• It’s clever, it’s funny, it’s absurdist, and it’s a talker. That, to us, is a total winner. “Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady.” Best. Commercial. Ever. Also worth watching: This related ad.

• They won’t do titles other than their most popular unless Adobe and Apple get along. Later this year, you can expect issues of Wired, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Glamour to hit the iPad in an “experimental” format. But it won’t go beyond that unless Apple can reach an accord with Adobe, because two development tracks is kind of a pain. They do have some encouraging numbers working in their favor. 22,000 people paid $2.99 for an iPhone-formatted version of GQ. source

• If it was a choice today between Plan A, which is what we’ve got, or Plan B, which is the Senate bill, I would vote for the Senate bill. But I would much rather see a Plan C that really attacks costs, and I think that’s what the American public wants to see.
• Super-investor and overall smart guy Warren Buffett • Regarding the current state of health care, which he says is damaging the possibility of a clean economic recovery. “It’s like a tapeworm eating at our economic body,” he said. That’s like the coolest quote ever. He also called the 2008 financial crisis an “economic Pearl Harbor,” but said that we will eventually win the war. We economically like the way this guy talks. source

• He’s a Democrat, but wait, so’s she! Bill Halter, the Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas, just announced a Senate run. He’ll be running in the primary against Blanche Lincoln, whose poll numbers are sagging at the moment. Lincoln, by the way, voted for the health care bill, but was one of the moderates who pushed against the public option. Halter, a former Clinton staffer, seems more likely to support health care based on this video. source

• Good news, everyone! Fans of reading Associated Press stories now have a lot to look forward to with the iPad. They plan to charge readers for some stories with an app on the device. If we could make a suggestion: Don’t charge for the blades – charge for the razors. And make the razors unlike anything else already on the market. We know it inverts the Gillette model, but it’s also the only way anyone’s not just going to open up a Web browser and grab your news that way. Unless you have a better idea. source

• 1st The House would pass the Senate health-care bill without any changes.
• 2nd A bill of changes to the current bill would go between both chambers of Congress.
• 3rd The reconciled bill would then go before the Senate with a simple majority vote.
• 4th Obama signs it, and the Tea Party has a national
  day of mourning. *sob* source

• It’s not something that I can see happening on the basis of the past.
• Velvet Underground bassist John Cale • On the possibility of the band reuniting. It’s something that won’t happen, among other reasons, because of the death of Sterling Morrison. “If I said that was something I was intrigued by,” he noted, “people would think I was cynical.” He noted that he only keeps in touch with surviving members Lou Reed and Maureen Tucker on a professional basis, because the Velvets are kind of a cash cow these days – something you can’t really say about them back in the day. source

• Ah, studies! The things we love! The Pew Internet and American Life project just released a really interesting study about readership habits, with the key point being that online news is a huge chunk of readership nowadays. Here are a few key numbers and points, because we know that you guys like it when we do that for you:

The overall key number from this study:

• 59%like getting news on AND off the Web

We like mixing mediums:

• 92% get their news from multiple media platforms daily (as many as six)
• 2% get their news solely online – we call these people early adopters

Who reads what, where?:

• 78% like to get news from a local TV station
• 61% like getting their news on the Internet
• 50% still like reading news in a local newspaper

Online usage habits:

• variety Most people don’t have favorites. 65 percent don’t have a preferred site for their information.
• national Local news isn’t read so much online – weather and national news are much more popular.
• social Talkers are a big driver of news – three-quarters of people get news via e-mail or social media.

Lessons to take:

• » Newspapers need to focus on local: Many newspapers already do so. It’s their bread and butter, and the journalism they offer is still valuable. Readers agree, which is why they still prefer newspapers and TV for local news.
• » Can’t stop the Web: Online news is already ingrained into the public consciousness, and much of it is grabbed through social media. And it’s decentralized reading too. No point trying to plug it up at this point. In fact, it’s grabbing a massive hold on mobile phones, too.
• » People like talking about news: 72 percent of news-readers say that journalism is a social experience – they read because they like talking about it. Online, this means that social media needs to be a huge part of news-distribution efforts. source