A Week's Worth

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6 percent last week, its biggest tumble since just before Christmas. Analysts blamed concern that the Federal Reserve may not believe itself free to lower interest rates until at least the second half of the year.

• Every 10 minutes workers spend discussing the likely outcome of Sunday's Super Bowl on company time will cost the nation's employers as much as $162.1 million in lost productivity, the outplacement specialist Challenger, Gray & Christmas estimates. And that doesn't count gathering around the water cooler on the morning after for postgame analysis.

• The use of so-called "social media" – blogs, wikis, online videos, podcasts, MySpace, message/bulletin boards – by American corporations "is racing far ahead" of predictions, the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth shows. It surveyed companies ranked by Inc. magazine among the 500 fastest-growing and found that 2 out of 3 rated social media as "very" or at least "somewhat" important in their marketing strategies.

• Haven't been to a movie lately? If you're like the majority of respondents to a new survey, your No. 1 reason isn't the content of the films Hollywood has been producing, it's that you want cheaper seats. Eighty-six percent of respondents to a PA Consulting Group poll said they want ticket prices that are easier on the wallet. At the same time, 60 percent said they'd prefer reserved seating.