Daily DigVid Review: Welcome back, Dunder-Mifflinites

For all of us who desperately miss new episodes of The Office in the summer, we need suffer no more! The Office webisodes are going live on Thursday, July 10, at 3 pm ET on NBC.com. Comcast, Sony Electronics and Priceline are sponsoring this summer’s webisodes, which will feature accountant Kevin (Brian Baumgartner, who finally gets to do more than just say one-liners) as he tries to pay off his mounting gambling debts. A preview is already up at NBC.com. The summer Web series also will focus on Oscar (Oscar Nunez), Stanley (Leslie David Baker) and Darrel (Craig Robinson) as they try to help Kevin solve his financial problems. NBC also has graciously left up last summer’s Webisodes, The Accountants, which featured Angela (Angela Kinsey), Oscar and Kevin as they tried to figure out why their books were off.

DirectBuy makes multiplatform ad buy: Scripps-owned Fine Living Network is working with members-only home design center DirectBuy in its first-ever multiplatform advertising campaign. The campaign will be tied to FLN’s new show, Work that Room with Christopher Lowell, which premieres on Saturday, July 26 at 6 p.m. 

Besides traditional TV spots, DirectBuy is sponsoring several novel elements that will air adjacent to Work That Room With Christopher Lowell on the show’s Web site, including: short-form vignettes that provide design takeaway information; three-part miniseries of vignettes featuring design enthusiasts exploring their own solutions; an online and broadband content package on FineLiving.com that includes exclusive footage fromWork That Room With Christopher Lowell and an interactive design quiz; and in-store placement in DirectBuy showrooms.

I’m getting ready to move myself and I got sucked into some of the preview vignettes while checking out this Web page. In it, Lowell talked about women’s design choices vs. men’s, and I have to agree that it was information worth knowing.  For example, Lowell tells us that “men don’t like patterns.” This is a truism that I am only just learning and it was helpful to know that it’s not just an issue in my life, but in the lives of many women. 

Microsoft and Yahoo!’s issues wind ever on, with Microsoft now backing Yahoo! board member and investor Carl Icahn who wants to oust four of Yahoo!’s board members in favor of his own people who will then finally make a deal with Microsoft.  Yahoo!’s August 1 shareholder meeting looks like it’s going to be a real barnburner, because Gordon Crawford also is expected to back Icahn, according to the Wall Street Journal/Boomtown/All Things D’s Kara Swisher.