With the much-ballyhooed launch of the Nintendo 3DS just days away, Best Buy, Target and GameStop are gearing up to make the most of the new game, which lets users see in 3D ... without putting on the goofy glasses. Best Buy says it will celebrate the launch with a midnight party at its Union Square store in New York City on Saturday, March 26, as well as hosting early openings at select locations around the U.S. And Target Corp. says is plans to feature Nintendo 3DS trial stations in 1,200 of its stores, offering a chance to …

Brooklyn-based Huge has been named "preferred global digital partner" for Lowe & Partners, starting with work on Lowe's Unilever brands.  The move comes some six months after Huge expanded overseas with the opening of four offices.

Besides having the most customers of any U.S. wireless carrier, a combine AT&T/T-Mobile would also have the most impressions, according to mobile ad network InMobi. Based on the 5 billion impressions generated on InMobi's network in February, a post merger AT&T would capture 35.5% of ad requests, compared to 24.8% for Verizon and 18% for Sprint. AT&T currently accounts for 20.4% of impressions, and T-Mobile, 15.1%.

"Dear Board of Trustees, Florida State University Marine Lab, Please join me in congratulating Dr. Michael Greenberg, recipient of The Florida Academy of Sciences 2011 Medalist Award, an award made to a Florida scientist who has contributed in an outstanding manner to the promotion of scientific research, to the stimulation of interest in the sciences, or to the diffusion of scientific knowledge. Mike managed to do all three of those things, with energy, with heart, and with distinction. We are indeed honored to work with you, dear friend. Felicia Coleman, Director"

The new Izod spot touting its Indy sponsorship features the alt band Weezer, Roger Penske, and other notables, and touts Izod's mobile Indy app, which shows race info and video, and race data. The new TV spot also shows a paint-schemed Honda Civic, as Honda is official pace car of the Indy series. Mike Kelley said last year saw a 40% growth in sponsors who joined the series and the largest increase in 18- to-24 audience base. "Appealing to those audiences is very exciting for sponsors," says Kelly. Verizon has moved its money from NASCAR to IndyCar an …

Phillips-Van Heusen's Izod brand has big plans for the 100th running of the Indy 500. Among a host of programs around the IndyCar series, the IndyCar title sponsor is launching a TV ad this weekend around the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, and has inked deals with brands like Verizon, Honda and Macy's that puts those brands in Izod IndyCar ads and vice versa. Honda is launching its own ads this weekend touting Civic, Izod, Macy's. One of Honda's spots features Indy icon Mario Andretti

Josh Chasin, comScore's chief research officer, wound up OMMA Metrics conference by breaking the news that there is no "magic metric" to simplify online measurement because of the inherent complexity of the medium. There is no equivalent of the GRP or Nielsen as an arbiter of TV ratings. He notes that the Internet adds "engagement" as a third axis to the traditional media measures of reach and frequency, but that there's no clear metric for engagement. He presentation offers a long list of candidates: time spent, click-throughs, visibility, "emotional connections, traffic driven to a Web site. But none has emerged …

The number of people accessing financial accounts (bank, credit card, or brokerage) has reached almost 30 million, growing 54% by the end of 2010 from a year ago. "More people are turning to the convenience of mobile devices for their financial service needs, fueled in part by the adoption of smartphones, 3G devices and unlimited data plans," said Sarah Lenart, comScore vice president, in a statement. Breaking out how people used mobile accounts, 18.6 million did so via the Web, 10.8 million through applications, and 8.1 million, SMS text (with overlap among the methods). Read more here.

Add Levi's to the list of brands looking to raise awareness of the world's water woes. The jean marketer has already generated plenty of buzz with its Levi's Water<Less jeans, a denim collection made by using less water during the finishing process, introduced early this year. And to celebrate this week's World Water Day, it's partnered with Water.org to create a Facebook game, asking users to unlock water from the Levi's WaterTank, to support Water.org's projects worldwide. Players win gallons of H20 by pledging to wash jeans less, take shorter showers and adopt better laundry habits. Levi's says …

Starbucks has added a batch of new content partners for the digital network it launched last October including The Economist, ESPN Insider Rumor Central, Marvel Digital Comics and Mediabistro. The initial group of media partners for the Starbucks Digital Network available for free within the coffee chain's 6,800 U.S. stores included LinkedIn, New Word City, The Weather Channel, The New York Times, iTunes, and WSJ.com. Stephen Gillett, Starbucks chief information officer, indicated the content additions were made based on feedback from users. The one that stands out is Mediabistro, because it's geared toward a narrower industry-based audience. The Starbucks Network is …