TipAdept Dot Com

Looking to save money on a pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes this holiday season? Try searching for Manolo Blahnicks.

A handful of new Web sites with names like Typo Bay and Typo Buddy are out to help shoppers save money by searching eBay for misspelled brand names. Such items often have fewer bidders because they do not appear in search results for people who spell the items correctly, and therefore they can be bought at a lower price.

It's a well-known strategy among longtime eBay shoppers, but one that owners of these sites are hoping will translate into big business -- relatively speaking -- as shoppers look to save money this holiday season.

Typo Buddy started about six months ago and has as many as 80,000 visitors on its top days, said its president, Jonathan Lieberman, an Internet entrepreneur in San Diego. "I expect in this market, where people are ever more vigilant for deals, that we'll do really well this holiday season," he said.

Joseph Mantha, the co-creator of Typo Bay, which started in 2007, said October had been the site's busiest month. (A big month for Typo Bay means about 4,000 visitors -- and about $500.) He said he expected traffic to grow in the weeks before the holidays.

Apparently there are deals to be found. Heather Guinther, a customer service representative from Newport Beach, California, recently used Typo Buddy to find an $850 pair of "Manolo Blahnick" shoes for about $350.

"I knew I could find some Manolos on there because it's not an easy name to spell," she said.

Abercrombie & Fitch, Louis Vuitton and Banana Republic are among the most misspelled brands, Lieberman said. (It's the word "banana" that gets them.) There are misspelled categories, as well: eBay is host to a thriving marketplace for "jewlry."

Visitors to these sites enter the...

In the age of YouTube, online video has opened a world of possibilities for artists like James and Tyler McFadden. Over the last two years, the duo has produced a collection of quirky, short, animated films with their Web-based production studio, GoPotato TV. But all the technology in the world hasn't changed one thing for the McFadden brothers. "Making money is not an easy thing to do with online video," says Tyler McFadden, 27, who heads up business development for the company.

Sure, Big Media is starting to see the Web as a source of high-quality video talent; on Nov. 24, Fox Interactive Media unit IGN.com said it reached production and distribution deals with a dozen independent Web producers, including Black 20 Digital Studios, CollegeHumor, and ScrewAttack.com. But for every indie producer that lands a deal, scores are struggling to get noticed.

Online Talent Scout

That's where Plentitube comes in. An online talent scout, Plentitube is trying to become a middleman of the new media, a matchmaker for the YouTube generation. In the 1950s, a leggy blonde would get discovered while waiting tables at Chasen's restaurant in Los Angeles. But in the Digital Age, Plentitube founders Jon Labes and Talia Pulver believe the future of talent discovery will happen increasingly in online venues like the one they are building. "We are creating new types of matchmaking services," says Labes, 25, who is also Plentitube's CEO.

Before they signed on with Plentitube, the McFadden brothers managed to license a few shorts with Viacom's Comedy Central and with Web players such as Atom.com. They've pulled in some revenue from advertisements shown on their videos on Google's YouTube. And they have been trying to break into the big leagues by working on an informal basis with UTA Online, the division of Hollywood agency United Talent that represents...

Against the backdrop of an economy that grows more precarious by the day, the outlook for holiday gift spending is bleak. Even so, consumers will be buying gifts, and consumer electronics will be high on their shopping lists, even if spending will be lower this year.

Amid the diminished expectations, some product categories will hold their own this season, industry and retail analysts say. An early November survey of consumer intentions by the Consumer Electronics Assn. found that U.S. shoppers expect to spend an average of $1,437 on gifts this year, less than the $1,671 they spent in 2007. Still, consumers say they'll allocate a larger percentage of their spending -- 28 percent vs. 22 percent last year -- to consumer electronics. The idea is that families will opt for at-home entertainment rather than travel and dining out.

And despite what you may have heard about video entertainment migrating to the Web, the TV set is still the king of the home entertainment universe. Prices are coming down quickly. In September, the average price on a 32-inch LCD TV was $858, a drop of about $100 from the same period in 2007. Now, it's possible to buy a 32-inch LCD set for as little as $399.

No Competition for Blu-ray

One reason, says iSuppli analyst Riddy Patel, is that there is an oversupply of LCD panels, so manufacturers like Sony, Samsung, and Sharp can pass favorable component pricing on to consumers. "The prices are suddenly very attractive on these sets," Patel says. "The only question is how consumers will react." Her firm recently slashed its 2008 forecast for LCD TVs by 5 million units, to 94 million. It also trimmed its 2009 forecast to 112.5 million units, from 124 million units, meaning the market is growing, though more slowly than before.

Consumers may also be...