Ian Lurie is Chief Marketing Curmudgeon and President at Portent Interactive, a firm he started in 1995. If you want to make him curl up in a ball, you can say "social media" or "web 2.0" 3-4 times per minute.

Ian's built his firm, his blog and his career around the idea that the internet is a fantastic marketing medium, but that it hasn't fundamentally changed the rules of successful marketing: Media access, a great message, well-crafted content and careful analysis will always win out.

Ian recently co-published the Web Marketing for Dummies All In One Desk Reference. He's the author of Conversation Marketing, the blog (at www.conversationmarketing.com) and the book by the same name.