
Listen Live!: "LISTEN LIVE NOW! is the call in connection that allows you to experience a music event anywhere in the world! Starting at just $1.99 USD for 7 minutes through LISTEN LIVE NOW! you can access a concert by your favorite artist at venues around the world."
MIT Advertising Lab comments on this story here
The Rolling Stones' European concerts will be audiocast via Listen Live Now for the $1.99 fee per 7 minutes fed directly from the soundboard. Bandwidth limits the service to 1 million simultaneous streams. (Are there a million suckers ... er I mean consumers with cell phones ... lined up for this?)

Spot Runner : Here's how it works.:
"We make it fast, easy, and affordable to advertise on TV. Welcome to Spot Runner, the world's first Internet-based advertising agency. Now you can harness the power of professional television advertising to reach your local customers and sell your products and services."
Spot Runner promises a turn-key local TV advertising service. JWT announced a partnership today to offer Spot Runner services on emerging platforms including online video, IPTV and VOD. Details are sketchy.

Maven Networks | Direct to Consumer Video-on-Demand Services: "Maven Media System's proven video publishing, management and delivery system maximizes online revenue by enabling the most interactive, highest quality Internet TV viewer experience across multiple platforms and devices. "

METRO Group Future Store Initiative
The virtual tour through the Future Store explains the use of the innovative technologies.

MediaPost Publications: "VoIP Firm Launches New Ad Platform
INTERNET TELEPHONY FIRM GLOBE7 TODAY will launch a new version of its downloadable VoIP and video service that will include an ad platform with geo-targeting. The company's new application, Globe7 Plus (click to view a demo), combines voice-over-IP service with a video library of news, sports, and entertainment content; users can earn free credits on the VoIP service by watching the ad-supported videos.
Advertisers that have signed on to sponsor the videos include WalMart, American Express, Ford Direct, Sony BMG, Amazon, Ameriquest, Target, Shopping.com, and Disney. With the launch of the new platform, marketers can target to users based not only on demographic and psychograhic data--offered by the company's previous platform--but also based on the countries or regions users place calls to and the content they view. -- Shankar Gupta"
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The design of the Globe7 VOIP client is doofy. Really ... And it forces you to click three times just to make a call (vs. Skype or AIM ease-of-use). The company site displays a counter of downloads that is greater than 17 million to date. Still, this smells like a gimmick to me.

USATODAY.com - Mania strikes Web again: Video 'madness' takes off
If you read only one article about viral advertising on the Web, this is the one. The author fears that online video mania is just another Dot Com Fad. He may be right.

Pepsi Transit Poster with Embedded Headphone Jack
I'm not one to call out a missed opportunity, but I recall proposing this idea on a unit of in-store point-of-sale more than a year ago.

VideoClix interactive video software | Hypervideo | Clickable Video | Video Hotspotting: "VideoClix is the premier and only commercial tool for creating clickable videos. It simply allows your viewers to click on objects in your video and purchase products, cast votes or get more information about the clicked items... all without having to stop the video."
Intelligent carpet can autodiscriminate - Engadget
A new kind of floor covering has been invented at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan that determines the weight, age, and sex of the individuals strolling across ... the team hopes to use it in less dodgy scenarios such as analyzing shopping patterns or audience demographics at various entertainment venues.

Reach captive audiences outdoor at the pump through digital media advertising with Gas Station TV
Our counterparts in emerging media and emerging platforms have been talking about this launch for some time. Here it comes. Former WPP are among the founders of this start up. It's one more example of the so-called mass media moving out of home.

Ram Rash Home
After dipping its toe with the admittedly lame "7 Inches" Durango spot on YouTube.com et al, DaimlerChrylsler's Dodge has just launched Ram Rash with a series of videos plus a microsite at http://www.ramrash.com/. It turns out the effort is for the European launch of the Dodge world car currently badged "Kaliber" here in the USA.

FingerSkilz
Wow ... HP (aka Hewlett-Packard for you old timers) is supporting its big re-branding effort "Personal Again" with viral videos and a blog called FingerSlilz, featuring a guy who plays soccer tricks with his anthropomophized hand. How this connects to the campaign is ... errrrr ... ummmmmm ... well ... there's a hand in the ads. Yeah ... that's it ... a hand. Sure. Branding. Got it. Er. Yeah. In all fairness, it is a ton of fun. The overall look is homemade even though HP is clearly and repeatedly called out as the sponsor and originator of the whole lot.

Competition Heats Up For Viral Video Advertisers
Business Week
Advertisers are creating and distributing videos on sites like YouTube and Google Video, hoping they'll be distributed by thousands of Web users, reports Business Week. For that powerful chain of events to take place, marketers have to create something compelling enough for a legion of anonymous users to want to share it with friends. "If you entertain your audience, they will get it, and the viral mechanism will make the audience come to watch you," says Ed Robinson, an ad executive and Web site owner who attracted more than 60,000 people in one week to his Web site with a 12-second spot. Within three months, he had 500,000 visitors. Video could be advertising's holy grail. It reaches millions of consumers without spending millions of dollars. The big lure, according to research estimates--it's a $100 million to $150 million industry. Just think of Crispin Porter + Bogusky's "Subservient Chicken" video for Burger King; it's still one of the most popular viral video ads in history, with 400 million hits. And it didn't cost millions to make. CPB says after that success, it found competition on the Web to be fresh, different, and fierce. After all, advertisers are competing with content created by millions of amateurs, too. Plus, Web users are an ad-saturated audience, so anything that lacks irony or a little sophistication and smacks of cheap marketing ploys won't get very far. To be successful, viral video needs high entertainment value. That's right, advertisers--you're creating content, too.
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Here's a quick commentary from another adverblogger - Coolz0r - with quick clip excerpts from the article. It's the Cliff's Notes version for those of you who choose to skim.

Jessica Simpson Sings Your Name, Pop Star Offers Personalized Version Of Her Single 'A Public Affair' - CBS News: "The sexy singer is inviting fans to purchase a personalized version of her song 'A Public Affair' by logging on to Yahoo! Music beginning July 18 or www.jessicasimpson.com a week later.
After making their choice from a list of 500 names [Note: Jessica ... or a robot ... pre-recorded the names in a studio.], fans will be able to immediately download a song that contains three personalized shout outs. If the person's name is very unique, songs will be delivered in approximately 1-3 weeks. "
YouTube - VH-1 Flavor of Love Season 2 Preview
Warning: The content in this video is sexist and tacky; though it remains (barely) within the bounds of acceptability for workplace viewing. But ...
In-video user controls on YouTube ... very cool! While this video plays you simply hover your mouse pointer over the lower right corner of the video to see a navigation icon pop up. Click it and you can select more videos while seeing some stats such as ratings and number of views.

eMarketer.com - Blogs, Blogs and More Blogs: "comScore reports that the traffic to blogs continues to grow, up 56% over the past year to 58.7 million visitors, and that represents 34% of the total Internet audience.
Perhaps more importantly, in a very real way blogs are an indication of how the Internet is shifting from a medium where users gather information into a medium where they disperse information. "
(Not so ironically, this blog was originally conceived as a blog about blogging.)

Advertising Age - Digital - Wal-Mart Tries to Be MySpace. Seriously: "Desperate to appeal to teens with something other than pencils and backpacks during the crucial back-to-school season, Wal-Mart is launching a highly sanitized, controlled and rather unhip site at walmart.com/schoolyourway. Teens are invited to create their own page, 'show it to the world and win some fab prizes,' including a chance to have their videos appear in a Wal-Mart TV commercial. Wal-Mart's agency is GSD&M, Austin, Texas. "
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Yahoo invites its users to shoot ads - Yahoo! News: "On Monday, Yahoo touts a new look for its front page by asking people to pull out the video camera, open up the editing software and create 12-second commercials for Yahoo. There is no cash reward, nor even a prize for best ad. But Yahoo hopes the enthusiasm of its customers will result in great work. The ads will be shown at video.yahoo.com."
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MediaPost Publications - Direct Marketers Eye Satellite Radio - 07/17/2006: "Although it's touted as 'ad-free,' satellite radio may provide a perfect vehicle for a new generation of direct marketers, according to Jordis Rosenquest, senior vice president of communications strategy for Targetbase, part of Omnicom Group's Diversified Agency Services division. On the surface, this conclusion is at odds with the chief finding of a study recently completed by Targetbase, which found that consumers value its 'commercial-free' aspect above all others. But the reality is more nuanced."

