LudoBites 5.0 is a tiny café and located in a dingy corner of Los Angeles' fashion district. Don't expect it to be around much longer -- but that's by design, Alex Cohen reports. It's the fifth iteration of a pop-up eatery that Ludo Lefebvre and his wife Krissy have launched since 2007, when the French-born chef got cold feet about opening a much more traditional restaurant with $2 million that investors were ready to back him with. The prices are lower than they normally would be for fine cuisine, and reservations are hard to come by. The heavily …

Ashlee Vance writes that Intel's $7.68 billion acquisition of the anti-virus software marketer McAfee, as flummoxing as it might seem to investors today, should be viewed as a long-term strategic deal that will give the chipmaker access to more security specialists and the ability to hardwire the tools into its chips. "Eventually the software features will get embedded in the hardware. So maybe this is an expensive way for Intel to acquire domain expertise," says Rodman & Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar. Intel wants to go after the smartphone and consumer electronics segments, which are dominated by rival …

In announcing its new check-in service, Places, on Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg stopped short of discussing monetization plans but left them on the table for another day. In her report, Irina Slutsky talks with Tom Bedecarre, CEO of AKQA, about ideas for the marketplace. Bedecarre compares Places to Foursquare and sees the former creating "another level of engagement with the consumer. If you check into the Gap, let's make a special offer for you," he hypothesizes. "If you check in at 3 p.m. near a Starbucks, it's 'Hey, do you want a special on this latte?' We see your …

Consumers might be snapping up iPads, but their trips to the store to buy shampoo reflect ongoing frugality, reports Ellen Byron. In response, Proctor & Gamble is slashing prices even as it pushes into new territory, including Brazil, India and parts of Africa, where it has long lagged. Among the premium brands P&G has been discounting in recent months are Tide detergent, Charmin toilet paper and Bounty paper towels. In the 12 weeks ended July 10, promotions by P&G and its retailers also knocked down the prices of hair conditioners by 7%, fabric softeners by 6% and liquid laundry …

Matt Robinson reports that more than 90% of TeleBrands' sales now come from major retailers. Drugstore giant CVS says "As Seen on TV" products constitute one of its largest general merchandise categories, and it displays a new item each month at the end of an aisle -- prime retail real estate. Rather than just enticing viewers to pick up the phone and order from a telemarketing center, the TV ads now are used to build the brand before goods are sold at retailers or online, acting as a movie trailer. Traditional advertisers "can't ignore [infomercials] anymore. Before they saw it …

The British brand is going less-mini, introducing Countryman, a crossover SUV that is four inches wide, six inches taller and 16 inches longer than its classic Mini Cooper, reports Paul A. Eisenstein. Why? After a big run-up in 2008, declining fuel prices got American motorists thinking big again. And Mini simply hadn't done much to update the Cooper beyond the addition of a convertible. U.S. sales last year fell from a 2008 peak of 54,000 to just 47,000. So, Mini went looking for a way to not just keep its product fresh but acknowledge American market realities by bulking …

I played left field Sunday behind a third baseman sporting a Deadhead T-shirt. He's an airline pilot in real life. Solid citizen that he truly is, I found myself wondering, with no just cause, if I'd want to be on one of his flights to Roma or Paree. Flashbacks and all that. (These thoughts only occur to one when one's team is getting thrashed.) Anyway, it turns out that the Grateful Dead had two feet solidly planted on the ground, at least when it comes to business, if a new book by marketers David Meerman Scott and Brian …