“We’re not in the business of keeping the media companies alive. We’re in the business of connecting with consumers.”

Trevor Edwards
Vice President, Global Brand & Category Management
Nike

Via The New York Times

“Most SEOs are making headphones out of coconuts, hoping it brings traffic, and then wondering why the gods are so angry at them. They never get that the headphones probably aren’t hooked up to anything but their make-believe radio.”

Merlin Mann

Attacking Google’s (GOOG) methodology used to analyze and track ad conversions (giving the last publisher full credit for the action/sale conversion)...

“We’ll introduce conversion attribution to give [more publishers] credit and it will devalue search [advertising].”

Brian McAndrews
Sr. VP
Microsoft Advertiser Publisher Solutions Group

“Social networking sites might be the hottest thing on the Web in 2007, but a decade from now we’ll barely remember Second Life, Facebook or MySpace.  Instead, gaming services like Blizzard’s World of Warcraft and Microsoft’s Xbox Live will prove to have formed the most stable, robust, influential and useful social networks.

Web 2.0-style user-generated, participatory content will ultimately prove mostly novelty.  A few of the bigger, better-managed sites will survive, but most of the ‘here’s every niggling detail about my life’ sites will wither away.”

David Ewalt
Staff Writer, Forbes.com

Upon being named CEO…

“The whole idea of a siloed e-mail provider as a business moving forward is limiting. I think there is a tremendous opportunity to combine e-mail marketing with other interactive services.”

Al DiGuido
CEO
Zustek
(Via Direct Magazine’s Ken Magill)

Yup.  Take a look at J.L. Halsey Corp.—they understand as much and posted record quarterly revenue.

Reacting to a Google-ass kissing Business Week article and Yankee Group analyst, Linda Barrabee…

Barrabee: “The day is coming when wireless users will experience nirvana scenarios–mobile ads tied to your individual behavior, what you are doing, and where you are.”

“Here’s my nirvana scenario, Linda

1. No damn advertising at all.  I don’t care how warm and fuzzy Google is, I don’t want to be tracked like an animal and ‘targeted’ with anything, least of all guesswork about what I want, no matter how educated that guesswork is.

2. Tools on my phone that let me tell sellers what I want, and on my terms – and not just on theirs.  Whether that’s a latte two exits up the highway, next restaurant that serves seared ahi, or where I can buy an original metal slinky.

3. I want to be able to notify the market of my shopping or buying intentions without revealing who I am, unless it’s on mutually agreed-upon terms.

Quick: Who wants their cell phone to be a ‘mini marketing machine’? And why would a BusinessWeek reporter even begin to think anybody would want that?

One huge reason we get these endless rah-rah stories framed by Advertising Goodness is that advertising pays the salaries of the writers. There is no ‘Chinese wall’ between advertising and editorial. It may seem like there is, but there isn’t.  Follow the money.”

Doc Searls