DoubleClick deal

Seems like only yesterday. I can remember meeting DoubleClick (all four employees) back in 1995 at a New York New Media Association sponsored event at 55 Broad Street, at that time promoted as NYC's first "wired building" (w/ a T1 line). There were ten companies presenting. Organa, Tumble Interactive, K2 Design, MCNY and others startups which have long ceased to exist. (Organa and Tumble were Bruni PR clients). DoubleClick not only survived the '90s bust, but went on to revolutionize the online ad industry. The DoubleClick deal will surely usher in a wave of acquisitons of NY based online ad and marketing companies. That's a good thing. Hat's off to Kevin O'Connor, a founder and one of those four original employees. He's probably playing golf somewhere in California or Florida, and relishing the success.

Virginia Tech & Citizen Journalism

The coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings surely indicate the importance of citizen journalism and the Web. Tonight's network newcasts (especially ABC World News) featured eyewitness accounts culled from student cell phones videos, Facebook blog reports and even a college citizen journalism site (the Blacksburg Report). The questions raised by citizen/ student journalists themselves are shaping the coverage. NowPublic.com, Newsvine, Topix and other citizen journalism sites are seeing a huge number of views on info related to the shootings. Hopefully, this combination of citizen (or student) journalism and professional newsgatherers will shed light on this tragedy.