The Olympics open today in China to a multitude of emotions, including anger from Tibetan, Darfurian, and Burmese human rights activists about China's role in the conflicts in these countries.

So says the analysis of The Wall Street Journal based on a report from Forrester Research-- total cost of the actual report is $379 so I won't be commenting on the complete report.  Shout out to Toby Bloomberg who wrote about this on Diva Marketing The conclusion was that " ... most B2B blogs are “dull, drab, and don’t stimulate discussion.” A few stats from the WSJ article: 74% rarely get comments

I just read Julie Creswell's piece, "Nothing Sells Like Celebrity" in the Times this morning about the power celebrity endorsements have in the marketplace. It proved the effectiveness of these endorsements for raising awareness, even breathing new life into new brands.

Hey, it's Earth Month, have you heard? Thank goodness we only have to think about the little rock we cling to that sustains our lives for one month out of the year. In May we can move on to my favorite, Asteroid Belt Month.

Think about the last time you did something for a cause. Maybe you gave them money. Maybe you did a walk. Maybe you signed a petition. Why did you do it?

Back in 2005, at the very first BlogHer conference I was asked to introduce BlogHer's Press and Discussion Policy for bloggers who would undoubtably be taking pictures and live-blogging throughout the event. I was also going to moderate our very first Naked Blogging Panel, with Ronni Bennett, Koan Bremner (who has taken her blog, Multidimensional Me, down since then), and Heather Armstrong.

The next report card at the Red Bug Elementary School,and for that matter all the other elementary schools in Seminole County,Florida will not double as a free coupon for a Happy Meal. The fact that The Red Bug Elementary School had a McDonald's report card is all part of a trend that is putting advertising everywhere including: School buses, police cars, the stripes in parking lots, and PDF files.

Marketing is suffering from an identity crisis. It's one of those every day activities that is critical for a businesses' success and yet very few people can agree exactly what it is. It's a funny thing about marketing. Lots of people go to college and major in marketing. Lots of people have jobs with the title of director of marketing, Lots of people have consulting firms to help other businesses with their marketing,and goodness knows there's a healthy genre of blogs devoted to marketing.

My feelings on the always-blossoming relationship between PR people and bloggers, has been well documented on this site. In case you've missed it, it comes down to marketers finding people in a certain niche catering to the demographic they hope to woo. Offers are made, usually in the direction of more influential and well-read blogs, to have a product reviewed in hopes of garnering some traffic and buzz for the brand. I’m sure there is an exact science to all of this and it’s a numbers game at best.

When I was growing up, I was always a bit jealous of--if also a little perplexed by--the practice of parents "paying" their children for good grades on report cards. For example, an A earns you $10, a B $5. I'm considerably more perplexed by the latest way of rewarding students for good grades: McDonald's has struck a deal with a Florida district to give fat-laden beef patties on crappy rolls to elementary school kids who earn top grades and who have good attendance. Connie Bennett explains:

“Until the rise of American advertising, it never occurred to anyone anywhere in the world that the teenager was a captive in a hostile world of adults.” --Gore Vidal