Bits and bobs worthy of note:

Notes from the Thursday marketing media, in particular New Media Age - the bible really - and Marketing Week, (both available via centaur.co.uk) with maximum respect for my friend Alan Mitchell who continues to thrive 3 - 5 years ahead of the pack with articulate, well-grounded vision of what's happening in marketing and why ... or in this case, perhaps, what's not happening and should be. Here's his conclusion re the view of marketing as a discipline and function and how it must be allowed to evolve:

"The fundamental value-creating contribution of marketing is better matching and connecting. Over time, this matching and connecting role came to be seen in terms of a particular set of mechanisms and processes such as market research, advertising and promotion. In reality, however, these were just the best ways to do the job given a particular set of historical conditions. For some brands, they may still be the best way. But as new approaches to matching and connecting become possible, they may not. In fact, the opportunities and potential breakthrough innovations in marketing are now tantalising." Yeah, uh ... what he said. Great work.

Other stuff of note ...

Celador buying up brand rights to place at the core of new interactive programming concepts ... told you so ... Dennis Interactive's Guy Sneesby revealing a strong vision for matching creative with data on pubslisher sites ... and what's more they're testing it, not just largeing it ... Blinkx trumpets new in-video search capability based around voice recognition applied to the audio track ... sounds a little cludgy, but surely the consumer relavance aspect points the way ... BBC jumpy about Ofcom's PSP initiative ... surprise ... key piece in NMA = "Getting up close", how driving consumers from TV to web is promising greater relavance and time with brand ... Sing it: "Ooooh the okey-cokey ... (so) that's what's it's all about." Or something.