YouTube is still struggling to find an ad unit that works well for corporates. Check out this video for Chevy, linked from a video block on the front page.

We spent a great week in western North Carolina. Highlights included fiddling at Blowing Rock, fly fishing on the Davidson and rafting on the Nantahala. My interview about presidential online advertising on NPR was coherent, though most of the quotes were pretty mundane.

Balint styles Blogads in Rome.

From today’s WSJ:

“Twelve years ago, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. sent a vice president to California to check out First Alliance Mortgage Co. Lehman was thinking about tapping into First Alliance’s lucrative business of making “subprime” home loans to consumers with sketchy credit.

The vice president, Eric Hibbert, wrote a memo describing First Alliance as a financial “sweat shop” specializing in “high pressure sales for people who are in a weak state.” At First Alliance, he said, employees leave their “ethics at the door.”

The big Wall Street investment bank decided First Alliance wasn’t breaking any laws. Lehman went on to lend the mortgage company roughly $500 million and helped sell more than $700 million in bonds backed by First Alliance customers’ loans. But First Alliance later collapsed.”

Amy Schatz gives blog advertising the lede on A6.

Have you watched David Pogue’s NYT tech videos? 60 products. Noise cancelling headphones. And Pogue responds to a blogger’s bitterness about his humor.

Travel — in space and ideas — is fun. I’ve reconnected with Dan Gillmor, who made a great comment about the abuse of “member” by folks like Amex. And he introduced me to a new bodytracking site he’s involved with, Dopplr, which allows you to see where in the world friends will be and perhaps connect with them.

Jason Rosenberg, friend, customer and roaming bon vivant EchoDitto.

works in politics or government.

Want more data-candy? Here’s the set of graphs Political Wire has published from its slice of the Blog Reader Project.

Last week AdAge reported that Google’s purchase of Feedburner as a done deal and would be announced this week “according to a person familiar with the negotiations.” Well, this week is half over… come on boys, announce.