Digital Marketing Remainders for May 30, 2007

Hollywood Reporter introduced a digital ad unit that’s inspired by print media formats. Advertisers will be granted fully half the screen space on article pages, and NBC Universal Television Studio is the launch sponsor. The unit will eventually be sold on other Nielsen Business Media sites. See a sample here.

Dead.net, the online home of the Grateful Dead, will be remade as a social network. TechCrunch has the details.

China.com has signed video ad agreements with Google and China Mobile. Google already provided search and search ads to the portal, a unit of CDC Corp. Reuters reports.

Music Nation has expanded its site to offer more marketing and promotion services to independent musicians. At the center of the relaunch is a widget with an embedded “electronic press kit,” including MP3s, tour dates, artist bios and press pages.

Watch ads, win prizes. Have you made a really sick, really expensive TV spot and now want people to actually see it? New platform BrandPort Sweepstakes will pay people to watch your video ads. Or at least offer them the chance to get paid. The prizes: gift cards, game consoles and Apple TVs.

Conversational marketing strategies have become standardized, and some are now expanding overseas. To wit, Intel has launched a Chinese-language tech blog, part of a strategy to globalize its social media strategy. (via Rohit Bhargava)

Facebook last week unveiled its new widget strategy including a book review app from Amazon. Now SideStep has side-stepped in, launching a “social travel application” called Trips to let Facebook users share travel plans and meet people while traveling.

The High Price of Consumer-Generated: NYT details the pitfalls of user-generated ad contests through the lens of Heinz’s current effort, wherein many contributed spots are unfunny, gross or worse.