Amazon girds for hacktivists attack today as WikiLeaks cyberwar rattles prospective targets.

Apple's iPad makes inroads with medical companies.

Borders’ bid for Barnes & Noble raises questions about future of book retailing.

Crayola expands from crayons to digital.

Dean Foods faces challenges to dairy empire.

Dr Pepper Snapple expands Sun Drop soda.

F1 moves to greener engines to gooses sponsorships.Continue reading...

In what appears to be the biggest coordinated cyber-siege on brands to date, supporters of embattled WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange have staged an unprecedented chain of online attacks on brands that have stopped doing business with WikiLeaks.

MasterCard's site was targeted and knocked offline this morning following denial of service attacks on Amazon.com, PostFinance and EveryDNS — and PayPal, which clarified why it's restricting WikiLeaks but released its remaining funds today, following an exec's comments at a tech conference in Paris.

Those sites had dropped WikiLeaks in the wake of the thousands of leaked U.S. State Department cables distributed by WikiLeaks last week. MasterCard said the attack didn't affect customers' ability to use their cards, although the BBC heard otherwise.

Next in line for web takedown by the Operation Payback hacktivists: Visa, which (like MasterCard), was attacked after cutting ties with WikiLeaks.Continue reading...

ABC's Dancing With the Stars crowns actress Jennifer Grey over Bristol Palin. 

AT&T offers "buy one get one" Black Friday deal (vs. Amazon's $50 each) on Windows Phone.

Bruce Willis pitches Russia's National Bank Trust.

CBS wins November TV sweeps in a big way.

Chrysler plans major upgrade of Indiana operations after President Obama's visit.

Cracker Barrel rides customer-service initiative.

Fox to use Hulu inventory for advertiser “make-goods.”Continue reading...

Apple announces Black Friday sale.

BP's $2 billion Gulf compensation fund fails to quell critics.

Citi launches "financial capability" site to educate consumers.

Coty is buying Philosophy, one of of Oprah's "Ultimate Favorite Things" brands.

Disney's video games chief steps down.

Gawker forced to remove Sarah Palin book excerpts.

GM plans 100-dealer network for Baojun in China.Continue reading...

No doubt, a lot of energy and thought already have been expended on the question of whether Bristol Palin “deserves” to be a finalist in the Dancing With the Stars competition that climaxes tonight. But before we move on to the next celebrity-brand tempest in a teapot, ponder this: Isn’t ABC getting exactly what it wants?Continue reading...

The blogosphere is agog and the web is abuzz with discussions (and head-scratching) of how Bristol Palin possibly could have felled Brandy last night and leapt into next week's finals of Dancing with the Stars — despite the fact that Palin’s dancing is continually judged inferior to that of the other celebrities who remain in the competition.

Is there some kind of post-election political vibe going on that involves Tea Party voters who are still ticked off that all of Sarah Palin’s candidates didn’t win their races? Is the tide of supporting phone and TXT votes for Bristol Palin coming from an underground of simpatico “just-like-me” non-dancers? Or are the show’s vote-tallying computers simply getting things wrong?

The answer is: none of the above.Continue reading...

The latest chapter in Brand Palin's ascendance — Sarah Palin's Dancing With the Stars contender "BPalin" (aka daughter Bristol) and her season 11 rival "Sitch" (that would be The Situation of MTV's Jersey Shore fame) have teamed up on a new public service announcement for the Candie's Foundation.

Promoting safe sex and warning against teen pregnancy, the duo play off his image as a stud and hers as a teen mom in a PSA that should come with another warning (for bad acting). The shoe brand's philanthropic arm has worked with Palin for the past year and a half, according to a press release.

Regardless of whether you rave about or revile her politics — and there seems to be little sentiment in between — it’s hard to argue that Sarah Palin is doing much wrong these days in promoting herself for future glory, whatever that might be.

Indeed, the debut of Sarah Palin’s Alaska last night on America's TLC channel — the most-watched debut in the cable network's history, with 5 million viewers — was only the latest manifestation of her surprisingly prolific personal brand.Continue reading...