On Sept. 16, 2013, I predicted the death of the traditional media buyer. That date was completely random, as it just happened to be the date I wrote a blog post with the title "Man vs. machine, the advent of electronic buying and the death of the media buyer." I have since written about this phenomenon many times here on MediaPost, predicting the death of the media buyer as we knew her/him within five years of that date in 2013. My prediction was based on the fact that, when Wall Street switched to mostly algorithm-based trading, it shed about two-thirds …

It may sound crazy, but using a secure, decentralized and fully electronic currency like Bitcoin would dramatically reduce the costs associated with programmatic transactions.

How will measurement and currency systems adapt to the obvious merging of TV and Internet connectivity? It's scary to think about - but what the heck, it was just Halloween.

Every company pays lip service to being customer-centric, but in most cases it is simply that: lip service. Most companies simply come up short.

I've used the phrase "survival of the fittest" in columns in the past. One of these columns ran again last week and sparked a debate that played out in the comment section. It reminded me that this is one of those phrases that everyone uses -- but not everyone knows its meaning.

For me, the story of the year remains the ANA/K2/Ebiquity review of U.S. media practices - especially how the industry has been completely impotent to do anything productive with that info.

November 7, 2000. Election night. Ken and I are wandering through the French Quarter of New Orleans, popping in and out of bars and taking in the sights. I haven't voted. I'm not at home, and the absentee ballot, quite frankly, seemed like kind of a pain in the ass -- especially since my vote wouldn't really make much difference. Why bother?

I've never before fully appreciated the importance of people and politicians grounding their analysis and arguments in facts and logic to the level I do now. There's nothing like a dizzyingly crazy U.S. presidential campaign, along with a spate of rhetoric-filled, emotional debates on issues like climate change, immigration, media partisanship, policing, race relations and the rise or fall of crime in America, to make you appreciate the importance of fact-based discourse.

There's a trend in digital marketing that will result in what I am referring to as Connected Creativity. It's the ability for marketers to leverage data, create more engaging, more personalized storylines across channels and devices, and be truly creative in their execution. This three-dimensional strategy represents the evolution of the role of creative in a digitally driven marketing environment.

The world is eliminating friction. Generally, that's a good thing. But there may be unintended consequences. Let's take evolution, for instance -- and politics.