NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Publicis Groupe is having trouble meeting its media-spending commitment to Microsoft, according to several people familiar with the situation. The third-largest agency-holding company entered into the commercial agreement last summer when it bought digital agency Razorfish from Microsoft. Execs put the commitment at "a couple hundred million dollars" annually for ad inventory.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Before BP could stem the oil gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, it unleashed $100 million in ad spending, largely on network TV, to stem the damage to its image. But it also started spending heavily where it had never spent much before: buying ads in Google's search results.

YORK, Pa. (AdAge.com) -- "Plants vs. Zombies," with its unusual combination of pea-shooting plants and not-too-scary cartoon zombies, has quickly become a huge hit for casual game publisher PopCap -- and it's about to go bigger.

YORK, Pa. (AdAge.com) -- "Marcus don't play that." That's Marcus Rivers, Sony PlayStation's smack-talking front man for its handheld PSP device, referring to mobile-phone games.

In order to get beyond the uninteresting and, oftentimes, undifferentiating focus on product features, marketers must position their brand not within a category, but within consumer culture.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The Awl is expanding. The three-man enterprise will now include a fourth in its effort to launch a new website Wednesday called Splitsider, which will focus on comedy and entertainment news.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Blockbuster finally has a point of differentiation to advertise and strong creative to engage consumers, but it may not have the money to invest in marketing to pitch it.

The notion of net neutrality evokes a sense of righteous entitlement whenever anyone vaguely threatens this sacred principle. The mere discussion gets a knee jerk "the net should stay neutral" reaction that rivals what the "live free or die" call probably evoked in its day.

For brand advertisers, YouTube can be a scary place, at least in theory. It houses the world's videos, after all, which includes plenty of things a brand might want to sponsor (pet food for a funny cat video, for example) and plenty that most wouldn't.

SAN FRANCISCO (AdAge.com) -- The role of a "chief listener" evokes images of fuzzy sweaters, chamomile tea and sitting around with a patient ear. Instead, try sifting through unstructured data and building complex queries.

YORK, Pa. (AdAge.com) -- What happens when AT&T no longer has exclusive rights to Apple's iPhone? Well, it seems to be preparing for that day by creating branded apps as one of the ways for its 100 million-plus iPhone customers to remain with the carrier rather than switch.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Microsoft has shifted a chunk of its massive ad account, its cloud-computing business, to Interpublic Group of Cos.' Deutsch, New York, from WPP's JWT. The move comes after an unusually quick review process for which the technology giant reached out to major holding companies including WPP, Interpublic, Omnicom Group and Publicis Groupe.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- When Facebook launched its version of location check-ins "Places," it seemed to put Foursquare, with its endearing badges and mayorships, in its sights. But Foursquare's founder and CEO, Dennis Crowley, thinks his location-based game app will survive "Places" and thrive as more people get accustomed to sharing their locations.

BATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) -- Muscular as Isaiah Mustafa and his viral videos may be, they seem no match for the power of free goods.

LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) -- How do you revitalize a 40-year-old brand with flat sales and diminished shelf space in some of the biggest retailers? If you're Revlon's Mitchum, you team up with not one but two Hollywood directors, host a contest and let consumers tell your brand's story for you.

SAN FRANCISCO (AdAge.com) -- Google products are efficient, slick and -- as the coders say -- elegant. They get you from point A to point B fast. Really fast. But are they fun?

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Is it real or isn't it? Gillette and tennis great Roger Federer aren't saying. One thing's certain: The video of Mr. Federer knocking a metal bottle off a man's head with a tennis ball hit the Viral Chart at No. 1 last week, with more than 5 million views.

More than ever before, marketers are in charge of technology these days. But how do you know which tech to focus on?

While it's clear most brands are not all that comfy with the notion of three screens today, the bad news is that it's about to blow wide open to six screens. Why? Because consumers are demanding more and more control in their increasingly "pull" digital world.