In one of the more innovative online game promotions to come down the broadband pipe, Facebook players in June were offered a peek inside a mysterious box that, they were promised, would change their lives.

Really. It said so right in the URL: www.LifeChangingBox.com. more…

The questions persist about this summer’s Yahoo! cliffhanger. What will the distant also-ran search engine do to boost both its search share and its earnings price? Will co-founder Jerry Yang be able to re-energize the company and stop the brain drain? Will Microsoft circle back for Buyout Offer: The Return? And whether or not any of those things happen, what difference will it all make for marketers?

The first group of questions is still open, but some industry experts have weighed in with educated, data-based opinion on a specific issue: namely, the search ad deal between Yahoo! and Google that has come to be known as “Yahoogle”. more…

Electronics maker Samsung is promoting the video capabilities of its new Instinct mobile phone with a set of ballpark Webisodes designed specifically to be seen over the handset.

Launched on July 16, the three programs give behind-the-scenes glimpses of three famous Major League Baseball stadiums: Boston’s Fenway Park, Chicago’s Wrigley Field and San Francisco’s AT&T Park. The first Webisode features the San Francisco park. more…

Jones Soda

Sometimes you just have to float an interesting idea out there and worry later about whether it’s good for the bottom line.

That’s the thinking behind a new Web site for Jones Soda, the alt-beverage company that has made its reputation on pure cane sugar, offbeat flavors like Blue Bubble Gum and Fufu Berry, and a staunch nonconformism. more…

This summer seems to be offering highly anticipated blockbuster events for every taste. If you’re a comic-book fan, there’s the new Batman movie. If you’ve been waiting since 1991 for new music from Guns N’ Roses, we learn that a track from a long-delayed album will be on the “Rock Band 2” video game. And if you’re a gadget geek, you were standing in line on July 15 for first crack at the new Apple iPhone 3G, cheaper, faster and maybe more Web-enabled than its original touch-screen counterpart.

But fans of the iPhone, and other smartphones able to access the Web, are growing less geeky and more mainstream all the time, and marketers who are waiting for the mobile Internet to go big should stop waiting. Those are the key takeaways of a new report compiled by Nielsen Mobile from diverse research sources within the company, giving new hope to marketers who would like to start pushing content and brand messaging to users who aren’t at their laptop or home PC. more…

If you’re looking for a demographic that needs reliable answers fast to tough questions, and doesn’t necessarily mind if they come equipped with some trustworthy product recommendations, then you could do a lot worse than to cater to parents, particularly new ones.

And that’s the thinking behind the new social community that has been layered on long-standing parenting content site BabyCenter.com, which has been around since before social networks existed on the Web. more…

Want to take a live tour of The Weather Channel, the 24-hour cable network that just got a $3.5 billion buyout offer from NBC Universal and two equity firms? Well, you can’t.

It’s not because the channel’s current owners, Landmark Communications, are inhospitable. In fact, they’ve conducted very popular live tours of the outlet’s Atlanta broadcast studios for years. more…

Most advertisers interested in running mobile campaigns are caught up in wondering when the channel will break big: amass large audiences for mobile Web or mobile video, build the interconnections to launch nationwide campaigns easily, and rack up a large base of users willing to accept ads and promotions on their phones.

By contrast, Web startup 8coupons.com is content to keep things small and localized—at least for now. The site launched last year as a way to bring the promotional possibilities of Web 2.0 and mobile marketing to the boutiques, bodegas and one-store businesses in Manhattan’s Soho and East Village neighborhoods. more…

Olympics broadcaster NBC has just revealed the massive scope of its coverage of the games, both online and on the tube: 3,600 hours of programming, spread among its main broadcast channel, its cable outlets from MSNBC and Oxygen to Bravo and Telemundo, and its Olympics Web site, www.NBCOlympics.com.

The down side for marketers is that NBC has also imposed stringent restrictions on the use others can make of coverage of the Beijing games. That means marketers who want to associate with next month’s Olympic action may have few resources outside the NBC-sanctioned channels.

But Yahoo! is providing some of those alternative Beijing branding opportunities with a new Web site within the Yahoo! Sports portal that will give visitors a host of ways to follow the Olympic Games over the Internet. more…

If you’re old enough to remember obsessing for a summer over who shot J.R. Ewing—or, for that matter, who shot Montgomery Burns—then you’re primed and ready for this season’s cliffhanger: What’s with Yahoo! and that search ad deal it just signed with Google? more…