Links and some interactive news

+ Here's a "what the..." for you today. Anheuser-Busch will distribute Vermont Spirits' vodka made from maple syrup and milk sugar, Vermont Gold, Vermont Gold Vintage and Vermont White. Currently, the regional brands are available only in the Northeast. Now, Anheuser-Busch wholesalers in New England will begin distributing the brands, initially focusing on licensed states. Now I have a friend who drinks maple syrup (and yes he's a Vermonter) but, still. Kinda strange, but I'd give it a try.

AN Atlas Institute study has found that almost 67% of Web ad conversions (sales confirmations, requests for information, or other advertiser-defined actions) came from users who saw ads across multiple sites.

While such "overlap" might seem like common sense, analysts at Atlas Solutions--the research and technology arm of Microsoft's aQuantive--said that online advertisers are only beginning to quantify the cumulative effects of user exposure to ads across multiple sites.

Predicting that U.S. spending on behavioral targeted online advertising will nearly double in 2008--from $575 million this year to $1 billion--and nearly quadruple to $3.8 billion in 2011, eMarketer's new report, "Behavioral Targeting: Advertising Gets Personal," nonetheless concludes that "more development is needed before it is a fully mainstream marketing method."

Eyeblaster on Monday went live with a new suite of campaign management tools. The new version of Eyeblaster's campaign management suite offers channel integration capabilities, global campaign support, and a proprietary analytics module for measuring and reporting on a campaign.

IAB has launched a database of advertising specs from 88 major publishers in the interactive space. "By creating this centralized resource we hope to simplify the ad delivery process for advertising agencies and marketers, allowing them to leverage the power of interactive media across multiple publishers with greater efficiency," said Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the IAB. All participating publishers will be asked to update their specs in the Creative Spec Database within 72 hours of making changes to their site.