For those who have mastered their narrative skills with a camera and don't feel like waiting for YouTube to start sharing revenue, Zooppa (pronounced: zoo-pa) just might be your ticket to fame and fortune. As a new startup that's been stirring some buzz for a little while now, Zooppa melds user generated video with advertising for a unique business model. Businesses supply advertising briefs - what their product is, who they're targeting, any brand-specific design elements, etc. - and users create advertisements for the company, uploading them for Zooppa users to vote on. After voting closes, the winning video scores a cash prize, though we aren't sure exactly how large of a prize that is just yet.

This looks like a fantastic idea for both aspiring marketers and small businesses on little to nonexistent budgets. Who knows: could we see one of next year's Super Bowl ads come out of a Zooppa contest later this year?

You might recall awhile back we posted some ads from Japan featuring Apple's "I'm a Mac" guy and his PC foil just like the U.S. ads but, er, Japanese. Today we have some more foreign "I'm a Mac" ads, but this time you won't need subtitles. Apple has brought its popular ad campaign across the Atlantic this time, to the U.K. Here's the first, called "Office at Home" and you can find the other five after the jump. (Or, if you're a purist, you can watch them in glorious hi-res QuickTime at the Apple web site.)

I'm more fond of the UK Mac than the smarmy US version, but as I said before there's no replacing John Hodgman as the PC. And I have a soft spot for that Eurobeat-grooving Japanese PC. The actors, in case you're curious, are Britons David Mitchell and Robert Webb as the PC and Mac respectively, stars of Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show.

It's a foregone conclusion that video games are the next big medium for advertising, and ads in games have already become pretty commononplace. Most people will put up with them, despite the fact that they already paid a forty bucks or more for the game. But what about when the ads start connecting to the ad agency's servers over the Internet to tell them about your playing habits? As reported by our pal Vladimir at Joystiq, that's exactly what's happening with Vivendi's SWAT4: not only does the game download new advertisements to show you while you're playing, it also tells Vivendi's advertising partner, Massive, how what time you start and stop playing, and how much time you spent looking at each ad.

Head over to Joystiq for more details, or read the complete report (including how to block the ads and the intrusion) by Andrew Smith and Peter Wood.