Place-shifting media is going mobile. Late in May, San Mateo, Calif.-based startup Sling Media rolled out software that turns mobile devices into media-anywhere hubs. Sling Media's SlingPlayer Mobile uses cellular phone data plans to connect to its Slingbox players. The players feed media content onto the Internet for consumption on any Web-enabled device. Want to see SportsCenter on your cell phone? You'll need both the Slingbox and SlingPlayer Mobile to make that happen.

Despite all the fancy remote control buttons, figuring out what’s on TV isn’t getting any easier. So consumers are turning to online guides to decide what to watch. And where consumers go, ad dollars follow. They’re now following Decisionmark’s TitanTV, which is both an Internet digital video recorder that lets a computer receive the same programming as a TV set, and an online program guide. Recently TitanTV incorporated advertising into its guide, working with Carat client Re/Max to sponsor home-, building-, and moving-related shows. The guide embeds advertisements into the listings grid and can also fire up …

Though it's garnered a massive wave of attention, the phenomenon of podcasting has remained a minuscule force, accounting for less than one-half of 1 percent of online ad spending this year, according to eMarketer. This spring Pod2mobile introduced a set of solutions designed to address this disparity.

"A routine flight. A creative assassin. Sam F*cking Jackson." So opens one of the many fan-made previews for New Line Cinema's new summer offering, "Snakes on a Plane." That's right: Even months before its release, the film already had fans.

Text messaging is all the rage, but sometimes a simple dial-in remains the best way to connect with consumers. In a remarkably effective example of in-event mobile marketing, 57 percent of eligible cell phone users at the Tyson American Cup international gymnastics competition this year called into an on-scene contest for a prized mat-side seat. Responding to a simple offer for a better view of the show, a majority of adults used the Tyson 800 number to connect to an interactive voice message featuring gymnast Chellsie Memmel. The instant winner got a callback and was called down to the …

Where should advertisers look to reach the country’s most affluent business professionals? Up — way up. According to Arbitron’s In-Flight Media Study with Pace Communications, released this summer, in-flight magazines and TV programs serve as captive venues for frequent flyers’ attention. Unplugged from cell phones, the Internet, and on-demand media services, this typically hard-to-reach demographic is much more receptive to commercial messages while in the air. Of the 2,259 Delta, United, and us Airways flyers surveyed, 91 percent had read or paged through an airline’s in-flight magazine within the past six months. Three-quarters of readers could recall …

Paying your customers to use your products? It might not sound like the best business model, but vehicle outfitting company Rack N Road has a new “Graphics on the Go” marketing strategy that offers equipment loans and monthly payments to customers willing to wrap their own cars with advertising. The company also offers equipment at cost for those willing to display stickers that say things like “Road Trip” or “Nice Rack.” This “mobile” marketing campaign operates on the thinking that the best people to sell a brand are its own happy customers. The goal: some 200 wrapped …

When the International Contemporary Furniture Fair set up shop in New York's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in late spring, IKEA wanted to be nearby ? not to invite comparisons with the show's $8,500 ottomans, mind you, but instead to spread its "everyday fabulous" gospel among Big Apple denizens.

Hey, all you network suits and programmers ? there's a ginormous deficit of television shows for tweens and teens! In the face of such a void, maybe you should look to the "Harry Potter" franchise, which attracts tween, teen, and adult fans ? props to author J.K. Rowling.

Picture the typical summer TV viewer: too much barbecuing, too much Frisbee throwing, too much beach going, and ? according to consumer researchers ? too much myth-believing. As legend has it, the summer is the traditional time for TV programmers to take a break, because viewers are doing all those things that take them away from television: vacationing, frolicking at the beach, and presumably gazing into space. Viewers, in fact, are gazing ? at TV screens. They're still watching plenty of TV, just a little less than in the fall, spring, and winter. In actual numbers, about 8 to 10 …