Anne Holland sent out an email a few weeks back asking MarketingSherpa readers to contribute to a "lessons learnt" report for 2002. Astonishingly she ended up receiving best practice feedback from over 600 marketers.

The report, covering 26 sub-topics, is available free of charge here . I've yet to read it in full, but can confirm with absolute confidence that it is a gem.

[MarketingFix]

Stanley Milgram invented the term "six degrees of separation" after discovering in an experiment how closely interconnected social networks can be. The "six degrees" concept also inspired a play, a film, and a party game. The original study has recently attracted criticism, but now sociologists at Columbia University are planning to re-do the study over the Internet, using e-mail forwarding. Volunteers can sign up here. [MetaFilter]

The Rebirth of E-publishing
E-books bombed a few years ago, but they’re back, and now e-periodicals may be the next big thing [Newsweek Web]

domfoo.net/ which I found on my referers.  Another place to explore links. [Al Macintyre: e Radio Ideas] [Don W Strickland: RadioFAQ]

ClickZ: The Missing ROI Metric

When you're working up budgets and considering online cutbacks, remember: The Web is more important to consumer buying decisions than ever. No matter what you sell -- government services, products, healthcare information, or even news -- the Web is a central part of consumers' decision making process.

Neglecting this, thinking you can slide by without compelling experiences and robust stores of information on your site, is a fool's bargain. You may save money now. In the long run, you're crippling one of your most vital sales tools: the connected consumer's expectation of information.

[MarketingFix]

CBS Marketwatch: Ad Separation a Delicate Web Dilemma

Thoughtful piece on the role of advertorials online:

While many of the most blatant content mixers disappeared in the recent tech wreck, online publishers are still grappling with how to merge paid advertising and objective information, without compromising either...

As yet, there are no universally shared conventions on how best to clearly distinguish editorial from infomercial on the Web. Most policies seem to have been developed on the fly, or adapted from offline predecessors. They can range from stringent separation to seamless assimilation.

[MarketingFix]

I'm Scott and I'll Be Your Internet Agent for Right Now.

Are Blogs Nothing More than Agents for the Internet?

A few years back, circa 1995 or so, the term "agent" or "intelligent agent" was all the wave.  We were all going to have different agents that knew our tastes and collected content on our behalf, alerting us to interesting things.  Needless to say that despite tens of millions of dollars in venture funding and even manufacturing dollars (anyone remember General Magic and Sony's Magic Cap) that failed utterly. 

Now we have blogs and it actually feels strikingly similar.  Think about my blog for example.  Right now if you read it then you are getting an agent that covers:

• Technology
• Blogging
• Open Source
• PHP
• Marketing
• Microsoft
• ...

If you read Mark Pilgrim's blog then you are getting coverage of:

• CSS
• XHTML
• Browser Issues
• ...

And if you read Inluminent you are getting:

• Online Marketing
• Mac / OS X
• Pretty Girls

So if you read 10 or 20 different blogs regularly then you are actually getting the results of 10 or 20 different agents that are busily scouring the net for you.  And, even better, those agents are sometimes even creating content for you.  Now that makes them intelligent agents indeed.

Thoughts? [The FuzzyBlog!]

[Scripting News]

Driven by corporate profits, retail sales, and consumer disposable income, the advertising industry could be poised for successive years of growth. [CyberAtlas]

Press Release: MakeMeTop becomes an Accredited Overture Search Engine Marketing Company

Kicking off in the UK Overture have started an accredidation scheme:

designed to indicate those SEMs who fully adhere to Overture’s list of best practices. Accredited companies are allowed to show an accreditation logo on their websites which are linked to a page on Overture to confirm accreditation.

To qualify companies must pledge to follow Overture's Best PPC Practice Guidelines:

1) Ensure our clients are made aware of the dynamic nature of the PPC marketplace.
2) Supply the broadest possible spread of relevant keywords for our clients' campaigns to help engineer consistent return on their PPC investment.
3) Not submit search listings leading to sites which: are still 'in construction', have disabled back buttons or unrelated content or are in any way in breach of Overture's Editorial Guidelines.
4) Always ensure that bidded search terms are reflected in titles and description, and that urls are 'deep-linked' where possible.
5) Mark-up our client's spend only to a level that can reasonably be demonstrated to still offer that client 'value for money'.
6) Assist Overture and other Accredited Search Engine Marketers by proactively participating in the accreditation program and any related initiatives.

[MarketingFix]