This Video Shows "The Birth Of A Book"

eBooks have been increasing in popularity over the last year. In September of 2011, 8 of the top 20 titles on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list were eBooks.

"Any publisher will tell you that a best-selling title from a branded author can run upwards of 30% to 40% in digital sales," Tina Jordan of the Association of American Publishers told USA Today.

But while eBooks take off, there are some shops out there that are still making real honest-to-goodness books. 

Smith Settle, founded in 1981, is one of those shops that still prints and binds books in the traditional style in its Leeds, England.

Below is a beautiful video, produced by London documentarian Glenn Milner, that shows the shop binding Suzanne St. Albans' Mango and Mimosa.

The Guardian Asks How The Three Little Pigs Would Fare In Today's Media

At the beginning of the month, UK newspaper, The Guardian, aired a new spot that examines the role of journalism in a social media world.

AdAge notes that editor Alan Rusbridger wanted to demonstrate how the paper has an open approach to content: readers share ideas with reporters who in turn share with more readers. 

Filmed in a cinematic style, this commercial demonstrates this approach by questioning how the story of the Three Little Pigs would play out in the media today.

Newsweek Gets Mad Men Fever

For over a year and a half, fans of the AMC series Mad Men have been anxiously awaiting the return of Don Draper and the team at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. 

To celebrate the return of the award winning series this Sunday, Newsweek has given their current issue -- on newsstands today -- a Mad Men makeover.


The issue, whose cover proclaims 'Welcome Back to 1965" (the year of season 5 in Mad Men), holds a host of '60s inspired articles. Christopher Buckley tells us the history of the martini. While George Lois, an original Mad Men himself, lets us in on "the art of the sell."

But it's not only just the articles that have a retro spin in this issue. All of the advertisers -- which include AllState, Mercedes-Benz, and British Airways, among others -- also provided retro ads for the issue. 

Is UPS Conspiring Against Kentucky Fans?

A new ad from UPS, is causing some Kentucky fans to put the "mad" in March Madness.

In support of their new "Logistics" campaign, United Parcel Service used footage from the 1992 East Regional Finals where Kentucky faced off against Duke and lost when Christian Laettner made a shot during the last seconds of the games.

While UPS seems to be trying to capitalize on March Madness by using one of the most famous games in college basketball, it has struck a sour chord with Wildcat fans.

As Mike Tuttle explains:
"You have to understand, Kentuckians don’t talk about The Shot. And, anytime we do, it is followed with a spit and a curse. In Wildcat Country, it is like the death of JFK. Every single UK fan old enough to know about that game remembers exactly where they were when it happened."

I Only Buy It For The Articles

People often joke that they only buy Playboy for the articles. Although the magazine has lost some of the status it had during its peak during the latter part of the 20th century, the truth is that Playboy has intelligent and thoughtful content.

From the beginning, Hugh Hefner made sure that there was an emphasis on content as well as naked women.

The literary organization PEN USA honored the legendary publisher for “50 years of support for un-championed writers and of fighting censorship." Jamie Wolf, vice-president of PEN USA, notes that Hefner “published an extraordinary range of writers, serious literary writers who you were not otherwise getting when you went into the grocery store.”

Twitter Subpoena Challenged by Protester

I wrote the following article for my Investigative Reporting class. Our assignment was to write a story about a court case using public records. I chose this case, in part, because it has to do with social media and how it is being used in trials. I will be writing follow up pieces on this case as it unfolds.

Feb. 15 (New York) -- The New York District Attorney’s subpoena of Twitter in the case of Malcolm Harris is too far reaching says the National Lawyers Guild, who issued a motion to quash the subpoena on February 6, 2012.

Martin Stolar, Harris’s attorney through the National Lawyers Guild, wrote in the motion that the subpoena “is overbroad, issued for an improper purpose, and constitutes an abuse of court process.”

The subpoena seeks the content of Harris’s account from two weeks prior to the October 1 incident when he was arrested until two months after the incident, despite the fact that Harris is only charged in relation to the one event.

“Would you like a proposal with your order?”

If you’ve always wanted to be proposed to over a greasy pizza and breadsticks, you’re in luck!

From now until Valentine’s Day, Pizza Hut is offering the Tie the Knot with the $10 Dinner Box promotion on their website for the bargain price of $10,010 plus tax.

This package promotes the new product, a dinner box, which includes a pizza, breadsticks and cinnamon sticks. As if stuffing all of those calorific foods into one box wasn’t enough, Pizza Hut wanted to go a step further.

All Super Bowl Ads, Like Almost Anything Else, Lives In The Shadow Of Apple

As a sophomore at USC, I took my first advertising class. It was a class designed to teach the fundamentals of the industry and how an agency worked. As part of that, we spent a lot of time viewing and critiquing commercials. 

One of the first ads that my professor showed us was Apple's Super Bowl classic "1984."

The AdMeter Tells Us Something About Americans

The Giants won the Super Bowl yesterday, but we had to wait until today to know who were the winners among the game's advertisers. 

Today's AdMeter results show that the viewer's favorite commercial was Dorito's "Sling Baby", followed by Kia's "A Dream Car. For Real Life." and Bud Light's "Weego."

A closer look at the top ten ads reveal something about Americans: we love dogs. Put a dog in a Super Bowl spot and you are sure to have a fan favorite. Every ad that starred a dog made it into the top ten commercials on the AdMeter; that is 4 of the top ten.  

These Scrabble Ads Are _________

The Super Bowl has taken over the advertising industry for the last few weeks. So when stumbled across these ads for Scrabble and they had nothing to do with football, it was a breath of fresh air.

Most print ads are pretty forgettable, or filled with so much product information that it takes away from what message is actually there. But when a print ad is simple and controlled in its messaging, it is really like a piece of art. 

Each of these ads for Hasbro's Scrabble, which were created by Ogilvy in Puerto Rico, is just that. 

Madonna: Not So In Vogue

Ever since the Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, the game organizers have tried to choose performers that were a little more classic - aka tame and controlled. So it seems an odd choice to have Madonna as a performer this year, someone who is almost as famous for her controversial behavior as she is for her music.

When I heard the news, I was a bit confused until I found out that she has both an new album coming out and new movie in theaters right now. Still I like Madonna enough, so it seems like a fun choice.

But according to AdAge and Networked Insights, Super Bowl fans are not excited about Madonna's performance. In fact, 41% actually have negative feelings about her. 

While that may not seem like such a big deal, when it comes to the Super Bowl, this is something to be concerned about, at least if you are an advertiser.

Thank Goodness for Budweiser and Ferris Bueller

Since the 49ers lost to the Giants in the playoffs, the commercials were the only thing I was looking forward to on Super Bowl Sunday. But now that over 50% of advertisers have aired their ads ahead of the game, the Super Bowl doesn't seem quite the event that it was once.

In the past most people were just as excited about seeing the ads on game day as they are about watching the grid iron match. So why would a company choose to air an ad before the Super Bowl when they paid $3.5 million to be a part of it?

The answer is simple: buzz.