Our industry -- having been blinded by the bright lights and public relations spin of multiple companies such as Google, eBay and Joost -- is at a crossroads. Today it seems we look no further than the Internet to solve the structural issues of the television platform (which had found its birth within a treasured natural resource called the spectrum).

Newspapers have long been suffering a slow decline. Try talking to someone under the age of 18 and asking them where they get their news, weather, sports or classified listings. More often than not, their answers will include non-newspaper sources such as Comedy Central, Weather.com, Yahoo Sports and Craigslist. Although these online properties have been increasingly eating away at newspaper budgets, there is hope....

Ask advertisers this question -- if the worth of a commercial should affect the cost of a commercial -- and the answer is unanimous. "But, of course," they say. Ask the same question of agencies, and the response is decidedly mixed. The handful of creative, more confident agencies are excited by the idea. But outside of those three or four, well... Not surprisingly, both advertisers and agencies ask the same question: How exactly does one go about measuring the "worth" of a commercial?

As the automation of virutally every aspect of the interactive advertising business continues at speeds that barely leave time for the VCs to catch their breath, it was only a matter of time before some bright guys with no agency experience came along and decided that since we've automated everything else, why not just automate the whole creative process? Heck, if we can use algorithms to optimize messages, why not just write one to create them?

Just last week Blockbuster acquired the MovieLink download service. The reported purchase price was somewhere in the $20 million range, which when all is said and done might be one of the biggest steals of the year.

Is this what it feels like to be Paris Hilton? The non-stop buzz, the speculation about your every move, who you've been seen associating with, all eyes on you all the time? That may be a stretch, but there certainly is a lot of buzz about online video. We are without a doubt the "it girl" of online marketing.

As I read the musings on the issues confronting broadcast, cable and digital TV, be it funded conventionally by advertisers, plus VOD, Pay-VOD and anything else the wizards of Silicon Valley come up with, it is clear that MediaPost's very-bright analysts are, to be blunt, missing the boat and focusing on secondary concerns....

As advertising practitioners, we observe and then rush to figure out some immediate way to insert ourselves into a new platform without taking the time to determine whether we're even welcome, wanted or wasting time there. But the recent introduction of Apple's iPhone once again demonstrates that digital experiences that truly delight the consumer and elevate user experiences to the next level not only advance consumer relationships, but actually create cultural movements the likes of which no ad campaign has ever achieved. And it doesn't start with a new tagline; it starts with product innovation and design that's grounded in …