There's been plenty of hand-wringing about the nastiness of comments, particularly anonymous ones, made on ad-industry Web sites. Some feel they make the ad world look silly, juvenile and petty. Ah, but they can also be fun. Check out the battle royale that erupted on AgencySpy in response to an anonymous piece on the best digital shops. This kind of thing is great link/comment bait, but things took an interesting turn when Craig Elimeliah of Freedom and Partners lambasted Firstborn Interactive as being on the decline. That didn't sit well with Michael Ferdman, Elimeliah's former boss at Firstborn. He promised to take the gloves off, and boy did he ever. "Maybe as your boss says you should stop 'jerking off' and actually get down to some work," Ferdman wrote. "Speaking of work ... do you ever actually work or just blog, tweet and pretend to be important all day?" Ouch. Elimeliah answers back, and his new boss joins in, along with cameos by Big Spaceship CEO Michael Lebowitz and Barbarian Group COO Rick Webb. It's a pretty ugly public spat, but the comment critics can't blame anonymity for the bad behavior.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey