Spotlight Features

The dissemination of content throughout the Web has forced companies and marketing firms to rethink how they advertise. The swell of venues that are housing content has dueling effects: It increases the potential reach of an advertisement but also dilutes the customer pool for the original publisher...

It can be a little tricky talking about how and why media outlets allow, and indeed encourage, the diffusion of their content throughout the Web. For starters, people tend to be tightlipped about this strategy. No one from CNN, Fox News, MSNBC or Viacom agreed to speak on the record for this article...

Fitness instructor and personal trainer Yu Hannah Kim has always believed that fitness should be available to anyone. Now, with the launch of her new site, Yufit, she's making that dream a reality. Yufit offers streaming videos for everything from cardio kickboxing and core burn workouts to yoga and...

As far as exclusive interviews go, you could do a lot worse than getting Herman Cain, and a lot worse than getting him on Nov. 28. That was, after all, the day that a woman unleashed accusations of a 13-year affair with Cain, the third racy allegation levied against Cain in a matter of weeks. And th...

When Paul Glover founded Ithaca Hours, a local currency in Ithaca, N.Y., more than 20 years ago, he didn't intend to start a movement. He just wanted to give people in the town a way to invest in their community and each other, even when they didn't have enough traditional dollars to do so. "I saw t...

Travel is, by its nature, an adventure, and alternative travel companies are making it more unpredictable than ever. Want to sleep on an stranger's couch, for instance? There's a company for that: CouchSurfing. "CouchSurfing addresses the human need for connection and delivers inspiring relationship...

It's been difficult in recent years for many people and small businesses to get the loans they need from banks and other traditional lenders, but there are a variety of alternative models. One is person-to-person lending, offered by companies like Prosper, which essentially lets individual people ...

Restaurant owners, dentists, doctors, graphic designers, realtors and everyday people are all doing it: bartering. Though it's an old concept, it's getting a new twist in the world of e-commerce. "This is the new method for an old practice, with e-commerce," said Paul Bocheck, CEO of BarterQuest. Wh...

Stephanie Allen started making and freezing meals for her own family 16 years ago, developing a collection of recipes that worked especially well. The mother of two knew how important it was to plan and make meals ahead. That experience led Allen to cofound Dream Dinners, now a nationwide company th...

Someone in the mood for a steak can always go down to the grocery store or head out to a restaurant to get one. However, some shoppers prefer to stay home, go online, place an order, and wait for a couple of days for a frozen steak to appear on their doorstep, packed tightly in a Styrofoam container...

Cookbooks have always been about sharing recipes, connecting with others and figuring out what to make for dinner. Now, however, digital cookbooks, apps and other new formats are bringing these activities into the 21st century. Chefs and cookbook authors are starting to recognize that cookbooks -- a...

Turkey hotlines revolutionized the way home cooks dealt with kitchen emergencies during Thanksgiving. Now, hotlines are being joined by social media, videos, apps and other twenty-first century ways of solving bird problems. The Butterball Turkey Talk-Line women -- and they are all women -- have bee...

Green IT is not one industry. Instead, it refers to a number of interrelated fields that focus on designing, manufacturing, installing, using and recycling computers, data centers, electronics and other parts and pieces of information systems. And because of its broad reach, it means the possibility...

It might not be as glamorous as some industries, but recycling is booming. The industry supports more than 450,000 jobs for Americans and generates $10.3 billion in revenue for federal, state and local governments -- making it larger than the forestry and fishing industries combined. "It's an incred...

When consumers in California visit the Dunkin' Donuts website hoping to order a bag of their favorite java, they are met with the following message: "Important Notice: We are temporarily suspending the shipment of orders to California while we work to comply with Proposition 65 ... ." Bloggers, comm...