Corporations are major supporters of the arts, so it seems a fitting progression for their outdoor media buys to include a commission for a $10,000 custom-made work of art. Such a piece not only boosts brand exposure but also jazzes up billboard-cluttered streets and lobby corridors. Billijam, a New York-based digital arts company, has created ArtSpots, an out-of-home ad format featuring digital creations that companies sponsor. Each spot typically consists of 10 seconds of briskly moving, nearly psychedelic images that could easily spur hallucinations. Tagged with the sponsor's logo, each spot is on a loop with five others. Last …

Cell phone users searching for a little inspiration might turn to wireless content providers Royalcom or FaithMobile, both of which offer religious programming for mobile users. Royalcom subscribers can download motivational messages and other products offered by Paula White Ministries, as well as view exclusive video programming from her six-day-a-week TV show. The company plans to add more services to the mobile inspirational network this year. FaithMobile offers Bible verses, ringtones, and inspirational audio and video "mobisodes." Content ranges from the Pope's "Thought of the Day" to Deepak Chopra's "The Seven Spiritual Laws." "Inspirational content …

Broadway is more than just the heart of New York City. It's also a great test case for geo-targeting ads to consumers. HopStop.com, the MapQuest of mass transit, recently introduced geo-targeting ad technology to promote several Broadway shows. When a consumer enters a Times Square address into HopStop -- which delivers subway, bus, and walking directions to 15,000 daily users -- the directions come back with ads for Broadway musicals like "Chicago," "The Color Purple," and "Avenue Q." HopStop CEO Chinedu Echeruo plans to extend the function to other local businesses, so that ads for local restaurants and other …

Imagine a stadium filled with thousands of people. It's the final seconds of the big game, and the home team is about to win. As the players celebrate, confetti begins falling on the ecstatic fans below. But this is no ordinary confetti. The shiny bits of paper bear the team's logo, with a select few pieces offering fans a free cup of coffee from a participating sponsor. Sound ridiculous? According to Roger Wachtell, owner of Van Nuys, Calif.-based Artistry in Motion, "It all comes down to the imagination of the company and the message they want to …

Where ITV, WebTV, and countless Internet-to-home-theater schemes have failed, monstrously popular video game consoles may yet be the slam-dunk convergence game that media honchos have been waiting for. More than 132 million next-generation game consoles, like Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's forthcoming PlayStation 3, will hog screen time by 2010.

When it comes to marketing drugs, few companies are as savvy or as influential as pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. So when the brand team for Nicorette, a chewing gum that helps people quit smoking, wanted to come up with a strategy for reaching young, urban African-American smokers, it eschewed traditional media outlets TV, radio, and magazines, and advertised where those people were most likely to be reached: outside.

The idea of consuming media in public isn't entirely new. People have been reading newspapers and books in public for generations. We consume out-of-home advertising and media via billboards, both static and digital, in Times Square and other outdoor venues on a regular basis. Digital signs are now so sophisticated that we can text our votes and input directly to marketers. But the public consumption of media has taken on a new dimension since personal media made its way into the public square. I'm not talking about TVs, radios, or jukeboxes in bars, but about personal media taken out of …

Readers reacted strongly, some negatively, to last month's nonlinear issue of Media. Some wrote to alert us that our pages were all mixed up, and many stories were hard to read. Believe it or not, that was exactly what we intended. For those of you who were confused, offended, or thought we were just plain silly, we hope that we at least got you thinking about the challenges of nonlinear media. For those of you took the time to say you appreciated what we were attempting, thank you for going along for the ride. Believe me, it could have been …

Want to see the future? Check out a media agency executive's business card. That's where you'll often find, condensed into an infobyte, how completely technology has trumped tradition and nonlinear media have transformed buying and planning. Carat has an "engagement architect." Euro RSCG has a "creative director of media." Agencies that have bundled and unbundled media employ small armies of people with "insight" and "contact" in their titles. There are psychologists and ethnographers on staff.