This week’s issue of The Economist has three fun pieces.  All of them focus, in one way or another, on Internet-centered phenomena.  Happily, two of them are openly available at the magazine’s online edition.  (The third, a book review of Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail, is not.  The book, which I happen to be reading right now, is engaging.  Here’s the page for it at Amazon.)

The first, entitled The Ultimate Marketing Machine, explores the increased efficiency of Internet-based advertising strategies.  The second, entitled Apples Are Not the Only Fruit, explores “the economics of France’s attempt to open up iTunes” to mp3 players other than the iPod.

Enjoy!