On this Presidents Day, I'd like you to think about how the speed of media has changed since our first President, and what implications that holds for a Republic that relies on informed citizens. When our founders declared independence from the British it took six days before the event in Philadelphia was published in newspapers in New York and 43 days before it was published in London.

After years of erosion, ad industry spending is beginning to gain share vs. the money consumers pay directly for media, especially in the U.S. But there are some new models emerging for underwriting the cost of media that are not yet being properly accounted for in the mix: Specifically, media that is paid for by consumers trading their own identity data.

On the eve of the State of the Union Address, USA Facts has issued a report on the State of the Union that reflects some volatility in some fundamental areas, including the population, the infrastructure, education, health, crime, defense, the U.S. standard of living, and yes, the economy, too. While the U.S. GDP grew 2.3% in 2019, the weakest of the three years of the current administration, it's on line with the recent historical average since we pulled out of the 2018 recession.

I'm calling today's column the honorary rebrand of "RSTBlog" (for Real Serious Time Blog), because of an especially consequential temporal media shift. Indeed, possibly, an existential one. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist late last week announced it is moving the denomination it uses to measure how long we've got before "midnight" to seconds, not minutes.

The ad industry is facing a new crisis and this one could well be an existential one, because it threatens the very foundation of all advertising: media. The crisis is one of belief -- especially as a new generation of advanced AI, precision data targeting and so-called "deepfakes" throws just abut everything we see into question. At least one innovative agency organization is seeking to get out in front of it and to see if some promising technology and human-powered startups can provide a solution.

Ten years ago, FX Networks benchmarked a "Peak TV" milestone revealing there were more hours of original scripted series than a person had time to watch. Ten years later, FX says the supply has grown 152%, which is why the future of media is actually "Pique TV."

Who knew World War III would begin with a tweet? But that's what the President implied Sunday, asserting -- in a tweet -- that was all the "notification" he needed to give Congress in order to launch a military strike on Iran, effectively thumbing his nose at the War Powers Act of 1973.

Apologies if today's "RTBlog" isn't technically about technology, but it is about something happening in real time.

It's no secret to programmatic traders that location tracking has become one of the most important signals for identifying and targeting users in a post-cookie world. Yes, device IDs are still the most indelible hook, but tracking where those devices are, have been and are going to is the new gold rush in consumer data tracking. The problem is that it's no longer a secret to most users either.

It makes sense that programmatic would emerge as a viable solution for cannabis brand marketers to target consumers in a regulatory-compliant way.