Toyota is launching a web series featuring standup comics as part of its Toyota Autobiography social media program. The new video series, "Standup Stories" has six comedians riffing on a "My First Ride" theme. The videos have the comics performing in front of a live audience of some 75 people at Hollywood's Improv comedy club. Break Media's Creative Lab, Toyota, and Saatchi & Saatchi led the creative process on the project. It is directed by Emmy award-winner Rocco Urbisci. The comics featured are Bret Ernst, Dean Edwards, Ian Bagg, Daryl Wright, and Carlie & Doni. 

The first video …

Conde  Nast said the editorial headquarters of Bon Appetit magazine is moving from California to New York later this year, and that Barbara Fairchild  will concurrently step down as editor-in-chief, at which time a new editor-in-chief will be named.

Google's Doubleclick released a list of the top 1,000 sites worldwide for August, based on unique visitors, as measured by Ad Planner. The list, updated monthly, ranks Facebook, No. 1; YouTube, No. 2; Yahoo, No. 3; Live, No. 4; and Wikipedia No. 5. It's interesting to note that Badiu falls at No. 8; Bing, No. 13; and Twitter, No. 15. The list shows unique visitors and page views for the month

To help lead its push into professional content, YouTube today formally announced the hiring of former Netflix exec Robert Kyncl as its new global head of TV and Film entertainment. In his new role, Kyncl is responsible building up YouTube's partnerships with Hollywood as well as overseeing existing relationships across the film studios, TV networks, talent agencies and new media companies. YouTube also named cable industry veteran Dean Gilbert as global head of content.

T-Mobile USA Friday provided some clarification of its reported plans to impose a new charge on businesses that send text messages to subscribers of a quarter of one cent starting Oct. 1. T-Mobile said the rate change will only apply to mobile aggregators--the companies that act as middlemen between marketers and wireless operators--and not companies that have direct relationships, including Twitter and Facebook. (Twitter also confirmed it hadn't received notice of any text rate increase from T-Mobile and has direct deals with all U.S. carriers.) That means no "Twitter tax." The carrier also said in a statement that …

Mobile apps advertising will rocket to more than $8 billion in five years -- this according to a recent Borrell Associates forecast. Part of this comes from the growth in receiving mobile ad messaging across a broader range of electronic devices, according to the Williamsburg, VA-based media researcher. Right now Borrell says one in every five computing devices can receive mobile app advertising in 2010. But that this will triple to three in five devices by 2015. Fifteen percent of the $8 billion business, or $1.2 billion, will come from local advertising. This year will end with $305 …

ABC is teaming up with Nielsen to launch a new iPad app that will enable TV viewers to "enhance" how they watch the network's " new prime-time drama My Generation"  with interactive and social media features, but which will also enable Nielsen to automatically insert digital "watermarks" to detect the download users' behavior. The move is also an interesting diversification play by Nielsen, which appears to be expanding beyond its core mission of measuring audience behavior, to becoming a technology platform provider.

What if Google Search became the social network rather than a portal on the Web like Facebook or Twitter. Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been quoted by analysts as wanting to take full advantage of the technologies by tying them together. Rather than launch a formal application, recent events could suggest Google's social network -- Google Me -- really ties together the Web as THE social network. That's something I described in July. Now Reuters reports Google CEO Eric Schmidt, speaking to press during the company-sponsored Zeitgeist 2010 conference, described plans to "take Google's core products and …

Wal-Mart Stores has been candid about its mistakes in the way it pared back assortment in recent months, and in a presentation for investors, Bill Simon, CEO of its U.S. division, shed some light on how the retailer is hoping to win back the shoppers it sent away. While the higher-income shoppers who discovered Walmart during the recession are still roaming its aisles, "the traffic loss is in the middle and toward the lower end of the business, and that's primarily from the assortment issues," he told those attending the Goldman Sachs Seventeenth Annual Retailing Conference, noting that high …

On the heels of the new fall prime-time TV season, CBS marketing maestro George Schweitzer has just unveiled its next "first" in network promotional marketing: a first-ever advertising "outsert" on Parade magazine. The Sept. 19th edtion of Parade's annual fall entertainment issue, which feature the inaugural outsert promoting CBS' new fall lineup, as well as CBS ad inserts embedded into popular sections of the Sunday supplement magazine. One insert has been fashioned to look like “Personality Parade”, the popular Q&A feature page published by PARADE since 1958.  The ad features fun questions and answers about the cast and …