In an attempt to harness fan excitement for this summer’s Spider-Man 3, Sony Pictures and video-sharing site Grouper are holding a contest to look for two people to be the “Face of the Fan” and report on movie news, according to AdWeek.

Members of the Spider-Man network on Grouper can submit their entries to the contest in the hopes of serving as a host of an online show reporting news on the movie as the May 4 release date nears.

Sony hopes that by tapping into fan excitement and getting people talking - not only about the contest but by extension the movie - it can bulk up ticket sales for the all-important opening weekend.

Grouper was aquired by Sony last August.

The world’s first interactive daytime show is set to debut next month when iVillage Live airs simultaneously on-air, online and in front of a live studio audience.

The multi-channel format for the show includes the Bravo channel, at iVillagelive.com, and NBC Universal Television Stations at the Universal Orlando resort, Soapdom.com reports. The show will feature interactive elements including live-chat at iVillageLive.com, with selected portions of the chat scrolling across the screen during the show’s broadcast. Mobile phone users can also text questions and comments to the show as it is being aired.

iVillageLive is working with advertising partners to secure product placements and integration and e-commerce opportunities. Companies that have already agreed to be involved include Unilever; Aramis & Designer Fragrances, Clinique, Estee Lauder and Origins; GE Profile Appliances; Goody; Graco; Healthy Choice; Overstock.com; and Priceline.com.

You’ve got new male

A 31-year veteran NBC Universal exec, Randy Falco, has just been named to take over from Jon Miller as Cchairman and chief executive of AOL, as the Time Warner operating unit struggles to re-invent itself as a free, ad-supported destination for web users.

The Los Angeles Times notes that through this hire Time Warner gains a nuts-and-bolts manager with expertise in video programming and relationships with key advertisers - crucial assets as AOL tries to lure visitors with a range of sponsored entertainment offerings.

Falco had interviewed with Miller and others at Time Warner for what some assumed would be AOL’s second-in-command position. It was unclear what allowed Falco to vault into the top job, although Time Warner executives have said privately that although Miller was a “visionary” and “strategic thinker,” they were interested in an executive whose strength was operations.

“What this deal signifies is that the Internet isn’t that different anymore - it’s big media,” said Jeff Lanctot, general manager of online advertising agency Avenue A/Razorfish. “And big-media experience is important when you’re building a big media company.”

The move didn’t just catch outsiders offguard. Many AOL insiders were reportedly stunned, particularly because AOL’s third-quarter advertising revenue jumped 46 percent compared with a year earlier, the first validation of AOL’s shift from a subscription-based Internet access business to a free online portal. Falco’s predecessor was one of the key architects of that strategy.

The announcement has generated plenty of online ink. InternetNews weighed in with extra details of Falco’s extensive advertising background, reporting his involvement in coordinating NBC’s coverage of the Olympics and refining NBC’s approach to selling advertising based on young, upscale viewers. More important to AOL, he was integral in a drive to sell advertising on NBC’s internet services, such as NBC.com and iVillage, the women-focused website that NBC bought earlier this year for about $600 million.

The appointment is not without its risks. Falco is exiting a culture based around delivering a limited range of content to millions of eyeballs, opting instead for one where millions of fragments of content are competing for share of eye. It’s not an easy transition.

Time Warner, for its part, is betting that relationships and operational excellence will be more effective than “the vision thing.”

Big clients place business with big media. Whether they’re devolving fast enough to “get” little big media is still anybody’s guess.

Buffy on MySpace

To satisfy a dedicated niche demographic, MySpace has launched a destination dedicated to comic books: Myspace.com/comicbooks will be its official community for manga, graphic novels and comics, the social-networking site announced.

MySpace Comic Books is hoping to attract the comic book fan by offering comic book news, interviews, special features, contests, exclusives and more.

Current contests include “Buffy Changed My Life,” which asks fans of the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” comic to write in, detailing in 250 words or less how the teenaged vampire hunter changed their lives; the winner will be written in as a character in the comic book.

MySpace will also take its positioning to the real world by becoming the main sponsor of this year’s New York Comic Con this week. MySpace will host a booth at the event inviting fans to meet face to face and log on to their profiles at the event.

Nettwerk’s McBride

As music sales continue to fall, the major labels are being forced to get creative in reaching customers, including embracing a channel the industry has long attacked: file-sharing online. 

Starting this week, Suretone Records, a division of the Universal Music Group, will begin distributing online video clips of some artists, such as Weezer and Drop Dead Gorgeous, the New York Times reports.

But the clips will have two interesting characteristics: they won’t be encoded with DRM (digital rights management), meaning they can be freely shared and downloaded; and they will be incomplete, meaning the user will have to go to the label’s website to view the entire video.

Nettwerk CEO Terry McBride, who has repeatedly called for the industry to distribute music in forms the customer wants, says the move will result in users’ posting the clips on file-sharing networks, which will lead to increased sales for the labels and artists.

“This becomes public property,” he said. “We’re not going to tell the consumer how to consume.”