Tech product placement is going into overdrive, with several prime-time shows basing plot lines around hip gadgets and gizmos. And soon, thanks to interactive "object-tracking" technology, consumers may be able to buy featured products with a click of the remote. As consumers turn away from traditional advertising, tech marketers are picking up the slack by weaving lots of gadgets into the fabric of TV shows and movies. The net, video games and ad-skipping DVRs are forcing marketers to focus more attention on "branded entertainment."

Makers of anti-spyware software are taking another shot at creating a definition of spyware, this time with help from consumer organizations. A new group, tentatively named the Anti-Spyware Coalition, plans to publish proposed guidelines later this summer that define spyware, best practices for desktop software development, and a common lexicon, people involved with the group told CNET News.com.

Podcasting, the new medium burst from the confluence of iPods and audio downloads, is advancing at incredible speed as more marketers and media owners incorporate it as an extension of the radio business.

Last month, America Online convened a meeting broadcast on the Web to its 14,000 employees. The purpose was to show off the free Internet portal that it is about to introduce at AOL.com, the third attempt in three years to offset AOL's steady loss of subscribers.

Online auctioneer eBay Inc. said on Wednesday it agreed to buy Shopping.com, which provides online comparison shopping and consumer reviews, for about $620 million in cash.

Film and television executives no doubt wish the increasingly popular BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing system never saw the light of day. Thousands of consumers are using the software to download hundreds of movies and hours upon hours of television programming. But one industry's threat is another's opportunity. There's an upside to allowing viewers to transfer copyright material content over BitTorrent.

Recently a publicist offered me a nice little scoop involving two of her clients, who planned to post a list of 10 U.S. advertisers that have been flouting the Can-Spam Act of 2003 by ignoring consumers' demands to unsubscribe. Instead of cutting down on spam, attempted delisting just generated more mounds of e-mail. Would I be interested? Sure, I said. I hate spam as much as the next guy -- provided the next guy thinks spammers should be forced to visit every single person they have bombarded with junk e-mail and manually delete each ad. I also knew just how …

Two weeks after dropping Interpublic Group of Cos.' Deutsch as agency of record for creative and interactive duties, online careers company Monster.com today launched an advertising campaign as part of a shift in its marketing strategy and announced a new lead creative agency.

In two brief runs on broadcast television, the live-concert show "Pepsi Smash" drew only a modest audience, but Yahoo is betting that putting the program online will be a boon to its digital music offerings. Yahoo today plans to introduce a section of its Web site housing a redesigned version of "Smash," which as a program on the WB network attracted an average of just 1.3 million viewers in eight episodes last summer. Yahoo and Pepsi are reviving the show as a collection of video segments on the Web, with plans to serve up digital streams of live performances from …

Knight Ridder Digital has lifted fees for ads placed in its online classified section for merchandise-category goods in 22 of its 27 online markets. The company is betting that giving away some listings will allow it to make money in other categories.