Ford instantly earned the admiration and appreciation of consumers by declining to take any of the $17.4 billion the government is giving Detroit. The Twitterverse -- first time I've seen that -- "was abuzz with people expressing their gratitude for Ford and their delight in being Ford owners," writes Michael Bush. The automaker says it needs a $9 billion line of credit that it will only touch if the economy were to get dramatically worse. In addition, "Ford has been really smart about supporting the bailout package for their rivals," says Doug Spong, president of Carmichael Lynch …

Surprise, surprise. Here's one that has child development experts lining up on the opposite side of market forces: Feed the $59.99 the animatronic Baby Alive some "bananas," put her on her potty, press her bracelet and listen to her say, "Sniff, sniff. I made a stinky!" (Sometimes she has an accident before she gets to the toilet, which is why, I suppose, the attorneys lined up on the side of including the following warning on the back of the box: "May stain some surfaces.") "For us, the peeing and pooping is pretty magical," said Kathleen Harrington, senior …

Google says the iPod touch is its most searched-for product after Nintendo's Wii games console and Wii Fit game, while the Lycos search engine has iPod as its top search, Chris Nuttall and Richard Waters report. Amazon's electronics bestseller list has six iPods in its top 20, including all three versions of the touch.

In return for an extensive restructuring of its outstanding debt and labor costs, U.S. automakers will receive emergency loans of up to $17.4 billion from the federal government, President Bush says. The federal aid is meant only to keep them afloat while the companies decide how to restructure and prove that they can become viable, according to the president. He set a March 31 deadline. Funds for the loans will come from the Troubled Asset Relief Program initially set up to aid the financial industry, with $13.4 billion available now and an additional $4 billion available in February, David Cho, …

Marilyn O'Connell, CMO of Verizon's landline unit and a key player in its FiOS rollout, is retiring after 24 years at the company and its predecessors. She joined GTE in 1984 as a marketing manager and worked her way up after GTE merged with Bell Atlantic, forming Verizon. Verizon says it will name her successor shortly. Verizon's earnings primarily derive from growth in the company's wireless business. The landline unit has suffered as consumers continue to drop their home phone lines, Amol Sharma reports, but FiOS has shown great promise. FiOS is a fiber-optic TV and Internet network that …

In the "Is nothing sacred?" department, Eve Tahmincioglu gives us a story on the Christmas Tree Wars, and the ersatz variety is evidently coming on stronger than ever. There's a long anecdotal lede about a fellow in Arizona who broke down and bought a $700 fake tree with pre-installed lights two years after he almost burned down his house trying to dispose of a spent pine in his fireplace. This chap's own Twitter research found sentiment running 17 - 8 in favor of the fakes. Big-time data are convincing, too. In 2007, 17.4 million people bought artificial Christmas trees …

It seemed like a good idea when FedEx bought Kinko's for $2.4 billion, way back in 2004, but the marriage has become a case study in the challenges of meshing disparate corporate cultures, according to writer Christopher Palmeri. Kinko's profits have fallen from more than $100 million in 2004 to $45 million in 2007; revenue is flat at $2 billion. A perception that customer service is poor, a malaise that predates the FedEx takeover, is one roadblock to growth the company is trying to get around. Some longtime customers are upset that the Kinko's sign will be …

"Marley & Me," the film about a rambunctious pooch and opening Christmas Day, has Purina digging into its first major branded-entertainment partnership, Jeremy Mullman reports. The movie, from 20th Century Fox, stars Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson. In one early scene in the film, Marley tips over a giant bag of Puppy Chow and hovers over its contents. But the deal goes well beyond product placement and includes integrations in nearly every communication for the brands, including a contest in which consumers can get videos of their own rascally dogs (longliveyourdog.com) included on the "Marley & Me" DVD, which …