The Insider says that Unlike those who argue that Google’s magical business will accelerate in a recession as advertisers spend only where they know they will get a great ROI, we think Google’s growth will be hit by economic weakness… Oh, Henry, who’s arguing? This is just cocktail chatter. Without the cocktails, unfortunately. Seriously, this […]

AdWeek has an article summarizing findings from a McKinsey study on online marketing. The question posed to a bunch of marketing execs who market online was, essentially, why aren’t you marketing more online? The answers: 52%: insufficient metrics to measure impact; 41%: insufficient in-house capabilities; 33%: the difficulty of convincing management; 24%: limited reach of […]

Fred Wilson is worried. He thinks that the internet industry is headed for a rough patch. He says this is a gut feeling, but coming from Fred a gut feeling can’t be discounted. I agree with Fred about the cyclicality of the venture industry. Startups start, get funded and get traction. Imitators follow. At some […]

Today MacMall delivered me a new MacBook Pro. It is a brick. Won’t boot, right out of the box. I called MacMall. They told me it is Apple’s problem, not theirs, they’re just a reseller. After complaining vociferously for half an hour, they agreed to repair it. So now I get a refurbished computer for […]

I was thinking about Bill Rice’s point that not all mortgage originator cost cutting is cuts to revenue generation capacity and some data that Josh Reich sent me a couple of weeks ago popped into my head. Below is a chart of relative volume of a couple of Countrywide’s origination sources: retail and correspondent originations […]

Bill Rice took his sweet time to weigh in on what the mortgage mess will do to online advertising. But I’m glad he did, because his opinion is well reasoned, supported by data, and clearly written (a refreshing change for readers of this blog, no doubt.) And I’m not just saying that because I agree […]

It’s the weekend and the baby is napping, so let’s talk about something different. An old friend of mine told me an even older story recently. I’ll let her tell her version of the story when she starts her blog. Here’s the one I tell my children. Once upon a time there was a tribe […]

I’m feeling a little lonely in my belief that marketers will react to lower sales by increasing marketing spend. Now even Niki Scevak disagrees with me. And there’s this happy song sung in a minor key over at CNN. Let’s step back from the trees to see the forest. Imagine the CMO walking into the […]

The “top SEM firm in the country” is Reprise Media, natch. I figured you knew that already.

I love a good argument. I’m still waiting for one. The Insider keeps insisting they’re right about the coming online ad implosion that the mortgage crisis will cause. But they can’t cite a shred of evidence. Their latest post says that the online ad slowdown of the first half of the year is evidence that […]