“This downturn will be a perfect storm for the agencies. Many are not properly geared up to deal with the digital age especially the very big names. Ogilvy’s announced to cut 75 jobs from its NY headquarters (around 4% of total workforce). Most of cut comes from Ogilvy One which is the DM and interactive arm.”

Idris Mootee
Business & Innovation Strategist

“The Web has been tragically misunderstood when people labeled it a publishing medium. It is a performance medium: publishing mediums are static, and do not change over time; performances are dynamic and collaborative and iterative.

Because there was this intrinsic misperception of the role of people and time in what the Internets are, we keep discovering things that we think are just so unique about the medium.

It is like declaring that your dog is a cat, but not just that ... the first ever cat that barks, howls, wags its tail and fetches!”

“... I think that a big reason consumer-goods companies have been slow to adopt digital marketing is that it is so direct and immediate and personal when it comes to dealing with consumers. Most of these companies have built and sustain their market advantages not on being more preferred by consumers, but by being more efficient at manufacturing or distribution, or by having more and greater pricing leverage with distributors and retailers.

Many times, the true effectiveness of consumer-goods advertising in driving the business has more to do with its impact on those intermediaries during contract negotiations than on its ultimate impact on consumers.”

Dave Morgan
Executive Vice President, Global Advertising Strategy
AOL
Via MediaPost

“Dear Jeff Bezos, Amazon is asleep at the wheel. Ebay, You should have been vBay 24 months ago. Craig Newmark, Do you know you own a TV network?

... Guys - you’re blowing it. Ecommerce.  Dating.  Auctions.  Comedy.  Community.  Branding.  News. Politics. It’s all about User-Generated Video. There’s a sea-change happening.  And the leaders in the web aren’t on it.  Amazon. Ebay.  Craigslist. Guys, time to get in the game.  Heck - even NBC beat you - how crazy is that?

Your community has a Video Voice, empower it and embrace it, or ignore it at your peril.”

Steve Rosenbaum
CEO
Magnify.net

“Do affiliate marketers really think small or is it just the nature of the business that keeps us thinking small.  After all, we’re really just selling other people’s stuff for a cut of the action…

The entire model of affiliate marketing is built off an affiliate working off the back end of somebody else.  Which pretty much sums up the wrong thing to do when you’re talking to somebody about starting a legitimate online business—or at least that’s what we’re taught.

So I think the question really is: is it viable to build a multi-million dollar business off of selling other people’s stuff. Of course it is but therein lays the real point I’m trying to make… Jason, I don’t want to own a $25 million dollar business… I don’t want to own a business with tons of employees… deal with venture capitalists… I hate having to deal with investors and bankers and accountants and other people who want to suck the soul out of my body and make me sit in a cubicle, go to meetings and do all the other things that I hate doing—THAT’S why I like affiliate marketing and THAT’s why I don’t want to have a $25 million business!”

Commenting on Google’s recent “YouTube Videocracy” event in NYC…

“Google made a good investment. Just a few years after launch, the platform has radically changed the media consumption ecosystem. Unlike other acquisitions in the space, YouTube provides value to the end user like no other platform does. The democratization of video consumption and creation might not thrill the big networks, but it is here to stay.”

Sara Holoubek
via DM News