The Internet is too often viewed as inventory, as a place where brands pay for the privilege of being adjacent to content. The marketer, once at the mercy of a locked-up media landscape, can now be a player in it. In other words, marketers can build websites that do cool, useful stuff. Matt Freeman, CEO of Tribal DDB cites Pepsi, one of Tribal's clients, as an example of a company that could be a giant media player if it wanted.

Amazon has captured 3 percent of the digital download market since its music download store launched to little fanfare in September. The store did force Apple to drop the prices on its DRM-free music to the standard 99 cents, but it's had little impact besides that. Amazon certainly has the name recognition to make a store work, but with iTunes and the iPod so overwhelmingly in control of the music player market, it will be a tough sell to get the average iPod owner to download a song from Amazon, copy it into iTunes and then load it on his iPod. Three steps to get a song versus one step with iTunes? Apple actually licensed Amazon's 1-Click technology for the iTunes Store. Too bad Jeff Bezos has forgotten what he taught Steve Jobs.