With hit products like no-wrinkle shirts and designer mints, some businesses are profiting from an updated form of mass marketing. A Harvard Business Review excerpt.

In this challenging economic climate, many firms are focusing on cost-cutting and on gaining short-term efficiencies. Our study of more than 3,500 consumers suggests, however, that innovation geared toward actual consumer preferences and incomes may be the best tool to achieving valuable long-term results.

Commerce is once again becoming conversational as technology enables companies to interact intelligently with individual customers across time. Gaining a better understanding of the mechanics of good conversation can help businesses become more than good companies-they can also become good company.

Editor's Note: this is an excellent article and deceptively so. I first started skimming it and halfway through realized that it contained a lot of useful information.