. I must say I was somewhat jolted to sleeplessness.

Last week, we discussed the unscalable power of personal attention. It's a lovely topic -- if you're not planning to scale. Lots of us, however, are involved with projects that are bigger than our personal brands, with corporates comprising thousands of employees or with startups that are aiming no lower than global domination. In these instances, should we just ignore the personal? Answer: it's a trick question.

On Tuesday, the Interactive Advertising Bureau announced the transfer of its chairmanship from Dave Moore, founder, chairman & CEO of 24/7 Real Media, to Bob Carrigan, CEO of IDG. Today, online advertising is an established part of the media mix for almost all consumer marketers in the U.S. and Dave Moore is a big part of the reason why. He is not only a swimming, biking and running Iron Man, he is our industry's Iron Man.

Have you noticed the average tenure for an ad agency relationship is not much longer than the average tenure of a CMO? The average CMO seems to last about 18-24 months in that role, and the average agency relationship seems to be about 24-36 months. Somewhere along the way, the term "AOR" for "Agency of Record" became a dirty word!

Among the explainers -- executives, teachers, commentators, analysts -- we talk with authority about our fluid landscape, constantly re-constituting ecosystem and the fragmentation of media itself. But, do we respectfully understand the impact of such constant change for those on the frontlines, executing the day-to-day work within our businesses?

In a world of robots, spambots, autoreplies, emails with magically pre-populated first-name fields, there is almost nothing more insulting than to say, "I care about you so little that I've delegated management of our relationship to a computer program." Our defenses are up, and what they are up against is automation. What melts these defenses is attention. We are powerless against someone coming at us with open eyes and open heart, someone saying to us through their words and their actions and their choice of medium: "I see you, I know you exist, I know you are a unique human …

Ever wonder why some companies were successfully launched -- and why others failed? Why one idea gets traction and makes billions -- and another struggles and eventually dies? I do. I've spent the past 20 years working at the intersection of old and new media. In that time, I've watched entrepreneurs launch a lot of great digital companies. Most of them were not offshoots of legacy businesses. I've also watched incumbent companies launch a number of disastrous ventures based on their existing assets and see them miss the opportunity to create or own many, many successful companies.

Here's a crazy idea to think about: What if the large agency holding companies start to get into the publisher rep business? Hear me out on this before you pass judgment; it's not as crazy as it first sounds.