Attention Alec Baldwin: Startup YouMail has introduced new features that let users share funny voicemail greetings and messages online.

With limited vacation days and infinite travel destinations to choose from, planning your ideal office escape can be a bit tricky.

Nielsen//NetRatings' elevation of time-spent over page views as its primary Web metric is generally applauded as a step toward improved audience measurement in a Web 2.0 world.

On the Web, chic trumps geek. In 2006, online apparel sales surpassed sales of computers and software for the first time, according to Forrester Research.

The digital SLR camera market is seeing a healthy resurgence, thanks largely to falling prices. This year, with prices dropping to the $500 to $600 range, consumers are expected to purchase 2 million such cameras, up from 1.7 million last year, says Ed Lee, director of consumer services and digital photography trends service at InfoTrends in Weymouth, Mass.

There's no question about it: Yahoo's had a rough 18 months. CEO Terry Semel was ousted, ad chief Wenda Harris Millard left and hopes of purchasing Facebook appear to have been publicly scuttled. And that's on top of other, lesser setbacks: a leaked internal memo analyzing the company's shortcomings, stock declines and rumors of a sale.

When it comes to travel, perhaps more so than any other industry, word-of-mouth is king. Travelers make decisions on where to stay, where to eat, and what to do based on recommendations from friends.

In its push to become the social utility of the future, Facebook has offered marketers unprecedented access to the site and its 30 million members.

Marketers have had a very challenging time trying to figure out how to be relevant in social networking environments. Advertising there should be seen as "something living or breathing that needs to be managed, measured, optimized and renewed," says Denuo's Tim Hanlon.

David Verklin addresses how online media is changing marketing paradigms in his new book, Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here: Inside the 300 Billion Dollar Business Behind the Media You Constantly Consume. In the following excerpt, Verklin and co-author Bernice Kanner examine the blogosphere -looking at the influence that bloggers wield, as well as how large companies are harnessing blogs to promote themselves.