Following the return of Heroes Monday night (which, by the way, packed into one episode what a normal TV drama would have stretched over an entire season making it intensely interesting), the IAC ran a commercial - which has been on YouTube for six months - promoting those cute little traveling Zwinky avatars and the launch of Zwinktopia, a virtual world devoted to the little digital creatures who follow you around wherever you choose use them. Because of the many request IAC has received from users who want to outfit their avatars with actual brand name clothing, the organization is working with brands serve that need thereby creating an ad medium along the way.

With 4.7 million reported avatars, Zwinky and its Zwinktopia are double, according to which figures you choose to believe, the size of Second Life. Zwinky avatars are not constrained to one "world" and can be used across many different social sites such as MySpace and others. To be fair, a Zwinky avatar is not a Second Life experience but with Gen Y and tween avatar love, a digital being that can be branded and travel all over the web sounds like a pretty interesting medium to us.

*Source: AdRants.com, May 2, 2007