Updated 3:38 p.m. ET

One of the few things that Time Warner's (TWX) beleaguered Time Inc. magazine business can count is the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

The issue is one of Time's top sellers, accounting for some 7% of Sports Illustrated's annual revenue, Forbes recently noted.

The magazine's advertising revenue last year was about $568 million, which would mean the issue -- and its associated calendars and other products -- generated more than $40 million in 2012, according to Publishers Information Bureau data from the Association of Magazine Media. That doesn't include the millions it generates in sales for swimsuit designers and accessory makers featured in the issue. 

PepsiCo's (PEP) Frito-Lay snack business is letting consumers vote on its next potato chip flavor, becoming the latest company to tap into the "wisdom" of social networks.  

Consumers can vote on Facebook or Twitter for the Lay's Cheesy Garlic Bread, Chicken & Waffles and Sriracha flavors in the "Do Us A Flavor" contest.

These varieties were chosen from nearly 3.8 million fan submissions gathered between July 20 and Oct. 6 of last year. The winning entries are eligible for a prize of $1 million or 1% of the flavor's net sales, whichever is higher.

The announcement of this marketing effort two days before the company reports fourth-quarter results is no accident. 

The U.S. tax code isn't a restaurant and Americans can't pay a la carte for the services and entitlements they want. But they can dream, can't they?

Ameritrade (AMTD) let 1,000 taxpayers daydream away during a tax survey conducted in November. The survey asked Americans to choose how the government should spend their tax dollars.

The results released Tuesday indicate that not only would they like to treat Uncle Sam like the short-order cook at their local diner, but they'd have far different ideas about what they'd put on the menu.

Health care was their biggest concern, with 38% looking to funnel tax dollars toward affordable health care and 24% looking to use their funds to improve the health care system.

 

Netflix (NFLX) has been slowly turning its streaming service into a children's television playground with help from Nickelodeon, Disney and even PBS. Now DreamWorks Animation (DWA) is giving Netflix a shiny new toy that none of its streaming competitors get to play with.

Netflix and DreamWorks are partnering on an original animated series called "Turbo F.A.S.T." based on the character in DreamWorks' upcoming July movie "Turbo."

The character in question is a snail gifted with super speed after a freak accident who dreams of competing in the Indianapolis 500. The "F.A.S.T." will be the "Fast Action Stunt Team" that accompanies the supersonic snail on his missions.

 

Cruise ships have taken a public relations pounding recently.

 

Unflattering or negative stories seem to appear on a regular basis. There was the fire this past weekend that left the Carnival Triumph adrift in the Gulf of Mexico and thousands of passengers stuck in a reeking nightmare, the deadly emergency drill accident earlier this month on a Thomson Majesty vessel, and outbreaks of what was thought to be norovirus over the holiday season on Cunard's Queen Mary 2 and Princess Cruises' Emerald Princess.

And, of course, there was last year's Costa Concordia disaster off the Italian coast.

 

It was a difficult 2012 for the cruise ship industry.

 

Wonton Food, the world's largest maker of fortune cookies, has seen the future of the $17 billion Chinese food industry, and it doesn't include romantic messages. 

"Some parents sent us emails. They said they didn’t want their kids reading them,” Derrick Wong, a vice president at the Brooklyn company, told The New York Post. "Different people have a different perspective," he added. (Hmm. Is he quoting one of his own fortune cookies?)

It's not as if the romantic messages were terribly suggestive to begin with. They included such cryptic lines as "Romance and travel go together" and "One who admires you greatly is hidden before your eyes." 

Wonton Food said that after receiving two or three complaints about a fortune, it will eliminate the message from its catalog.

 

Every culture has its version of the dumpling, but few lend themselves to experimentation quite as well as the ravioli. Whether stuffed with ricotta cheese and drizzled with marinara sauce, filled with pumpkin and garnished with pesto or laden with lobster beneath a stream of aioli, ravioli lives in a world populated by options.

Shards of glass probably shouldn't be among them.

Nestlé (NSRGY) has issued a voluntary recall of some of its Lean Cuisine ravioli dishes after three consumers reported finding glass shards in the product. None of those consumers was injured, but it's safe to say their boxes of reheated dinner were ruined.

 

Are people skimping on carbonated beverages and splurging on high-end accessories and watches? Perhaps. But the bigger lesson here for investors is in how companies manage expectations.

Coca-Cola (KO) disappointed Wall Street while Michael Kors (KORS) and Fossil (FOSL) posted better-than-expected​ results Tuesday.  

The world's largest soft drink company is in Wall Street's doghouse because case volumes rose in the quarter at a lower-than-expected rate, another indication of the fading popularity of carbonated beverages.   

CEO Muhtar Kent refuted this claim on CNBC, pointing out that the 3% increase seen in the quarter was within the company's own expectations.