Sep 17, 2007

Tom Messner's Guide To The Blogosphere

Back in the mid-to-late 90s, there was a message board on AOL dedicated to advertising. I'm not quite sure how I found it, but it provided a wonderful forum for advertising creatives, all posting under pseudonyms, to discuss the business and what we thought of current campaigns, account moves and personalities.

A lot like today's blogs.

One of the more prolific posters (and I can't for the life of me remember his pseudonym) turned out to be Tom Messner, who was one of the founders of the agency now known as Euro. I was junior enough at that point to have responded something like "you mean THAT Tom Messner" when he told me who he was. (There were actually a number of well-known ad creatives on that board, but that's another story.)

Anyway, Messner wrote a column in today's Adweek about ad blogos. It's worth reading because his take is always entertaining and because it's interesting to see an outsider's view of something you're quite familiar with. (Okay, it's also worth reading because one of the 5 or 6 blogs he mentions is mine. And damned if I wasn't thrilled about that.)

Read it here. (LINK FIXED)

My only complaint is that the Adweek techs who posted it didn't include links to the various blogs he references. That would have increased usability. Not to mention the amount of traffic to my site ;)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I either gotta start tearing people apart more or invent a new advertising movement I guess.

Anonymous said...

tom messner is money. he's our jeremy bullmore.
"who's jeremy bullmore?"

Alan Wolk said...

@MTLB: Re-reading the article this AM, I see that Messner focused on the more bombastic elements of the ad blogging community. Though in fairness, that is the first thing you notice when you start clicking the links on the AdFreak blogroll: a lot of "I can't believe this guy is actually saying that."

It's only later that you get to funny, thoughtful blogs like your own.

@TSR: I'm guessing Mr. Bullmore is some well-known elder statesman of the UK ad community?

Anonymous said...

yes. Jeremy Bullmore writes a weekly column in CAMPAIGN. he was chairman of JWT UK for years. he's wise in a seen-it-all Gandalf way. i just ordered some of his books yesterday. which prompted the comparison with young Tom Messner.

Anonymous said...

"It's only later that you get to funny, thoughtful blogs like your own."

Thanks, but why do I feel like that's the ‘but she has a nice personality’ technorati kiss of death.

;-p

Snark and thought leadership sells blogs these days. (Oh, and flashes of Britney getting in and out of cars.)