Lady Speed Stick has signed on as the first-ever presenting sponsor of the More Magazine/Fitness Magazine Women’s Half Marathon, the nation’s largest women’s-only half marathon, per the company. Silk Soymilk and Oakley are also product sponsors for the race this year with WPIX joining as media partner. The race, in Central Park on April 25, will be hosted by “Sex and the City� actress Kristin Davis and is expected to bring in some 10,000 plus runners, per a race-organizer spokesperson.--Karl Greenberg

Lady Speed Stick has signed on as the first-ever presenting sponsor of the More Magazine/Fitness Magazine Women’s Half Marathon, the nation’s largest women’s-only half marathon, per the company. Silk Soymilk and Oakley are also product sponsors for the race this year with WPIX joining as media partner. The race, in Central Park on April 25, will be hosted by “Sex and the City� actress Kristin Davis, and is expected to bring in some 10,000 plus runners, per a race-organizer spokesperson.

In support of the NBA playoffs, which tip off on April 17, the NBA will launch a slate of postseason promotions to drive television viewership and digital consumption. Two new campaigns: “Amazing is …â€� and “Pobre Garganta (There Goes Your Voice)â€� are under the Where Amazing Happens and éne•bé•a brand communication platforms, respectively. The push will feature executions for television, radio, print, digital, and in-arena. NBA Digital will feature extensive pre- and post-game coverage on NBA TV and unique user-generated content on NBA.com. The “Amazing is...â€� campaign builds on the 2009-10 NBA regular season “Wordsâ€� activation. Each playoff …

Even without Twitter’s grand monetization model, the platform is lining the pockets of popular Tweeters. Indie rock band Hypnogaja, for instance, just parlayed it 1.2 million Twitter followers into $3,500 by plugging two aspiring musical acts, Daughtry and Boys Like Girls. Hypnogaja’s keyboardist Mark Nubar Donikian “is one of a growing number of entrepreneurs cashing in on their Twitter popularity,â€� The L.A. Times explains. But they’re not doing it entirely on their own. Rather, “They got the cash from Beverly Hills Ad.ly, a business that solicits Twitter promotions.â€� Ad.ly is part of a new breed of “brokerage firmsâ€� that …

Could President Barack Obama's plan to abandon a manned mission to the moon spur U.S. brands to step up and sponsor shuttle fights? Many say "yes," during casual conversation with some search marketing exec from well-know major brands at the Search Insider Summit in Captiva Fla., Thursday.

Social network platform provider Ning is doing away with its free product, and, in turn, “forcing existing free networks to either make the change to premium accounts or migrate their networks elsewhere,â€� TechCrunch reports. What’s more, Jason Rosenthal -- who only last month replaced Gina Bianchini as CEO -- says the company has to cut nearly 70 employees -- or more than 40% of its staff. “Our Premium Ning Networks like Friends or Enemies, Linkin Park, Shred or Die, Pickens Plan, and tens of thousands of others both drive 75% of our monthly US traffic, and those Network Creators …

Call if Wi-Fi Everywhere for New Yorkers: Cablevision Systems Corp., Comcast Corporation and Time Warner Cable are teaming up to provide customers of any of the operators access to Wi-Fi hotspots across the New York City metro area. The reciprocal agreements will allow authenticated users to go online through thousands of Wi-Fi locations throughout the region, chiefly via Cablevision’s Optimum WiFi service. Time Warner offers Wi-Fi service in several parks and some Long Island Railroad platforms and their respective parking lots in the company's service area. Cablevision and Comcast already had an agreement in effect, covering part …

Foursquare is getting a new chief product officer in Alex Rainert, who -- along with Foursquare founder and CEO Dennis Crowley -- co-founded Dodgeball back in 2000. Google bought Dodgeball -- which let users share their location with friends via text message -- in mid-2005, before shutting it down in early 2009. “We’ve got a bunch (a ton?) of things we want to do, some of which you’ll see pretty soon,â€� Rainert blogged regarding his appointment. Top VC’s are reportedly scrapping for a piece of Foursquare, which they’re now valuating at $100 million. Meanwhile, Kevin Rose, co-founder of …

Platforms like the iPhone and Twitter are becoming control freaks, says Digital Beat, and it knows why. “It looks like the platforms are eager to take over what appear to be lucrative business opportunities … developers helped to build,â€� it writes. “It may be that wresting back control from the [developer] stakeholders is imperative if a platform is to grow.â€� In other works, “Companies are recognizing that while the open nature of the web has been a great contributor to their growth, they need to erect entry barriers one way or the other to limit competition if they want …

MediaPost kicked off the Search Insider Summit at Captiva, Fla., Thursday. I had a chance to speak with Gian Fulgoni, comScore chairman and co-founder, who pointed to the recent 2009 data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau to provide perspective on industry trends that began to emerge in the first quarter of 2010. "In the fourth quarter search only grew 4% from a year ago, while display grew 15%," he says. "Spending on display ads, for some reason, grew four times faster than search, which raises interesting questions on the types of advertisers that are spending money." Search revenue rose …