Today's Reading

I kept myself occupied on my two hour transit time today with the latest BusinessWeek magazine, despite the best efforts of a magazine thief today.

Cause Marketing -- more and more businesses are trying to secure customers by giving to causes. It's become mandatory in a company's marketing war chest to have money and effort dedicated to adopting giving to popular cause. Why? Being charitable is viewed as a good thing by consumers, who don't have enough time or money to help others -- being able to shop and give at the same time, satisfies consumers -- they're more likely to go out of their way, pay slightly higher prices, to feel good about themselves. For more information on sponsorships, check out the IEG Sponsorship Report.

Online Ad Surge -- today, premium ad space on the big internet portals can cost twice or three times the amount it cost just a year ago, and that's only if advertisers are lucky to land any available premium space. While the ad industry has seen growth of 7.7% a year, the internet has seen growth of 28.8%. Why the growth? Internet ads have matured as technology in the space has matured. Now, ads can be behaviourally targeted; effectiveness can be quantified; and businesses can reach millions of eyeballs -- more so than TV and print.

Microsoft's New Markets -- Microsoft recently made two announcements indicating a shift of resources and another attempt to usurp a rival's market. Firstly, Microsoft has announced a deal with Comcast to offer Microsoft's new cable set-top boxes, loaded with Microsoft software, that aims to be the TiVo killer. Secondly, Microsoft announced the beta-testing of its new MSN search engine, built from scratch and ready to take on Google.

Broadband Over Powerlines -- delivering broadband over electrical powerlines seems inevitable. Electricity travels over powerlines in low-frequencies, leaving the high frequency part of the spectrum free to carry information. It's already expected that broadband could easily hit 3Mb/s on powerlines. Apart from easy access to highspeed anywhere, and instant home networks, there is a huge benefit to the power companies. Suddenly, they would have access to consumption information in real time -- suddenly they will have the ability to manage demand instead of reacting to it; not to mention the ability to proactively manage their networks instead of reacting to problems after they've occurred.