A dozen issues of The New Yorker. January and February's National Geographic. Several dog-eared editions of Rolling Stone. You meant to get to them all, really. But things happen. You've fallen drastically behind.

"It's a well-known fact that the Greater Good and the Greater Profit are not compatible aims" - among the many powerful aphorisms populating Yann Martel's The Life of Pi, few pack more punch than this explanation of a family zoo closing in India. Unless you've been irreparably indoctrinated by Jack Welch, you've been there, stuck at the trailhead where your ideals diverge from the route of steady income. Wander left or right, and you probably wake from fitful slumbers wondering why in god's holy name you took …

Not content to merely rep environmental clients or satisfied with bathing abusers in an emerald glow, interactive agency imc2 hopes to open the dialogue about so-called "green" marketing. The agency began this dialogue with its clients with its broad "Positive Impact Report," part of an in-depth discussion about five factors the execs feel are key to change: economic, people, services, society and environment.

Ever since Jaws made everyone afraid to go in the water, it's been hard to garner much sympathy for sharks, but the story of squalene, often squeezed from their livers, might do it. Earlier this year, Unilever moved to stop using animal-based squalene in its skin and hair care products. Best-selling brands Dove and Pond's will now be Bruce-free.

Maybe it should have been called project Submarine. Submerged in secrecy during the latter half of 2007, the cryptically monikered Project Canoe surfaced as a real, well-funded industry-wide initiative this winter, when Comcast announced that it would invest between $50 million and $70 million to float the establishment of a standard interactive advertising platform. When completed, Canoe would replace the technologically isolated "kayaks" of the top MSOs with a single simplified system for executing national cable-ad purchasing. The system would not only enable advertisers to easily transverse myriad cable systems to transmit their spots nationally or across DMAs, but would …

Stop the presses: Hanes' new advertising spots have dared to go where no lingerie company has gone before. Get ready: They're playing on women's insecurities.

It's 9:00 p.m. - do you know where the eyeballs are? If you said watching prime time, there is a very good chance you would be wrong. Recent statistics show that people are now spending as much, if not more, time online as they are in front of the television. Yet the Internet continues to be a neglected medium when it comes to brand marketing. Over and over again, brands are failing to engage consumers. In spite of the beautiful tools and platforms for creativity that technology and new media offer, most brands struggle to deliver truly groundbreaking and compelling …

Talk radio, never known as a visual medium, is getting an influx of virtual reality. Listeners are creating their own online avatars that talk back to on-air talent. Using the Voki platform developed by Oddcast, audiences go online and choose personas, which lip-synch comments.

The act of the old world embracing the newest of new media isn't just about blogs anymore. In the past month, CNN, Fast Company and even General Motors embraced Web 2.0 with a big, warm hug, inviting the people to upload video, create blogs, relay anecdotes and perhaps wreak mayhem on the nice, controlled corporate-owned sites of yore.

Fly into any of the three New York City area airports - LaGuardia, John F. Kennedy or Newark Liberty International - and the first thing you'll see as your plane taxis up to the gate is, no, not your five-year-old waving through the window, but ads. On the outside of the jet bridge is a bright red HSBC logo. Walk through the jet bridge and you'll see panel ads for the international bank on both sides of the wall.