Beer the beverage of choice on a Friday night or perhaps any night (if you are of legal drinking age!) on many college campuses across the country. It seems only right that Johan Swinnen, professor of economics and director of the LICOS Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance at the University of Leuven in Belgium is leading a group of scholars in studying beer and it’s economic effect. He is also the editor of a new book on the subject, The Economics of Beer, published by Oxford University Press and is available as an ebook  if you are a part of the Stanford Community.

Read an interview with Prof. Swinnen published in the Boston Globe.

I told myself I wouldn’t yet again blog on the Super Bowl ads but I just can’t resist! It seems that this year the ads were hyped as much as the game with ads being “previewed” on other TV shows prior to the big game. Is this another marketing ploy?

The current issue of Adweek, available in the current journal stacks in the GSB Library, has devoted most of the  issue to sports heroes and how they are branded in the ad world.

Finally if you’d like to read about past Super Bowl games final score, viewership and how much a 30 second ad cost in 1967-2011, check out this article SUPER BOWL AD TIME LINE I -XLIV. 

To follow up on my blog of last week It’s just not fair and my theme of the CEO world, I discovered the PwC has  published their 15th Annual Global CEO survey. Also on this PwC  page you can download 8 CEO transcripts, so you can hear from them. Enjoy!

Well I shouldn’t be surprised that the CEOs of the big Wall Street banks are about to get big bonuses and the lower level employees are getting much smaller bonuses than a year ago. You can read and then rant silently to yourself, especially if you work in one of the aforementioned banks here.

If you’re curious about how much money you’re not making and others are, check out the library’s research guide, Wage and Salary Surveys.

Today Wikipedia went dark in protest of the impending vote on the anti-piracy bill or Stop Online Piracy Act. Google didn’t go dark but posted a black banner across  it’s home page which also led to information blasting the bill.

Perhaps because of the outcry from the public, Congess has decided to delay the vote to “study the issue”.

You can read more about the issue and weigh in at the New York Times site.

If the company, E la Carte has anything to say about it in the near distant future you won’t be asked that question by a live server at your favorite local eatery. This company has invented the “Presto tablet” a handheld computer that you can use to enter your order, pay the bill and send your reciept to your email.

The Palo Alto restaurant Califia was the first establishment to try out the tablet in June 2011 and now other restaurant chains are signing up to try this service.

Read more about it in the San Francisco Chronicle.

In recent days there have been news reports that job creation and employment numbers are on the upswing. If though you wanted to track those statistics without the editorial comment, take a look at our Library Research Guide: Statistics.

The Wall Street Journal  has reported the approaching demise of Eastman Kodak, one of the great American firms of the 20th century.  This follows on the collapse (and rebirth) of GM in recent years. To people of a certain age, Kodak and General Motors falling seems like the financial equivalent of General Sherman and other giants toppling in Sequoia.  What does this mean for American business in general?  Perhaps little; critics point out that Kodak failed to capitalize on digital photography early on.  Or does this reflect something more profound about our nation’s future? David Brancaccio takes a nostalgic look at Kodak.

Google is pushing hard to increase ad revenue and as the New York Times reports, the company realizes it needs to make the effort to tell it’s story in the virtual and real world. One way to sell the brand as related in the article, is by relating touching stories like “Dear Sophie,” Google’s ad for Chrome in which a father sends multimedia messages to his baby daughter, or watching grandmothers and children dancing to Lady Gaga.

Until midnight today you can find deals online to rival “Black Friday” and Cyber Monday”. Lest we need more named days to shop virtually or in the mall, we now have Green Monday which as reported in the news as the day we don our Santa hats and sit in front of our computers and seriously shop for holiday presents.

As reported on the ABC News blog, “At least $1 billion is expected to be spent on Green Monday, when online retail sales typically peak.  Ebay coined the term “Green Monday” in 2007 to describe their best sales day in December, the second Monday of the month.”