If you're in any way involved in marketing - online or off-line - chances are that you've read at least one of marketing guru Seth Godin's best-selling books. He is the author of 10 books, including "Meatball Sundae," "All Marketers Are Liars," "Purple Cow," "Permission Marketing" and "small is the new big." Armed with a degree in philosophy and computer science from Tufts University, he began his career as brand manager for Spinnaker Software in Cambridge, Mass. Godin is also founder and CEO of Yoyodyne, an interactive direct marketing company, which was acquired by Yahoo in 1998.

Steve Rosenbaum made his name on MTV and doing documentaries. So it's natural that he's into Web video. Rosenbaum is the founder and CEO of Magnify.net, which powers user-generated video (UGV) channels for Web publishers, media companies and video bloggers. The Magnify. net platform searches and sorts virtually all video available on the Internet based on a site's interest (such as hobbies, politics, music) and engages users to discover, share and rate them for relevancy and entertainment value.

It's become a new art form to combine various existing elements to create something totally new. However, it can also be dangerous creative and legal territory to navigate when particular items are protected by copyright laws.

Some online marketers, eager to leverage new technologies for promotional purposes, are uploading and sharing video creations with copyrighted materials despite concern about potential copyright infringement, because they want to beat others to the punch.

Forrester's March report, "Email Marketing Comes of Age," finds that clickthrough rates have remained steady since 2003, at an average of 5 percent, and that email is the No. 1 activity on the Web.

Prepare the obituary: The era of the daily newspaper as the news source is over. The Daily Tribune, Inquirer and Journals of the world have been recycled, replaced by multi-platform (online and off-line) entities that engage readers and operate around the clock. This rebirth is good news for advertisers big and small who will be able to more effectively target a growing audience.

In early August, Foster's Beer announced two changes. First, they'll no longer try to be "Australian for Beer" and, second, they're moving all their television ad spending online.

Although the decision only affects a $5 million ad budget, it's a bellwether: Companies are flocking to online video ads as the way to reach customers.

Recent reports claim advertisers will spend $74 billion to buy airtime on TV in the U.S. for 2006. The online ad spend is set to reach $26 billion or 9% of the total US market.

Sites that rely on user-generated content are altering the human fabric of the Internet and the way that performance marketers reach out to customers and merchants and communicate with each other. Online marketers are testing all of the new communication methods - blogs, social networking sites, wikis, and photo and video-sharing sites - to see if these platforms can help them drum up business.