Catching Up With The 'Shoe

The Horseshoe took a much-needed rest during and after finals. Now that classes are back in swing, the posts will continue on a regular basis. Here are some of the items that caught my attention in recent weeks.

-- "Authenticity Over Exaggeration: The New Rule In Advertising" at HBS' Working Knowledge. "In this new reality, it's the consumer who runs the show for the most part, not the marketer—in fact, forget the 'consumer' label altogether. It's too limiting."

-- Nielsen will offer a service to help companies ensure that videos are being distributed and viewed online in legal, sanctioned ways.

-- Ford and GM (Saturn) working to overcome their hybrid gaps.

-- Sony BMG will join the other three major music groups by dropping DRM from its downloads. The first retailer to get Sony BMG's tracks will reportedly be Amazon.com, which will be the first online store to get DRM-free tracks from Warner Music Group. I thought it would take more time for all four majors to drop DRM, so hats off to them for ditching an anti-piracy policy that has limited growth in digital music sales.

-- Wal-Mart had its tax shelter case dismissed by a North Carolina court. In a nutshell, Wal-Mart used two real estate investment trust it owned to pay itself rent and deducted those rent payments when calculating state taxes.