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Of the hottest 21st-century tourist destinations in Mexico, Oaxaca City, officially called Oaxaca de Juárez, is also the most urban. This vibrant city of about 260,000 still feels surprisingly authentic for a place that has been so “discovered” of late. Perhaps no small city better embodies the bundle of contrasts that is modern Mexico, with a commingling of sights, smells, and sounds both ancient and new. You’ll hear the singsong strains of Zapotec, Mixtec, and other native languages in the markets, Spanish rock in the bars and restaurants, and hip-hop in English blaring from passing cars. Scions of affluent families sip tea or tequila in classy restaurants; out on the streets, men, women, and children of significantly more modest means sell pencils, sweets, and ears of delicious grilled elote (corn) — and let’s not forget the plethora of often bohemian, savvier-than-average American tourists who roam the streets.

Spreading south and east from Oaxaca City, the Valles Centrales, or Central Valleys, are well worth exploring. You could easily fill a week visiting the dozens of villages here. Looking for colonial-era splendor? There are charming squares dominated by graceful churches in Ocotlán and Santa Ana del Valle, to name but two. Unique crafts? San Bartolo Coyotepec is known for its beautiful barro negro, or black pottery, made without the benefit of a pottery wheel, while in Teotitlán del Valle the streets are lined with shops selling tapetes, the woven wool rugs that are known all around Mexico. Colorful markets? Take your pick. There are outdoor markets each day of the week, and each is different. In Zaachila, for example, you could pick up some animals — either small carvings or the real thing. Best of all, most markets are geared toward locals, so you really get a sense of each village.

Oaxaca’s 520-km (322-mi) coastline is one of Mexico’s last Pacific frontiers. The town of Puerto Escondido has long been prime territory for international surfers. Its pedestrian walkways, crowded with open-air seafood restaurants, shops, and cafés, is indeed lively, but also incredibly relaxed. Fishing boats pull double duty as water taxis, ferrying folks to lovely scallops of sand up the coast. Across the highway, the “real” town above provides a look at local life and a dazzling view of the coast.

No matter where you hole up along Mexico’s southern Pacific coast, you’ll find that it’s all about the beach, the water, and the waves. Surfers and bodysurfers whoop it up at Zicatela and less famous breaks; snorkelers hug rocky coves in search of new and unusual specimens; and divers share the depths with dolphins, rays, eels, and schools of fish instead of shoals of other humans. Friendly locals, superb vistas, and first-rate beaches combine to make Oaxaca’s coast a stunner.

MySpace Debuts $3 Million Web Series: Electric Farm’s ‘Afterworld’ - With a $3 million production budget, “Afterworld” marks the most expensive gamble any media company has made on MySpace–instead of charging a licensing fee, producer Electric Farm will get a cut of the ad revenue generated from the show.                          

Web Analytics Association Sets Measurement Standards - The WAA released 26 standard definitions for Web site traffic measurement and analysis, aimed at eliminating the confusion around the most basic Web analytics terms.

Content Replaces Communications As Primary Web Use - According to the Online Publishers Association, Internet users are spending nearly half their online time visiting content, a 37% increase in share of time from four years ago. The Internet Activity Index, conducted by Nielsen//NetRatings, shows that communications accounted for 46% of consumers’ time online in 2003. A dramatic shift has taken place since then, with consumers now spending 47% of their time with content and only 33% with communication.                

Sizing Up Apparel Online - According to “The State of Retailing Online 2007,” a report sponsored by Shop.org and conducted by Forrester Research, US online sales of apparel, footwear and accessories (excluding jewelry) will reach $22.1 billion in 2007, a 21% increase over 2006. Of the three categories, apparel generated the most sales last year at $9.6 billion.           

SoundExchange Offers Web Radio Another Reprieve - SoundExchange, the music royalty board set up by the federal government, will limit the fees imposed on Web radio stations that offer more than 100 channels to consumers to $50K per year. Representatives from radio companies agreed this was a positive first step in repairing relations with the royalty overseer. SoundExchange sets the royalty rates that terrestrial and Internet radio companies must pay artists and labels for broadcasting their music.       

Eye-Tracking Study: Online Ads Don’t Work - An eye-tracking study from Jakob Nielsen reveals what many marketers have long known: Web users have trained their eyes to move directly towards content, away from ads. As a result, ads need to look more like content, right? Unfortunately you can’t really do that on the Web like you can in say, a print magazine. So what are advertisers to do?             

How Microsoft Can Get Better At Search - Paul Bennett analyzes the July U.S. Search Market Share data report from Hitwise, focusing on some steps Microsoft can take to beef up its search offering, as the company gave up 3% of market share year-over-year — directly to Google. Bennett discusses how an oft-rumored merger between Microsoft and Yahoo would have to be structured to make any impact on Google’s search domination (as the two combined would still only have half of Google’s market share), as well as what Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s corporate vice president, has said about “reconceptualizing” the MSN search interface to gain users.           

GSI Commerce Inc. (Nasdaq: GSIC) has agreed to acquire Accretive Commerce Inc. - GSI Commerce Inc. (Nasdaq: GSIC) has agreed to acquire Accretive Commerce Inc. (f.k.a. NewRoads), a Huntersville, N.C.-based provider of outsourced ecommerce solutions. Accretive Commerce raised a $76 million venture capital round in 2000 from Accretive Technology Partners and DB Capital. Under the definitive agreement, which has been approved by the board of directors of both companies, GSI will acquire Accretive Commerce for $97.5 million in cash. As of August 4, 2007 (Accretive Commerce 2007 fiscal July end), Accretive Commerce had cash and marketable securities, net of debt, of $6.4 million. On a trailing 12-month basis through June 30, 2007, Accretive Commerce recorded net revenue of $83.6 million, income from operations of $4.9 million and adjusted EBITDA of $6.5 million.

ESPN Acquires Rugby Site Scrum.com - Two months after buying cricket news Cricinfo, ESPN has bought rugby info site Scrum.com, Reuters reported. Scrum.com claims to attract as many as 500,000 visitors each month at the height of the rugby season. ESPN will get an immediate shot in the arm from the purchase as the Rugby World Cup, held every four years, is taking place in France this September and October and is likely to bring significantly more eyeballs to Scrum.com.           

AKQA Buys SearchRev; More Deals To Come - The independent digital agency’s CEO Tom Bedecarre says the acquisition is likely the first of many as it plans to create a full suite of services in the areas of search, media and mobile.      

DivX Acquires Video Search Startup Veatros For $4.25 Million; Invests $3.5 Million in DeviantArt - DivX (Nadsdaq: DIVX), the video codec firm, has bought Veatros, a Kansas-based startup spun out of University of Kansas. Veatros’s technology is designed to conduct real-time digital video processing and will be used by DivX primarily for producing enhanced video search and discovery services, the company said. The search functionality will be integrated with the DivX Connected platform, for network-based media in the living room.

YouTube’s InVideo Ads: Smart Move, But Far From Final, Say Experts - Semi-transparent overlays spur video giant’s latest debate as bloggers, analysts, advertisers, competitors and others weigh in.                   

Microsoft Opens MSN Pages to adCenter, Launches Tafiti Search Beta - Microsoft said it will upgrade adCenter on Aug. 29 to allow users to place targeted ads on Microsoft Network (MSN) content pages for the first time, starting with Tech & Gadgets, Money, Real Estate and Windows Marketplace. The software giant also launched a beta of Tafiti, combining the Silverlight rich media plug-in application with Live Search capabilities to create a new search “front-end.”                 

ABI: Internet To Drive Console Game Ad Revenues - Driven by the ability to dynamically serve advertising into video games connected to the Internet, in-game advertising on consoles will grow more than tenfold from $80 million in 2007 to $850 million in 2011, according to ABI Research.              

Zango, Pixsy Partner For Video Search And Ad Capabilities - Online video and image search provider Pixsy announced a content and advertising partnership with online media company Zango.                 

IBM Study: Internet Overtakes TV Time - Time spent on the Internet is set to surpass time spent watching TV in the average American home. Results from an IBM global survey found that online usage is eating into traditional TV viewing patterns.

Colleges Perfect for Word of Mouth - College students, like many young people, are strongly influenced by word of mouth and look to their friends for advice. With the rise of social networking, blogs and viral video, this group has many new user-generated sources for information about products and services. According to Youth Trends, word of mouth is the top way students like to learn about new products and services. TV advertising ranked second, although it was a more powerful driver for females than males. “The fact that students favor word of mouth, combined with their use of social networking, indicates that they are a strong audience for online word-of-mouth marketing efforts,” said eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson.             

Most Moms Research Products on Web - Most mothers make time to check the Internet several times a day, a report says. And they use search regularly for product research. Seven in 10 moms used search engines to research online purchases, 57% used search engines to research offline purchases and 64% used search to find out where to buy products offline. “Of the nearly 1,000 moms surveyed, 89% use the Internet at least twice a day, and 90% have been using it for more than seven years,” said Stuart Larkins, vice president of search at DoubleClick Performics, in a statement. “A whopping 86% of respondents said search engines are the most efficient way to find information.”

Facebook Confirms New Ad Plan - A new advertising system on Facebook gives marketers access to an unprecedented amount of information that its users reveal about themselves. The idea is to ultimately devise a system that predicts what products and services users might be interested in before they know it. Unnamed sources say the new behavior targeting plan, set to be unveiled this fall, is the company’s top priority moving forward. Facebook declined to discuss specifics.

Who Makes Money From Facebook Apps? - Third-party software development on Facebook is booming, but are application makers making any money? Where is the business model? Advertising is the logical choice, but even the most interesting Facebook applications are attracting small audiences.

Flawed Study Overstates Piracy’s Economic Effect - A new study that says music piracy will cost the U.S. economy more than $12.5 billion this year takes a shortsighted view of pee-to-peer file sharing technology. The Institute for Policy Innovation study, like many that measure the negative effects of P2P networks, assumes most illegal downloads should be considered lost sales. To its credit, the study substitutes a weighted average that says 65.7%t of illegal downloads would have been CD sales. Still, it’s a somewhat arbitrary, if educated guess.

YouTube Used For Real Estate Ads - Could YouTube overtake Craigslist as the undisputed classifieds king? After all, video is a far more helpful resource for a prospective buyer than a photo–especially when it comes to apartment hunting. Brokers and landlords are using the video-sharing site as an opportunity to give walking tours of their properties.

GMI Probes Influence Of Candidates’ Social Network Pages - A new poll from Seattle-based Global Market Insite (GMI) has found that 17% of voters are using social network sites to research and make decisions on U.S. presidential candidates, and most of those doing so are over the age of 30.              

Bebo Teams With Microsoft For IM - Seeking a young and vibrant audience for its Windows Live Web services, Microsoft plans to launch an instant-messaging service on social network Bebo this fall.

Roo Revenues Up 78% In Second Quarter As Operating Loss Doubles - Roo Group, which provides video solutions to content companies and advertisers reported second-quarter revenues of $3.6 million–up 78% from $2.0 million in the same period a year earlier. Net operating loss was $7.5 million, compared with $3.3 million year-over-year.             

Google Earth’s New View Of Stars - Google Earth is expanding its scope to include the stars in the sky, the company said Tuesday. The search giant, whose Earth program gives users anything from an astronaut’s view of the earth to street level images, wants to turn the service into a playground for stargazers. It’s hard to imagine how Google could make money from this, although you can imagine it will soon integrate Google Earth images into its results.

YouTube’s Ad Revenue Prospects - Henry Blodget offers a detailed analysis of the revenue contribution from the video ads on YouTube that Google announced on Tuesday. His most aggressive forecasts range from a $450 million contribution to $13 billion. (Read the blog for all the variables put against these numbers.) YouTube’s revenue won’t likely be material to Google for at least a year or two and possibly more, Blodget says. What’s more, the impact on the bottom line will probably be even less pronounced, he says, because serving a video ad, even for Google, is far more expensive than serving a text link. At a $20 CPM, the gross margin on such ads will likely be well below Google’s current margins.

Web Research Still Not Accurate Enough - The Internet is advertising’s most measurable medium, but despite available research, Web data isn’t necessarily accurate, posing a massive problem for advertisers. You’ve seen it before: depending on whom you ask, comScore or Nielsen/NetRatings, Yahoo either had 133 million unique visitors in June or 108 million. That’s not a small difference.

ComScore Expands Its Measurement Of Search - New insights into search behavior across channels and on sites such as MySpace, Baidu and eBay will be available in an enhanced version of comScore’s search measurement service unveiled Monday.               

Offline Marketing Drives Search - A study from search firm iProspect and JupiterResearch finds that 67% of online search users are driven to search by some offline channel–and nearly 40% of online searchers influenced by offline channels ultimately make a purchase.           

Online Ad Platform Launches For Community Newspapers - Three associations representing more than 500 community papers have signed on to roll out a new online display and classified ad platform, CoolerAds.com, developed by Kaesu, Inc.       

Range Online Launches ‘Next-Gen’ Search Reporting/Modeling Tool - Range Online Media launches the second generation of its Strategic Results System, a reporting and measurement platform that merges data from paid and natural search efforts, feeds and other emerging media, as well as third-party analytics and ad servers.          

Online Ad Platform Launches For Community Newspapers - When it comes to hyper-local media, the undisputed champs are community newspapers. Now, three associations representing more than 500 community papers have signed on to roll out a new online display and classified ad platform, CoolerAds.com, developed by Kaesu, Inc., a three-year old firm based in Budd Lake, NJ. The Mid-Atlantic Community Newspaper Association, the Free Community Papers of New England and the Independent Free Papers of America still need to get their individual members on board, but Kaesu cofounder Joe Nicastro said that more than 50 papers are already participating.           

Social Networks As CRM Tool - There’s a new movement in some marketing circles that says social networks should be used more like a customer-relationship management (CRM) tool. eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson called advertising on social networks “low-hanging fruit” for marketers that need to figure out “a model that expands the beauty of social networking.” However, it’s far easier for marketers to buy display ads and sponsorships than to develop widgets.

MTV Explores Rhapsody - Apple’s market-dominating iTunes Store may have just been handed a healthy dose of competition. MTV Networks may soon announce a digital music partnership with RealNetworks, the purveyor of online music subscription service (and iTunes competitor) Rhapsody. Telecom giant Verizon Wireless will sign on to supply mobile distribution for the joint venture’s content.

Google, Yahoo Favorite Online Brands - Google and Yahoo are the favorite online brands for consumers, while young adults like MySpace just as much, reports JupiterResearch. The report took into account age, gender, online buying habits, and attitudes toward online marketing and other brands.

MSN Extends Its Contextual Ads - Natala Menezes of MSN AdCenter announced on an SES panel that MSN will be offering contextual advertising for advertisers on the Microsoft AdCenter platform on many MSN properties that were previously available only to large advertisers. The ROI and quality are expected to be very high.

YouTube to Start Selling Ads in Videos - Nearly 10 months after Google Inc. agreed to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion, the video-sharing Web site is rolling out its first approach for selling ads within videos. The anticipated move, announced last night, answers speculation concerning Google’s formula for mining revenue from the site and is expected to start to bring standardization to the growing ad market for Web video.

Teotihuacán was, at its height in the first half of the 1st millennium CE, the largest pre-Columbian city in the Americas. The city was located in what is now the San Juan Teotihuacán municipality approximately 40 km (24.8 mi) northeast of Mexico City. The name Teotihuacán was given by the Nahuatl-speaking Aztec centuries after the fall of the city and has been glossed as “birthplace of the gods”. There is evidence that at least some of the people living in Teotihuacán came from areas influenced by the Teotihuacano civilization, including the Zapotec, Mixtec and Maya peoples. The culture and architecture of Teotihuacán was influenced by the Olmec people, who are considered to be the “mother civilization” of Mesoamerica. The earliest buildings at Teotihuacán date to about 200 BCE, and the largest pyramid, the Pyramid of the Sun, was completed by 100 CE. Today Teotihuacán is one of the most noted archaeological attractions in Mexico.

The city’s broad central avenue, called “Avenue of the Dead” (a translation from its Nahuatl name Miccaotli), is flanked by impressive ceremonial architecture, including the immense Pyramid of the Sun (second largest in the New World after the Great Pyramid of Cholula) and the Pyramid of the Moon. Along the Avenue of the Dead are many smaller talud-tablero platforms. The Aztecs believed they were tombs, inspiring the name of the avenue. Now they are known to be ceremonial platforms that were topped with temples. Further down the Avenue of the Dead is the area known as the Citadel, containing the ruined Temple of the Feathered Serpent. This area was a large plaza surrounded by temples that formed the religious and political center of the city. The name “Citadel” was given to it by the Spanish, who believed it was a fort. Many of the rich and powerful Teotihuacanos lived in Palaces near the temples.

El Árbol del Tule (Spanish for “the Tule Tree”) is a very large tree located in the church grounds in the town center of Santa María del Tule in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, approximately 13 km (8 miles) from the city of Oaxaca on the road to Mitla. It is a Montezuma cypress and is 43m tall, has a circumference of 36m, and has the largest trunk diameter of any tree in the world at 11.42m. It is so large that it was originally thought to be multiple trees, but recent DNA tests have proved that it is only one tree.

The age of El Tule is unknown, with estimates ranging between 1200 and 3000 years. Local Zapotec legend holds that it was planted about 1400 years ago by Pechocha, a priest of Ehecatl, the Aztec storm-god. The tree is nicknamed the “Tree of Life” for all the images of animals that are reputedly visible in the tree’s gnarled trunk. This is the inspiration for “The Tree of Life” in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, a massive fourteen story (145 ft.) tall artificial tree with carved images of 325 animals.

American Airlines Faces Uphill Battle In Trademark Suit Over Google Keyword Ads - Despite its strong brand awareness and deep pockets to pursue the litigation, American Airlines faces an uphill battle in its suit seeking damages from Google for allowing rivals to buy keyword ads triggered by its own trademarks.                  

The Little Engine That Could: Ask.com 3D Redesign On Track - Almost 10% of searchers at Ask.com now choose to refine their queries through “Search Suggestions,” one of the upgrades bundled into the search engine’s user interface overhaul two months ago.   

Two Video Creators To Distribute Via Google AdSense - Finance company Media Rights Capital has partnered with “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane and teen star Raven-Symone to create original content. What makes the deal different is its distribution strategy, which employs Google’s AdSense network to package the video content along with banner and online video advertising.

Direct/Digital Comprise Nearly A Quarter Of WPP Revenues - WPP Chief Executive Sir Martin Sorrell said he’d like the share to increase to a third of all revenues. He’s using a “wide definition” to reach that figure.       

User-Generated Content: Is Anyone Watching? - You know that old philosophical question–if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Well, I started thinking about that as it applies to the explosion of Web and cell phone-based user-generated content (UGC). Who will watch the billions of videos being posted?      

Growing DVR Ownership Good for TV Ads - Three in 10 households now have a DVR, according to Greenfield Online data released in August 2007. That is even higher than other recent findings. eMarketer predicts that by the end of 2007, 22.1% of US TV households will have a DVR. A survey from Piper Jaffray in early 2007 indicated that 23% of respondents said they owned a DVR. Will TV ad revenue dwindle just because DVR owners can skip through ads? Mr. Macklin doesn’t think so. “Contrary to the views of some analysts and commentators,” he said, “data available today currently do not support the idea that increased use of the Internet, DVRs and VOD has stalled the growth of television ad spending or revenues in the US.”

More Newspaper Sites Add Online Video - More newspapers are adapting to the multimedia challenge by adding video to their Web sites. That was the major finding of The Bivings Group’s “American Newspapers and the Internet: Threat or Opportunity?” report. Bivings analyzed the sites of the top 100 newspapers in the United States, as determined by Audit Bureau of Circulations data. “Major newspapers and wire services have plunged into the online video space in direct competition with TV news sites, even though the print vehicles generally do not have existing content to leverage,” said eMarketer Senior Analyst Paul Verna.           

“Traditional” Web Advertising Fails on Social Networks - You can’t find a lot of effective advertising on social networks, according to Forrester Research. The Web research group says that traditional marketing just doesn’t work on sites like MySpace and Facebook, as evidenced by the ineffectiveness of run-of-site, microsite, and other “push” advertising tactics. Forrester says the ROI of the campaigns it studied was very low, which means marketers have to do better a better job of engaging users by providing something of value.

Facebook Costs Aussie Firms $4 Billion Annually - Facebook could be costing employers billions of dollars, says a new study from Internet security firm SurfControl. Because socializing online is a waste of time and money, despite what other reports say about the networking and communication benefits of social networks. The firm, which used a sample of Australian users to conduct the study, said that Facebook users cost as much as $4 billion per year in lost productivity.                   

AOL Plight Highlights Larger Portal Problem - AOL had little option but to overhaul its failing business model, but despite a positive start to its new life as a free, ad-supported content provider, the Web portal’s ad growth is already narrowing. As a result, Time Warner shareholders are questioning whether it was a smart move for the media giant to keep AOL. The Time Warner unit is still one of the most popular Web destinations, attracting more than 90 million visits per month, but the name of the game these days is monetizing your traffic, something AOL, with 16 percent ad growth in the second quarter, isn’t doing sufficiently.                 

Google Leaves GrandCentral Users Hanging - Google’s GrandCentral, the company that promised its users “one number for life,” has reneged on that promise just six weeks after being bought by the search giant. Google sent out notices to users last week giving them just eight days until their telephone numbers expired. Neither Google nor GrandCentral has made any official statement about the move.

Are Search Ads A Waste Of Money? - Put aside the issue of possible self-interest. Microsoft’s Atlas has released new research to suggest that paying top dollar for high ad placement of branded keywords on search results pages (such as Google’s) is a waste, because it’s really a “glorified Yellow Pages listing.” Atlas estimates listings tied to branded keywords eat up about half of search budgets. But most consumers who see them were on their way to those sites anyway.

Mexico’s sprawling capital was not what I expected. After being heavily influenced by American cinema, I was expecting a dangerous, dirty and unwelcome city that would serve as simply a stopover in our travels. Instead I found a huge city with lots to see, do and experience. Its true that the city was known to be unsafe several years ago, but the ever present sight of well armed policemen has served as a strong deterrent to crime. There are affordable restaurants, dynamic nightlife, and outstanding museums all within easy distance by subway or on foot.

Founded by the Aztecs as Tenochtitlán in 1325, Mexico City is both the oldest and the highest (7,347 ft) metropolis on the North American continent. And with nearly 22 million inhabitants, it is the most populous city in the world. It is Mexico’s cultural, political, and financial core — braving the 21st century but clinging to its deeply entrenched Aztec heritage. One of the interesting factoids about the city is that it is built on a water basin and thus is experiencing some of the same issues as Venice in Italy - sinking ground and water damage. You only have to go as far as Xochimilco to see that the city is built on uneven ground.

I encourage you to spend at least a few days in Mexico City if you decide to visit Mexico. It is here that you can get a taste of the true heart of Mexico!

The Plaza of the Three Cultures is so named because it is here that one can see the fusion of pre-Hispanic and Spanish roots into the Mexican identity. It displays the Aztec pyramids of Tlatelco, the 17th century Spanish Templo de Santiago and the former Foreign Relations Secretariat building on the plaza’s south side.