Direct Response (DRTV)

While the focus at General Motors Co. in the last several months has been on the change to VP-Marketing Joel Ewanick, on re-shaping Chevrolet and Cadillac, and on the automaker's impending initial public offering, very quietly the Buick brand has become a driving force for the company.

Certainly TV is the largest medium still not interactive in the way that web revolutionized printed material and iPhone/Android have revolutionized mobile. While the last decade has seen massive changes in these other form factors, television has remained relatively unchanged. This article is an attempt to create a ‘news reel' of some of the events going in television and break down their collective meaning.

CBS Interactive is giving television the Foursquare treatment. The digital division is beta-testing TV.com Relay, a service that transplants Foursquare's combination of user check-ins and badge rewards from brick-and-mortar venues to TV shows.

Sports company K-Swiss is targeting younger males with a new mass-media campaign featuring Kenny Powers, the fictional character played by Danny McBride in the HBO series "Eastbound & Down."

The daily deal website Groupon is teaming up with restaurants owned by Top Chef contestants for a week-long promotion. It is the site's first foray into television.

Interactive TV application development company, Ensequence, said Monday that shopping channel, QVC, has tapped its Ensequence Managed Services Group and its iTV Manager Programmer Edition technology to develop an EBIF-based, bound, tcommerce application.

At this week's OMMA Ad Nets and OMMA Behavioral shows just about everyone was buzzing admiringly over last week's landmark Old Spice Twitter + Video campaign. And yet while Weiden + Kennedy was setting a new high bar for online video innovation there were still successes in the garden variety branded entertainment category. Hot on the heels of the popular Man on a Horse campaign was a nerdish rap from comedy duo Rhett & Link on behalf of Dentyne.

The cheesy As Seen on TV ad for the $30 hat -- essentially a black curtain hanging from a baseball cap with a ludicrously long bill -- has quickly become the hot new viral video.

HSN has announced that it will dedicate 72 hours of programming to selling products themed around the Julia Roberts movie Eat, Pray, Love. Just as the book is divided into three countries, so will be the programming block: Aug. 6 is Italy, Aug. 7 is India, and Aug. 8 is Bali.

Ion Television, a general entertainment network that claims to reach over 98 million US households via cable, satellite and the TV stations of its parent company, Ion Media Networks, has launched an interactive microsite to accompany the primetime crime drama series, "Without a Trace."