TechScape

When online marketing goes wrong. I just saw a Google ad pop up at the top of the screen while using Gmail, saying "BILLIAM - www.billiamuk.com - Official website of the UK's top new boyband!"

The name sounds rubbish. And I'm not exactly champing at the bit to hear them. But I was curious, so clicked on the link. Only to reach an Error 400 page saying "FORBIDDEN. You tried to access a document for which you don't have privileges."

Am I officially too old to be allowed into boy-band websites now? Or is this an example of someone's online ad campaign jumping the gun just a tad earlier than the web designers were expecting?

The future of digital advertising? It's social video sharing, standing around waving at billboards, and separating buyers from time-wasters online. Maybe. At least, that's one of the new technologies on view at Microsoft's Demo Fest, where the company's adCenter Labs division is showing off its latest concepts.

Social video sharing lets users highlight and comment on a specific area of a video frame, using Javascript, while also tying in with users' Windows Live ID if they only want to view comments from their friends. I'm slightly unclear about how this helps advertisers, but do like Microsoft's example of "being able to discuss how a goalie just blocked a soccer goal". Love that soccerball...

Really good post over on the Guardian's Organ Grinder blog reporting on an event at the Association of Online Publishers focusing on building communities around content. Suzie Daniels, head of business media at CNET Networks, talked about their approach to user-generated content.

"We want to enable those thought-leading people to engage with the site and give them a platform equal with our editorial team," she said. "And if we can get our thought leaders to contribute, the lurkers will benefit more."

Yell has launched a new mobile application and mobile internet site, in an effort to ramp up its presence on mobile in the face of competition from the likes of Google and Yahoo.

The application provides full access to Yell's listings, while also keeping track of regular requests, providing an auto-suggest function, and letting users 'click to call' businesses. It also provides zoomable maps, and lets users save info to their Contacts, or send it to friends via SMS.

This afternoon, Yell held an online webchat to give more info on the new service. "This is our first serious push into mobile," said Martin Wilson, head of mobile marketing at Yell.com.

Posters? They're old hat. Promotional Happy Meals in McDonalds? That's so last-century, Grandad. Gravelly-voiced trailers? Pur-lease! Everyone knows that the cutting-edge way to promote a new film is by persuading Second Life users to bump each other off. Virtually, of course.

That's the thinking behind a new campaign for Smokin' Aces ("crass, pointless" - This Is London) anyway. Universal Pictures has launched an event called 'Smokin' Aces: Second Life Assassin' within SL, which offers up to $1 million Linden dollars in prize money.

Historically, one of the problems of location-based mobile services is that punters haven't been willing to pay for them. Pay your operator 50p to get directions to somewhere? Not likely.

The theory that advertising could solve this problem isn't new, but it's only just being tested in real services. For example, LocatioNet Systems' newly-launched amAze service, which offers free mobile mapping, navigation and local search features in a downloadable Java application.

A Nokia venture called Nokia Ad Service indicates that Nokia believes it has a big role to play in the mobile advertising market. It is apparently "bringing to market a solution that connects global advertising with mobile publishers".

It's hard to be sure, but I don't think this has been reported before. I heard about it during an interview with mobile firm Clicmobile at 3GSM this week, as they're creating an online/mobile social networking community for Nokia Ad Service.

I'd never heard of it, so I Googled, and got absolutely nothing. So I tried 'Nokia Advertising Service' and got one result: a LinkedIn profile for Minh Tran. And he has a public LinkedIn profile (i.e. one that non-members can read), which provided the quote above.