I finally got a Gmail account. Of course this puts me in the category of "late-early adopter" but I don't much care for labels. In case you are interested I secured the hotly contested name of "bnizinsky" at gmail.com. that's right people, its all mine....

The Consumer Is Taking Control of Advertising

The title of this article almost sounds like those blaring warning signals you get in the National Enquirer about the end of the world. Maybe for some ad folks this could be the case.

I have always been exposed to online advertising and its ability to target a person so I see that level of targeting as normal. I sit and ask how radio ad salespeople talk about return on investment when you can't really measure how well a radio ad is doing? I know, I know there are ways to try and measure the results but those ways are not always implemented and still companies pour money into the medium in the hope that sales will increase.

Anyway the point I am trying to make here is that for all the beatings that online advertising takes from offline media, the models that are being forged now are the ones that alladvertisers will have to adhere to in the not so distant future.

Linguistics prof. George Lakoff dissects the "war on terror" and other conservative catchphrases

I ususally don't include politics in my writings here but after reading this interview I just needed to.

No matter what side of the fence you are on, even if you and tip toeing on top of it, this interview outlines some of the language that is being used in the current political debates and some of the implications of it. What does the "War on Terror" really mean? The answer gets broken down very well in this well thought out interview.

The next time some blow hard yells how you are anti-american if you don't support the "war" in Iraq, try to get them to read this, if they can read at all...

Linguistics prof. George Lakoff dissects the "war on terror" and other conservative catchphrases

I ususally don't include politics in my writings here but after reading this interview I just needed to.

No matter what side of the fence you are on, even if you and tip toeing on top of it, this interview outlines some of the language that is being used in the current political debates and some of the implications of it. What does the "War on Terror" really mean? The answer gets broken down very well in this well thought out interview.

The next time some blow hard yells how you are anti-american if you don't support the "war" in Iraq, try to get them to read this, if they can read at all...

Wired News: RSS Attracts Really Serious Money

While I am all for RSS as a distribution technology, I have to ask the question, what is the business model here? I mean really how is Technorati going to make money?

Its things like this that makes me feel that VC investors have not learned any lessions from 1998...

Blogversations - A Better Way to Market

This is an interesting idea. It seems like they want to put a level of management and automization into the process by which an influential blogger cites certain products or services in their blog.

The ideal situation would be if a blogger writes a positive review of a product that would influence the readers into buying it or creating more word of mouth buzz.

Will this work? So far it seems that the blogging community and its readers are pretty wary of plans like this.

Some other questions that come to mind:
- What is the determining factor in selecting blogs for the network?
- What are the levels of reporting that will be provided?
- What is the rev share for the blogger?
- How will ads be sold, CPM? CPC?

The blog ad space will settle eventually and it will be the companies with the best models that will survive.