I have to admit I have a soft spot in my heart for otherwise dweeby and staid b2b categories getting a little funky and genuinely entertaining with their marketing efforts. Growing up as the son of an ad man, I got to see a ton of crappy creative and crushingly boring b2b campaigns. To this day I still recall the inventive promotions sent regularly by some paper company whose name I will never remember. The materials often had nothing to do with the paper industry. They simply were engaging, and they happened to be printed on and made possible by …

In addition to trying to demonstrate that the largest video destination on the planet isn't just about offbeat Web shows and cute cats, YouTube is also endeavoring to show that it isn't only streaming video either. As we covered earlier this week in Google's own Contraption puzzler promoting the Nexus S Android phone, the branded channels are getting increasingly interactive. Yesterday, Wonka Chocolate leveraged its roots in Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" to bring the Wonka Imagination Room to life. Claiming to be the first 360-degree interactive video experience, the branded channel on YouTube is a bit of …

Oh, how typical is this? The winner of Break Media's six-week contest soliciting the best script for a Web video short is about (wait for it) the Web itself. Twenty/thirty-somethings in white button-downs visiting one another's cubicles. Check! Mostly average males, one gorgeous woman. Check! Fan-boy reference to cult fantasy writer (in this case H.P. Lovecraft and his Cthulhu Mythos). Check! Oh, look at this latest Web thingie. Check!

Veteran PC puzzle gamers may recall a legendary digital time sink entitled "The Incredible Machine" back in the 1990s. This inspired game took its cues from the great Rube Goldberg cartoons earlier in the 20th Century, which mocked the new machine age of convenience and automation with bizarre, intricate contraptions built to perform the simplest of everyday tasks. "The Incredible Machine" brilliantly leveraged digital interactivity to let the player assemble ramps, pulleys, treadmills, engines, etc. to complete a job, usually of moving a ball from Point A to Point B. For the engineering set that dominated the early adopter generation …

A writer at NBC's "The Office" has gotten the nod from MetaCafe users as the "fan favorite" among original Web series from the popular video hub. The contest called MetaVote has been running on the site in the last month to help generate sustained interest in web-exclusive programming. The material was supplied by Strike.TV, which brings offline talent to the Web. As we all know after years of many more misses than hits, webisode audiences are tough things to build. I have to admit that even the stuff I have seen that I liked in the first few episodes fell …

In coming years, more and more TV viewers will be doing what I have to do every night when my wife and I contemplate an evening of lean-backness. What's it gonna cost us this time? Do I rent from Apple TV or fire up the Google TV to look for a better deal on Amazon? If no compelling recent issue film seems worth the $4 to $5 a la carte fee, then which back catalog of all-you-can eat wares do I plumb? Amazon Prime's limp but growing library that costs me $70 or so a year (with other benefits)? Netflix …

Most viral video ads have a "do you believe this?" "how did they do that (or "did they really do that?") and "you gotta see this" factor that sparks sharing, regardless of the brand appropriateness of the content. The upside of this convention is massive distribution online. The downside? Hit or miss targeting. Who knows why someone shared the video of that dazzling scene and whether it connects at all with the product? Worse, unfortunately and increasingly, this one-upmanship means an arms race of digitally generated imagery. As ads become entire "Inception"-style worlds of surreal impossibilities I find my old-fogeyism …

If those July 4 hot dogs yesterday just didn't seem to have enough of that true pork flavor, or seemed a little on the trim and low-fat side, then you must have missed the first episode of "Grillin' with Rico" last weekend at TR3S.com, the site from bilingual bicultural Viacom brand Tr3S: MTV, Musica y Mas. The newly launched cooking show hosted by chef Rico Chips featured a special recipe of wrapping those dogs in bacon, just to add that extra bit of flavor and saturated fat.

If TMZ focused on any other category but celebrity gossip, I imagine its leader Harvey Levin would be an even bigger emblem of digital brand building than Arianna Huffington. This is one of the most amazing trajectories I have seen in the perennial (usually elusive) pursuit of digital germination of cross-media success. TMZ has a massively popular Web site, some superb mobile apps, a Sirius radio show, a nightly TV program and daily live video chats hosted by Levin and his cohort Charles. It started only six years ago and arguably is the best instance of a brand built on …