iTunes to Carry Graphic Ads

Ad Age is reporting iTunes will ad small graphic ads to iTunes in the lower left hand corner of the screen. The ads will appear when a person listens to a podcast using iTunes. It's unclear yet whether the ads will appear when people are viewing paid content such as ABC's $1.99 downloads. What is clear is the lower left hand area of iTunes will soon become ignored territory.

Oh, and by the way, Ad Age, that auto page reload thing is cheating and a sad attempt at increasing pageviews.

Mickey's Tells Visitors What Not to Do

Miller Brewing has put a bit of money behind its Mickey's beer brand in the form on a new website that takes a bit of an opposite approach by telling visitors what not to do when it comes to drinking beer, talking about beer and clothing. Of particular educational value is a video in the What Not to Say section in which one guy says in response to a hot girl they see on TV, "My Mom's way hotter than that." And speaking of hot, what would a beer site be without the requisite hottie in the form of wallpapers, screensavers and buddy icons. Perhaps best of all are the points of advice given by Mickey's Vice Chairman Norwood Browne McManus IV. It's far better than most other beer site.

CBS's NCAA March Madness On Demand A Success

CBS SportsLine and the NCAA yesterday announced that NCAA March Madness on Demand, the online video player that provided streaming live video of the first 56 games of the 2006 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship set a record, according to what, we don't know, for scheduled live entertainment or sports event with over 268,000 simultaneous streams. In total, NCAA March Madness on Demand has already surpassed 1.2 million video streams served. I guess we were wrong thinking people would prefer the couch potato method of viewing.

Legitimized Software-Install Ad Channel Introduced

Hoping to stand up as a model against software-install spyware, Santa-Barbara-based onCommercials has introduced a formalize revenue share model with aims to "official-ize" software-install advertising. Software developers can use onCommercials code to display commercials during the loading process of their software. Each time the application is started a commercial will be shown, dynamically chosen by onCommercials serving technology.

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Kittens Attack Desktop to Promote TNT's 'The Closer'

While we certainly don't need any more useless widgets clogging up our precious and limited laptop memory, apparently some do and Crew Creative, with work for TNT's The Closer, is filling that need with downloadable desktop kitty in a nod the the show's lead actress Kyra Sedgwick's reluctant affinity to kittens. To wallow in desktop cuteness, click the kitty on the lower, left-hand side of the site.

While we've never watched the show, our two seconds of research leads us to believe this show is watched by an older crowd, not exactly the crowd which loves to clutter it's desktop with functionless widgets. We could be wrong. We could just be in a cranky mood right now. Or, we could be completely clueless and this cat will become the Internet's next Star Wars Kid.

Microsoft Faces Obstacles Over Vista Welcome Screen Ads

Microsoft's new OS Vista "Welcome Center" screen, seen by all PC users when they start their computers, will display ads. Because that practice has caused complaints, the company is facing trouble from the U.S. Department of Justice as well as states attorneys general who are considering legal action. A report was filed last Wednesday with the judge handling Microsoft's antitrust compliance.

With millions if not billions of people viewing that screen on initial boot at least a few times a week, calling it prime advertising real estate is an understatement. While TV has died as a mass media, Microsoft's "Welcome Center" will cause marketers to drool over its reach but cause extreme concern among those who feel Microsoft will use the space to promote the company's own products.

UPDATE: Catch the "diggversation" over here where diggers crucify Adrants Farker-style.

UPDATE II: Here's the actual legal brief (pdf) that confirms the story except for our misinterpretation about the ads appearing every time Vista is booted versus just during initial boot.

Target Takes Over Teen Desktops

Josh Mooney from Juxt tells us his agency recently launched a teen girl focused dynamic desktop application, called up2d8, for its client, Target. The application allows anyone to splash the Target brand all over their desktop along with photos, calendars, videos, contest, polls and Target products. Maybe it's just us but we can't remember the last time we saw our desktop what with all the open programs - which completely cover our desktop - required to actually do anything with a computer. but as we said, that's just us. Oh, and we're not teenagers anymore. Nice work, though.