ESPN was the best client I ever had. There, I said it. When they began experimenting with Interactive TV, they came to us and asked how we'd do it. We pushed the cable operator a lot, but it went live, and it worked.

But even more impressive was their willingness to take risks. To promote the Summer XGames in San Francisco, we recommended they leverage programming for a "watch and win" promotion. Codes would be buried in the programming to be collected online. AND, we wouldn't build banners, we'd leverage all the organic XGames content, and bury our codes there as well. Players collected points for every code found in the telecast and partner sites, and used them to bid on items used in the game. And this was in 2000.