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One of the best ways to experience a new culture is to walk through their markets. We walked through Mercado de Sonora and de La Merced. At both markets we saw more types of peppers than we could ever imagine, different types of mole, live birds and even voodoo trinkets. Mercado de La Merced occupies four blocks and has a host of products necessary for daily needs. Mercado de Sonora has a part of its market dedicated to everything you’ll need to place a curse on someone! Aisles are crammed with amulets, voodoo dolls, portions and even sex toys!

This unique restaurant is owned by luchador (wrestler) Super Astro. It features a wall of wrestler masks, many donated by his pals. Lucha Libre (Mexican Wrestling) is a huge sport in Mexico and you will see the masks sold widely throughout the country. At this restaurant, you will get huge portions which is to be expected given the audience it likely caters to! Note that if you can eat the 1.3kg “Torta Gladiator” in under 15 minutes you get it free!

Xochimilco is one of the sixteen delegaciones within Mexican Federal District and is located south from Mexico City. It is known for its extended series of canals — all that remains of the ancient Lake Xochimilco. All inhabitants travel in colorful trajineras (Xochimilco boats) between chinampas covered with flowers.  Its a decent experience — much like a Mexican Venice!

Isla de las Munecas (or Island of the Dolls) is a truly unique experience.  We took a boat from a port in Xochimilco (southern part of Mexico City) to the island.  This installation was created by recently deceased island resident don Julian who fished the dolls from the canals to appease the spirit of a girl who had drowned nearby.  As you walk through the area, you will notice many decapitated dolls and I guarantee you will feel a strange tingle down your spine.  Truly a great experience - particularly for a Chucky doll fan!

In December 1531, Juan Diego stood on Cerro del Tepeyac, site of an old Aztec shrine, and beheld a beautiful lady dressed in a blue mantle trimmed with gold. She sent him to tell the bishop, Juan de Zumarraga, that he had seen the Virgin Mary, and that she wanted a shrine built in her honor. Returning to the hill, Juan Diego had the vision several more times. After her fourth appearance, the lady’s image was miraculously emblazoned on his cloak causing the church to finally accept his story and a cult developed around the site. Today she is one of the most revered patrons of Latin America and her image can be seen throughout Mexico.

By the 1970s, the old yellow domed basilica, built around the 1700, was swamped by worshippers and was sinking slowly into the soft subsoil. So the new Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe was built next door. The image of the Virgin hangs above and behind the main altar, with moving walkways to bring visitors as close as possible. If you look closely, you can see the image of Jesus in the eye of the Virgin.

In less than a decade after William Spratling arrived in Taxco, he had transformed it into a flourishing silver center, the likes of which had not been seen since colonial times. In 1929 the writer-architect from New Orleans settled in the then sleepy, dusty village because it was inexpensive and close to the pre-Hispanic Mexcala culture that he was studying in Guerrero Valley.

For hundreds of years Taxco’s silver was made into bars and exported overseas. No one even considered developing a local jewelry industry. Journeying to a nearby town, Spratling hired a couple of goldsmiths and commissioned them to create jewelry, flatware, trays, and goblets from his own designs. Ever the artist with a keen mind for drawing, design, and aesthetics, Spratling decided to experiment with silver using his designs. Shortly afterward, he set up his own workshop and began producing highly innovative pieces. By the 1940s Spratling’s designs were gracing the necks of celebrities and being sold in high-end stores abroad.

Spratling also started a program to train local silversmiths; they were soon joined by foreigners interested in learning the craft. It wasn’t long before there were thousands of silversmiths in the town, and Spratling was its wealthiest resident. He moved freely in Mexico’s lively art scene, befriending muralists Diego Rivera (Rivera’s wife, Frida Kahlo, wore Spratling necklaces) and David Alfaro Siqueiros as well as architect Miguel Covarrubios. The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Dwight Morrow, father of Anne Morrow who married Charles Lindbergh, hired Spratling to help with the architectural details of his house in Cuernavaca. American movie stars were frequent guests at Spratling’s home; once, he even designed furniture for Marilyn Monroe.

When his business failed in 1946, relief came in the form of an offer from the United States Department of the Interior: Spratling was asked to create a program of native crafts for Alaska. This work influenced his later designs. Although he never regained the wealth he once had, he operated the workshop at his ranch and trained apprentices until he died in a car accident in 1969. A friend, Italian engineer Alberto Ulrich, took over the business and replicated Spratling’s designs using his original molds. Ulrich died in 2002, and his children now operate the business.

Spratling bequeathed his huge collection of pre-Hispanic art and artifacts to the people of Taxco, and they’re now displayed in a museum carrying his name. The grateful citizens also named a street after their much-beloved benefactor and put a bust of him in a small plaza off the main square.

Gaming Surpasses Video, Social Nets In Online Popularity: Study - Over a third of U.S. adult Internet users play online games weekly, according to Parks Associates–with games trumping social networking and online video as the most popular Web-based entertainment activity.                                   

MTVN Makes 2-Year $500 Million Gaming Commitment - MTV Networks on Thursday pledged to spend more than $500 million on gaming properties worldwide over the next two years. That includes the $100 million Nickelodeon committed last month to the development, distribution and creation of casual gaming titles, sites and platforms.           

AOL’s Truveo Sets Out To Conquer Video Search Space - To separate itself from the pack, the new Truveo is selling its ability to effectively retrieve much of the professionally produced content now being stricken from video sites like YouTube–by going directly to the content producers’ own Web sites.                 

Now, a Word from Your Sports Sponsor - While online and mobile channels are emerging as increasingly viable ways to deliver sports content, information and advertising to sports fans, traditional media make up the core of the sports marketing economy and will continue to grow through 2011. Using data from the IEG Sponsorship Report as a benchmark, eMarketer estimates that sports sponsorship spending in North America will rise to $13.24 billion by 2011, up from $8.94 billion in 2006.      

Proof That Ads Are Content On Web - Given that we live in such an advertising-overloaded society, wouldn’t it be weird for a company like Didja.com, a collection of ads presented as content, to become a success? Didja is (or rather, will be) a collection of ads presented as content. Of course, the ads-as-entertainment concept is nothing new–marketers have created Web sites, games and other content devoted to various forms of advertising for years. But the idea of a video bank containing nothing but ads is slightly different: Marketers did not create the site, which effectively makes it a celebration of advertising.           

Program Reveals Where Wikipedia Entrees Come From - A new tracing program that reveals where Wikipedia entries come from is stirring up controversy. People using FBI and CIA computers edited entries on such topics as the “Iraq war” and the prison at “Guantanamo Bay,” presenting a conflict of interest for the nonprofit online encyclopedia, according to a company spokesperson.

Microsoft Lobbies To Stop GoogleClick - Microsoft is so bent on keeping Google’s DoubleClick acquisition from being approved, the software giant has hired lobbying firm Patton Boggs LLC in Washington. Now that the House and Senate are looking into the matter, the lobbying frenzy can begin. So far, Microsoft has put $40K behind the effort. Three Patton Boggs associates have been working on the issue since May 15, according to the Associated Press.            

Triton Pacific Capital Partners has acquired a majority interest in Vayan Marketing Group LLC - Triton Pacific Capital Partners has acquired a majority interest in Vayan Marketing Group LLC, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based provider of online lead generation, email marketing, offline marketing, list management and affiliate marketing services located. No financial terms were disclosed. KPMG Corporate Finance advised Vayan on the deal.

CBS Buys 50 Percent Stake In Online Talent Search Show - CBS Television Distribution, part of CBS Corp (NYSE: CBS) has taken a 50 percent ownership stake in BigShot, the online talent search show from Madison Road Entertainment and Maverick Television, reports Variety…the show will widely distributed via the websites of CBS’ local stations that broadcast the company’s tabloid show “Entertainment Tonight.” It also will put the program on the about-to-launch CBS Audience Network, with carriage on sites such as AOL.

Web TV Network Jack9 Buys Social Net CommunityX - Web TV network Jack9 Entertainment has acquired video-enabled social net CommunityX.net. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Jack9 said that combination will help both sites grow, as it claims to receive 3 million unique visitors a month, while CommunityX claims over 400,000 members. Huntington Beach, CA.-based Jack9 has also added some new programming, including the poker-focused Player’s Lounge, which will feature weekly episodes on the world of gaming, and rap competition Street Bangaz.

MTVN’s Logo To Buy Gay Social Network - Cable channel’s purchase of Downelink.com is part of MTV Network’s niche programming strategy to better serve up targeted audiences to advertisers. The social network has 400,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members.

Facebook reshuffles management structure - Social networking site, Facebook, is changing its management structure with COO, Owen Van Natta, becoming chief revenue officer and vice-president of operations. The recently appointed former AOL executive, Chamath Palihapitiya, is the new vice-president of marketing and operations and Gideon Yu, who was also only appointed a few weeks ago, is the chief financial officer.                  

Google invests in more Chinese companies - Google is investing in another four to five unnamed Chinese internet companies to compete with rival Baidu.com, according to Google’s China president, Kai-Fu Lee. Lee says the companies are involved in search, online communities, online entertainment and other spheres. One of Google’s first moves into the Chinese marketplace was an investment in Shenzhen-based Xunlei Network Technology, a file-sharing company.

Hearst closes digital-only magazine - Hearst is slashing its digital-only magazine, Jellyfish, after just five months. The UK branch of the National Magazine Company publishing group says the cut is due to “distribution challenges,” according to the Guardian. The newspaper suggests corporate firewalls and anti-spam impacted heavily on the teen title.

IAB Tackles Lead-Generation Best Practices - Priorities include security, common format and setup. ValueClick Media is among the members on board.

Can SmartAds Right Yahoo’s Ad Slip? - It’s no secret that Yahoo’s flagging display business could use a shot in the arm, and SmartAds, introduced a month ago, could be the ticket. The tactic, introduced a month ago, offers advertisers a combination of personalized and behaviorally targeted ads. Because finely targeted ads command a higher premium from advertisers, the new format could be a boon for Yahoo. But the the tactic could be an even greater success for the company’s other display ventures, the newly acquired ad exchange Right Media, and its partnership sites like eBay.

The Great, Inexorable Advertising Shift - In the second quarter, the Web’s big four, Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN-eMarketer expects to make up more than two-thirds of online advertising in 2007, which saw a collective ad revenue increase of $1.3 billion or 42 percent in the second quarter of this year. Meanwhile, ad revenue at the 15 biggest traditional media companies shrank 3 percent over the same time period, a loss of $280 million.

Traditional Media In More Ill-Advised Buys - Traditional media firms have gone Web hunting again. In the past month, Hearst purchased the social shopping site Kaboodle and The New York Times Co. reeled in bookmarking startup Clipmarks and the Freakonomics blog. Earlier in the year, Discovery Communications bought the eco-blog TreeHugger, and CBS Interactive added Last.fm and the finance video blog Wallstrip.                    

Yahoo’s Monetization Dilemma - D: All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher gives kudos to Yahoo for its lifted ranking this week on the customer satisfaction front. While that’s positive news, she notes, the niggling point remains that Yahoo cannot monetize its ad search as well as Google. The state of its search and search-ad business will remain at the center of attention, and she revisits with depth the speculation that Yahoo might offload some of its search and ad business back to Google.

Display CPMs Dropping? - There’s been a lot of talk over the past two months about “softening” growth in the online display ad marketplace. Destination Web sites and portals, accustomed over the past year or two to 25-40% year-over-year revenue growth in their display ad revenues, found themselves facing flat or moderate year-over-year increases this past quarter. While the second quarter continued to deliver explosive growth at Google, the other search players, and many of the online ad networks, for some reason many of the destination sites were left behind. What happened? Should we all be surprised? Is the online display ad market really slowing down?

Gay Ad Net Launches With Key Advertisers On Board - Allstate, Ford, eBay and Atlantis Events were among the advertisers running across the entire Gay Ad Network as the new vertical venture officially launched Tuesday on 200+ Web sites representing more than two dozen online publishers–including local gay newspapers, national gay magazines, independent content sites and social networking services.                       

AOL Revamps GameDaily for Users, Advertisers - AOL has revamped its gaming site, GameDaily, unveiling new community features like user reviews, widgets and online video–and new rich media and sponsorship opportunities for advertisers. Blockbuster, Doritos and Electronic Arts have already signed on as brand sponsors.             

MySpace Leads U.S. Mobile Social Networking - MySpace emerged as the leader in mobile social networking in the U.S., with some 3.7 million monthly users in July according to M:Metrics. Facebook placed second, with 2 million, while YouTube rounded out the top three with just over 900,000.                          

Hearst Enters Lucrative Quinceanera Market - Hearst Magazines is stepping into the young Hispanic arena with the launch of MisQuinceMag.com, a new online-only service magazine for teenage girls covering the quinceanera–a traditional coming-of-age party for 15-year-old girls celebrated in many Spanish-speaking countries and now the U.S., too. The new online offering will compete with Quince Girl, launched two years ago.                 

A Common Misconception Regarding Video Advertising - It seems every venture capitalist and holding company is investing in online video platforms without a true understanding of the challenges and issues facing scalability. I’ve done a tremendous amount of research into the space, and from what I can tell, there are no current tools for dynamically serving third-party video ads into online video content! From what I can see, most of the existing video networks either serve video into existing ad units, such as 728×90 or 160×600 ad units, into existing ad locations — which is what Klipmart did for a number of years and still does now that it is part of DoubleClick (and potentially Google), or they are hard-coding or manually attaching video spots like 30-second commercials into existing video content. This model is not scalable, nor is it what advertisers truly want.              

Is Yahoo! Better than Google? - What makes one portal better than another, either for users or for marketers? Or are all portals fundamentally alike, easily exchanged by visitors and advertisers? Further, how does Yahoo! differentiate itself from Google or MSN, for instance? From the audience point of view, as measured by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, US consumers now express more satisfaction with Yahoo! than Google, Ask.com, MSN or AOL. The ACSI report on e-business Web sites is sponsored by ForeSee Results.             

Experts Assess Google’s Management - The Wall Street Journal asks two experts — Professor Thomas Eisenmann, a Harvard Business School Associate, and Gary Hamel, a management consultant — to assess one of the great Google debates: “Is Google rewriting the rules of good management? Or is it just enjoying the rewards of a single well-timed breakthrough?”

Muni Wi-Fi Foundering - Municipal Wi-Fi, once hyped as the coolest new way to get Internet access on the cheap, is in trouble. Hundreds of citywide projects have been announced in the last few years, but the one with the highest profile, the one San Francisco operated by Google and EarthLink, is in limbo. Contractual disputes, the high cost of building the networks, and the potentially low margins, have caused many operators to halt the building of municipal Wi-Fi networks in other areas, too, like Milwaukee and Philadelphia.            

Yahoo Refreshes Local Search - Despite its status as a pioneer of local search and early integrator of community and ratings/reviews, Yahoo has faced growing pressure — from Google and Microsoft in dynamic mapping — and then from new local and community sites such as Yelp. So Greg Sterling applauds the redesign of Yahoo Local, which launched last night.

Wikipedia’s Game Changer - Information Week’s Stephen Wellman poses the question, “Will Google Be Destroyed By Open Source Search Engines?” Jimmy Wales’s Wikia stands a chance. It depends in part, he says, on whether a mishmash of random crawls from the Web will be an adequate substitute to a centralized effort. If nothing else, he sees Wikia as the catalyst both vertical search and local search advocates have been seeking. The threat to Google, he says, will come from thousands of specialty engines and Web apps.                                 

Microsoft Closes aQuantive Deal; Puts McAndrews In Top New Ad Role - Just in case paying an 85% premium were not enough, Microsoft showed it is serious about becoming a dominant force in advertising by creating a new Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group and naming aQuantive CEO Brian McAndrews to lead it.              

SEMs Offer Feedback on Google’s Latest AdWords Placement Tweak - Google’s announcement that it will tweak how “high quality ads are selected for top positions above organic search results” has caused a flurry of comments in the blogosphere and reactions from search marketing specialists.                

OPA: Online Time Spent Shifts From Communication To Content - The explosion in online content, coupled with consumers’ growing preference for instant messaging rather than email, has led to a major shift in Web usage over the past four years. As a result, content has overtaken communication as the Web’s primary role, according to the Online Publishers Association’s Internet Activity Index, conducted by Nielsen//NetRatings.

Heavy’s Husky Targets Young Men With Skins - Video entertainment site Heavy.com has launched an ad network named Husky, which will target young men and specialize initially in “skins”–a branded ad format that wraps around a site’s video player, and interferes less with a consumer’s viewing experience than pre-roll advertising.              

Yahoo, Ask, MSN Up In Customer Satisfaction As Google, AOL Slip - Yahoo led the University of Michigan’s annual American Customer Satisfaction Index–nabbing 79 satisfaction points out of 100, one point higher than rival Google. Yahoo’s score rose three points from last year, Google was down three points, Ask.com rose four points to 75, and MSN.com one point, also to 75–while AOL’s customer satisfaction slipped 10% to an industry low score of 67, down seven points from 2006.                

Glam Launches Women-Focused Search - Glam Search is a proprietary tool that will crawl Glam Media’s Publisher Network of more than 350 lifestyle, celebrity and fashion sites and blogs, including content from magazines such as Nylon and Dwell. In addition to classic search and indexing technologies, Glam Search uses a “curated rank” algorithm, which assigns a weighting to a page based on relevance, timeliness and an editorial analysis of the content source. Network publishers can add a customizable Glam Search Widget to their site or channel and configure results accordingly. With Glam Search, users can also filter searches according to three categories–fashion, beauty, and celebrity. And, since the sites on Glam Media’s Publisher Network integrate into an ad platform, relevant ads and sponsored content will also appear in the search results.

PRIMEDIA Auto Intros Social Networking - Primedia Automotive Digital, serving more than 60 automotive Web sites, has launched a free social networking feature, “Readers’ Rides,” on 14 of its properties, including Hot Rod, Lowrider, Truck Trend and Import Tuner. The feature allows car, truck and motorcycle enthusiasts to show off their vehicles and interact with other like-minded enthusiasts. Additional sites in the PRIMEDIA Automotive Digital network are expected to add the feature at a later date.

Clogged Web Is Looming Problem - Stories about the Web’s clogging infrastructure have always been around, but network operators have been able to avoid the problem by adding routers and other hardware, keeping the Web’s backend running in line with demand. But once again, rumors of a clogging Internet are mounting. The latest concern stems from the proliferation of Web 2.0 sites and services. One minute of video, for example, can require 10 times the bandwidth of audio, or more.

Study: Facebook Users Too Willing to Give Up Info - Remember that cute someone you became fast Facebook friends with? Well, a new study says you should never underestimate a crook’s capacity to upload fake photos and a fake profile to get a hold of your personal information. Sophos PLC says an astonishing 41% of Facebook users said they were willing to divulge phone numbers, email and home addresses to Facebook friends who were otherwise total strangers to them.         

Google Wants To Depose Stewart, Colbert - Publicity stunt or legal strategy? Google wants comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to give a deposition in the search giant’s fight against their employer Viacom, which is suing Google video provider YouTube for $1 billion in copyright damages. Stewart, host of “The Daily Show,” and Colbert, host of “The Colbert Report,” are two of Viacom unit Comedy Central’s most high-profile personalities; their shows have been illegally uploaded to YouTube thousands if not millions of times.