In 2001, the last time the Internet ad market crashed, the biggest publishers figured one thing they could do to make the best of things is to make it easier for marketers to buy ads on Web sites. They created standard sizes for banner ads and other formats, through the Interactive Advertising Bureau. That way, an ad created for one site could easily be run on others.

Now some publishers, at least, think that those very standards are now at the root of the industry’s current problems.

When I met up with Charles Tillinghast, the president of MSNBC.com, the other day, he was just coming back from an advertising sales call. So I started by asking how business was going.

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In yet another powerful showcase of Twitter’s potential power as a disseminator of information, today several people received the first information via the service that NASA has confirmed that its Phoenix Mars Lander has, in fact, found water on Mars. It’s still not on CNN.com, not on MSNBC.com, not on Fox.com. But a Twitter search query reveals it’s all over Twitter.

As a result of the news spreading quickly through Twitter, it’s also now all over FriendFeed, where some discussions are taking place on the subject. This is the kind of stuff these services are built for.

The water was found in ice-rich soil. Tests confirmed the ice was water-based.

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