In character, the used-car dealer is a close cousin to the Web spammer, so he appreciates the advantages of misleadingly labeling a car ad as porn in order to drive up views, which is what Massachusetts-based Clay Corp. did with a YouTube video titled "Let's Get Naked." Expect much, much more of this to come: There are 20,800 car dealerships in the U.S., and one in four use Web videos to market themselves, reports Ad Age. In 2006, General Motors stopped marketing its used cars anywhere but online. GM marketer Larry Pryg says car dealers made the move because Web video is often free to distribute and even cheaper to make than your average BUY! BUY! BUY! NOW! NOW! NOW! local car-dealer commercial. Clay Corp's deceptive video:

General Motors' marketing head for North America told Ad Age that GM now spends 1 in 4 ad dollars online. But moving online is also a way to cut the total ad-budget denominator in that equation. The more efficient online ad market requires less spending. One analyst sums it up: "Everyone is fine-tuning ad budgets now, and by paring back the ad budget, you can cut out millions in a minute." Bonus stat in the article: 1/3 of the people who buy American brand autos don't use the Internet as part of the shopping process.

Microsoft's Vista apologists no longer have to worry about former chief software architect Bill Gates letting slip an admission that its latest operating system sucks, sending computer makers and users back to Windows XP. As soon as Dell, HP and other major manufacturers sell their current-supply of XP-loaded PCs, no more will come off the shelves as Microsoft ends production of the aging but quite functional operating system today. But instead of moving on to Windows Vista, large corporate clients like General Motors intend to purchase Vista-loaded computers and "downgrade" them to XP. Meanwhile, only 8 percent of all software developers are working on applications for Vista, while 49 percent continue to develop for XP.

"We're considering bypassing Vista and going straight to Windows 7," GM technology chief Fred Killeen told BusinessWeek. He said that replacing Windows XP with Vista would require the company to buy too many machines. "By the time we'd replace them, Windows 7 might be ready anyway," he said. Fred, Fred, Fred — if you ask Microsoft, Intel, Dell, and the rest of the technology industry, buying too many machines is sort of the point. (Photo by ceonyc)

The Freakonomics blog and search-data company Hitwise found that there are quite a few Gmail users who accidentally end up at GM.com when they mean to go to Gmail.com. In fact, 0.94 percent of GM.com visitors go to Gmail.com on their next page load versus 0.14 percent for Toyota.com to Gmail. No word from GM, but it's doubtful that any of these accidental visits turned into purchases. (Photo by AP/Paul Sancya)

U.S. automakers will shift a larger percentage of its multibillion-dollar advertising budget from television to online. GM is allowing regional dealers to choose how their ad dollars are being spent, but the company is encouraging them to spend it on the Internet. GM's data indicates that the Net is the first place potential shoppers go when looking for a car. Too bad the Internet can't just build them a car people want to drive! (Photo by AP/Paul Sancya)

The relentless pursuit of scoop/exclusive credit is a die-hard pastime on this, our Internet. At Gawker, we tend to prefer a more squishy concept of content ownership; information wants to be free, or at least infinitely reproducible without cost, man. Nevertheless, we do try to provide credit where credit is due, and that's the subject of a witch hunt by the greasy gearheads at Jalopnik. Seems they managed to con some exclusive pre-release Chevrolet commercials out of General Motors, though unfortunately the "final" commercials did not feature the promised nuclear explosions. They did feature lots of patriotic imagery and the heartland musical stylings of John Mellon Cougarcamp, which apparently appealed enough to Stephen Colbert and The Colbert Report that the show reproduced the video with no thanks to poor Jalopnik. "When a journalist or 'web logger' takes something not their own and slaps a pre-roll on the front of it with their name and puts it up on YouTube, that's as good as if they made it themselves," claims Jalopnik righteously. Typical mainstream media, surviving parasitically on blog content, just like always.