The Economist, one of rare magazines with a thriving print business, debuts today on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The apps for each Apple device will offer a weekly sampling of free articles and the ability purchase the full edition of The Economist beginning each Thursday at 4 p.m. EST for $5.99. Print and digital subscribers will have unrestricted access to the app versions. Once downloaded, each issue is stored on a user's device so it can be read without an Internet connection. Every issue also includes the full audio edition. But it looks like a glitch may …

MySpace and Facebook today announced a new initiative that will allow MySpace users to create a personalized stream of entertainment content by porting the likes and interests from their Facebook profiles over to MySpace. Through the Mashup with Facebook feature people will also be able to program streams based on recommendations and trending topics on MySpace and connect with fans that share the same interests in music, TV, movies and similar areas. The effort builds on MySpace’s Sync with Facebook program launched earlier this year which lets its users sync status updates with their Facebook profile and …

Mobile ad network Jumptap has named Todd Anderman has been named chief media and revenue officer, overseeing relationships with marketers and agencies  as well publishers and app developers. Anderman, who is currently, VP of digital media at Hachette Filipacchi Media, will join Jumptap in January. The ad network in September brought on former Excite CEO and General Catalyst partner George Bell as CEO amid speculation the company was seeking a buyer. Anderman's hiring reflects Bell's stated goal of building up Jumptap's relations with agencies and media buyers as mobile advertising becomes more mainstream.

The Weather Channel, Crisp Wireless and app developer Tring Apps have formed a new group to create an open standard for serving rich media mobile advertising across all devices and platforms. The aim is to streamline mobile advertising by eliminating the need for publishers and developers to work with multiple vendors and SDKs to run campaigns across different mobile operating systems and handsets. The Open Rich Media Mobile Advertising (ORMMA) initiative would develop specifications using existing HTML5 standards to simplify ad-serving and reduce the existing level of fragmentation.

Long-time Fox Broadcasting Co. sales executive Toby Byrne has been named president of sales for the Fox Networks Group, succeeding Jon Nesvig, who will retire at year’s end. Byrne currently is senior vice president of eastern sales. Prior to joining Fox 15 years ago, he was a media buyer at BBDO in New York.

U.S. Hispanics online tend to view Internet ads much more favorably than other consumers, according to a new comScore study. Specifically, 48% expect advertising to be entertaining and 31% enjoy watching ads, compared to 39% and 19%, respectively, for Non-Hispanics. Hispanics were also more likely to recall advertising, with 35%  saying they remembered advertised products when shopping, compared to 22% of other Internet users. The survey also found more than half (52%) of Hispanics online prefer English as their primary language, with 26% choosing bilingual, and 22% opting for Spanish. When it came to Hispanic-themed advertising, about half prefer …

A new forecast from accounting giant BDO predicts that Black Friday sales will gain 3.8%, Cyber Monday sales will increase 2.5%, and that--surprisingly--the humble email will become marketers' weapon of choice on the busiest shopping weekend of the year. "We're really seeing the return of the shopper," Ted Vaughan, partner in BDO's retail and consumer product practice, tells Marketing Daily. "Certainly, there's not going to be an immediate return to pre-recession shopping levels. But we are seeing these slight improvements year over year." Last year, CMOs in the survey forecast of just 1.8% for both of these key shopping …

U.S. Internet advertising revenue reached $6.4 billion in the third quarter, the highest quarterly result to date and a 17% increase from the same period in 2009, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PwC U.S. The third-quarter growth rate exceeded the 11.3% rate for the first half of 2010. Spending for the first nine months of the year totals $18.5 billion. "Advertisers are shifting more of their brand messaging online, accounting for this welcome surge in a difficult economy," said David Silverman, a partner at PwC, in a statement. "This trend reflects the accelerating shift in consumer behavior …

Thanks to robust international sales, Walmart posted higher profits for the third quarter, and even raised its financial forecast for the full year. But it continues to struggle in its U.S. division. Overall, net sales for the third quarter increased 2.6% to $101.2 billion, driven by a hefty 9.3% gain at Walmart International. And income from continuing operations rose to $3.4 billion, from $.3.2 billion in the third quarter last year. But in the U.S., comparable store sales fell 1.3%--the sixth straight quarter of declining sales for the Bentonville, Ark.-based company. Those decreases came both in terms of less …

To continue building broad consumer awareness of the HomeAway brand, the online vacation rental company is returning to the Super Bowl for a second time. The Austin, Texas-based company will break a national ad campaign during the FOX broadcast of Super Bowl XLV on Feb. 6. "This year's Super Bowl spot was a big success, resulting in a significant increase in incremental page views and unique visitors to HomeAway.com," says Brian Sharples, founder and chief executive officer of HomeAway.  "For next year, we have another ambitious campaign that will highlight the benefits of vacation rentals over hotels." …