Two interesting thoughts from today:

The Shop.org blog has an article about the costs that search engine marketing firms charge. The comments on the original post on Search Engine Land are interesting, although no consensus has emerged.

There seem to be a few different stories on Stradavarius violins lately. There was the excellent piece in the Washington Post Magazine on what happens if you put a world class violinist in the Metro, playing for spare change. Portfolio magazine has an article about the new patrons of the arts who loan out their Stradavarius to young, talented musicians. I was curious how many are left, and found this article, that mentioned that there are about 650 remaining, while modern makers work to find the secrets to their unique sound.