2008 has been a pivotal year in our world. Just think about it: in the course of 12 months, we've experienced the most incredible Olympics ever in China... the rebirth of Saturday Night Live with Tina Fey as Sarah Palin... a wave of Obama-mania which resulted in the first African-American president-elect in our history... and a huge economic upheaval that is [even now] redefining our entire economic structure.

Do you know how private your email really is?

Most of us assume that our work email accounts are fair game…that our employers have the right and the responsibility to monitor the email sent from their employees’ accounts. After all, if the person down the hall starts sending threatening emails to Bill Gates, wouldn’t you want to know?

You’ll notice that we’ve deliberately refrained from posting a “best of” list for 2007. And for good reason.

We believe in using the past as a learning tool, but it doesn’t pay to get too overwhelmed or to drift into morbid reflection. Because today—as every day—we’re moving forward…ever forward.

What do we look forward to in 2008?

It’s inevitable. No matter how much you plan in this holiday season, there’s always one last gift you forgot to buy…one last-minute add-on to a loved one’s wish list…one last person for whom you feel a sudden rush of generosity.

What is there to do? Where do you start? Where can you go for a great, fun, absolutely perfect gift?

Remember the good old days of using a favorite catalog to write your Christmas list? My companion was a classic behemoth that became my toy-shopping bible, happily lugged from place to place while I daydreamed about the Barbie Dream House and EasyBake Oven that Santa had, no doubt, set aside for me.

It was a sad day when, due to changing lifestyles and so-called “advances” in technology, these Christmas catalogs became just a fond memory. Since the Sears Wish Book—one of the last to succumb to the advent of the web—was discontinued in 1993, a whole generation of children has missed out on this cherished holiday pastime.

In recognition that yesterday was America Recycles Day, it’s worth noting that we everyday consumers create a shocking amount of e-waste. According to the EPA’s stats for 2005, “between 1.5 million and 1.9 million tons of used or unwanted electronics were discarded in US landfills, including as many as 130 million cell phones [our italics]. Only a little more than 350,000 tons were recycled.”

According to Mediapost Publications one in five households enjoys “bloop blooping” through television commercials, cackling with the power magically granted to them by Tivo and other DVRs. Consequently, ad spending on broadcast TV is experiencing significant half-year declines-- decreases from 3.6% to $11.84 billion worth of expenditures on the networks even more on syndicated TV.

As Brand New noted recently, the NFL is updating its logo. After more than 60 years, it’s probably about time.

According to USA Today, the NFL has developed a “leaner, meaner” version to launch next April. Why the change? The darker blue will increase contrast; fewer stars will make the logo easier to reproduce (apparently vendors had been altering the logo on their own to cut down on the inexplicably numerous stars); the football will look less like a “hamburger” and more like the ball on top of the Vince Lombardi Championship Trophy.

While hot internet properties such as Facebook and Youtube undeniably get eyeballs, marketers have been struggling with how to commoditize that traffic. Just throwing up banner ads hasn’t been working out that well, according to a study from Forrester that recommends moving past run-of-site placements to engage users.

The start-up that turned its Harvard founders into gazillionaires is addressing this issue with an innovative new ad platform. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Facebook is developing a tactic to target its ads based on the details users reveal in their online profiles. While networks like Yahoo! have long used personal data to offer their advertisers behavioral

Over the weekend, the New York Times reported on a recent JupiterResearch study naming Google as the America’s favorite Internet brand. The search-engine-turned-media-company beat out Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, MySpace, Microsoft and AOL, with 35% of the vote.