Circuit City Stores has engaged Omniture, Inc.’s business optimization software to test the performance of its marketing campaigns and websites in real time. By tracking the relevance of content, offers and merchandise, the consumer electronics retailer can direct visitors to landing pages that display products relevant to their individual interests.

"We have thousands of [items] on our site and multiple product categories, so making sure our online visitors quickly find the items they are looking for -- and that the purchasing process is clear and simple -- is crucial to our business," said Brian Bradley, senior vice president - multi-channel for Circuit City. "Omniture not only allows us to understand the performance of our online merchandising strategies, checkout process and campaigns, but enables us to deliver a personalized shopping experience to each customer."

Circuit City will use Omniture’s SiteCatalyst software to understand the performance of its merchandising strategies, website navigation, and on-site search results. The software also will help Circuit City evaluate its direct marketing channels, such as email and comparison shopping vehicles, to determine the amount of traffic and revenue each channel is generating.

Philip Morris USA will go back to the courts in an effort to modify a ruling in which a Louisiana trial judge ordered the nation’s largest cigarette companies to pay some $263.5 million to fund a statewide, 10-year smoking cessation program.

The state's appellate court, in a 2007 opinion, found that individuals whose claims arose after Sept. 1, 1998 could not participate in the smoking cessation program. Philip Morris contends a trial is necessary to determine which smokers, if any, are eligible for the program and its costs if the case is to proceed.

"The company believes the trial court has disregarded the state appellate court's mandate to conduct further trial proceedings to determine how many persons may participate in the cessation program and the total cost of the program," said Murray Garnick, Altria Client Services senior vice president and associate general counsel, speaking on behalf of PM USA. More.

A few months ago I heard Boston Globe columnist and "Brazen Careerist" blogger Penelope Trunk give a vivid example of the difference between the younger generation of workers and their elders.

Trunk told of one of her young employees whose parents were visiting. This Generation Y worker – or Millennial, as they are sometimes called – wanted Trunk to join him and his parents for dinner. The line between social and work life were not just blurred for this employee; it was nonexistent.

A lot has been written about the difference between Baby Boomers – people born between 1946 and 1964 – and Generation Y, who joined the workforce around the new millennium. Yet, for all their differences, a new global study commissioned by the IABC Research Foundation found that the two generations have some striking similarities as well.

The Massey Cancer Center at Virginia Commonwealth University is increasing its capacity to treat cancers of the urinary system by adding three new team members -- two doctors and a state-of-the-art da Vinci Surgical System.

Joining the Center in August are Lance J. Hampton, a urologist who has performed 300 robotic surgeries with the da Vinci system, and physician-researcher Georgi Guruli, a native of Georgia in the former USSR, whose research focuses on the mechanisms of prostate cancer and dendritic cells, or immune cells.

"Not every prostate cancer is the same, so we offer a wide variety of state-of-the-art treatment options," said Mitchell Anscher, chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology. "Dr. Hampton and Dr. Guruli will be tremendous assets to our National Cancer Institute-designated center, adding robotic surgery to our vast array of treatment options, and integrating more clinical trials into our menu."

You're spending a nice quiet weekend of fishing and sunbathing along the shores of Lake Anna, never giving that big, old domed power plant across the water much mind. Then suddenly ... It's Three Mile Island all over again! What are you going to do?

You may be totally unprepared for the unlikely event of an emergency evacuation, but state, local and Dominion Virginia Power officials hopefully will have some idea what they're doing. They will be testing their ability this week to handle a nuclear emergency at the utility's North Anna Power Station, Greg Edwards with the Times-Dispatch reported over the weekend. 

Localities within 50 miles of the Louisa County plant, including some in the Richmond region, will participate in the drill Tuesday and Wednesday. "Law-enforcement officers will practice traffic-control measures and local and state radiological monitoring teams will take field readings and communicate with one another by radio," writes Edwards.

Xenith Bank has leased 16,000 square feet of office space in One James Center in downtown Richmond. Grubb & Ellis/Harrison & Bates represented the firm in lease negotiations. More.

CarMax, Inc., the nation's largest retailer of used cars, has begun construction on the first CarMax superstore in Augusta, Ga. The 13,525-square-foot facility located on five acres is expected to open in 2009. More. 

Aaron Kremer with Richmond BizSense has stayed on top of the supremely important Starbucks store-closing story. The Seattle beanery has announced the first round of closings and, although five stores are in Virginia, Richmond caffeine addicts can sip easier: None of them are in Richmond!

Richmond’s Venture Forum offers start-up entrepreneurs the opportunity to make a 5-minute capital pitch at its bimonthly luncheons. Four veterans of the 5 Minute Forum returned to the Venture Forum yesterday to share their success stories and insights from the trenches of entrepreneurship.

Each of the returning veterans had a different business model – auto racing, college internships, supermarket business process software and health insurance – yet each had the same advice for start-ups looking to raise capital to bring their idea to life: Don’t give up.

Ricky Dennis, founder and president of Arena Racing LLC , the arena-based, half-scale-car racing league, said, “I had just finished my second season in Norfolk building the [Arena Racing] prototype, and I was broke.” He went on to raise $2.5M, and has successfully launched Arena Racing in Hampton Roads and Charlotte, with Grand Rapids, Mich., joining the list for the 2008-2009 racing season.

Insmed Inc., a developer of generic drugs, has retained Bill Thomas, former Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee from 2001 to 2007, to assist the company’s efforts to bring “follow-on biologics” to U.S. customers and consumers.

Follow-on biologics are generic versions of a certain class of biotech drugs whose patent protection is far more extensive than that that of normal pharmaceuticals. As a consequence, the biologics developers don’t face competition from manufacturers of generic versions of their drugs and can keep their prices high, costing U.S. consumers billions of dollars a year.

Thomas played a prominent role developing key health legislation during his 28 years in the House of Representatives, culminating in the passage of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, which created Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage for seniors.