There is an interesting service provided by a company called Ingenio , who offers a new twist on paid web advertising.  Instead of the pay per click model of most search engines, Ingenio offers a "pay per call" advertising service.  By attaching a unique phone number to each web ad, the idea is that you get better qualified leads from people who will pick up the phone and call you than from a person who is willing only to click on a link.    And they only charge advertisers when the ad results in a phone call.

Also, by tracking each ad campaign with separate phone numbers, it should be very simple to get detailed reporting on call volume, average call time, and sales generated by each separate ad.  It seems to me that the potential downside is that since the phone numbers belong to Ingenio, it becomes hard to build a long-term branding presence without being committed to the Ingenio service, but that may be a minor trade-off for some smaller companies.

I remember when the truly paranoid among us would coat the inside of their rooms with aluminum foil to keep the government from scanning their brains while they slept, and to protect themselves from UFO broadcasts.  (I used to have a neighbor who actually did that!)  I'm glad to know that now there is a high-tech solution to those problems, among others.

For only $69 per gallon - on sale - a company called Forcefield Wireless sells a paint that supposedly reduces the amount of stray WiFi or Bluetooth transmissions that might escape your home or office.  (I wonder if it has true one-coat coverage.)  Do you suppose NASA has tested this?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot - they also sell $39 rolls of special aluminum foil for those pesky windows.

- Derek