Any Ivy League college kid who's anybody has apparently heard of GoCrossCampus, a social network/MMORPG* that's seeping slowly into the mainstream. Essentially it's a huge game of Risk that takes place in real time (each turn is a day), encourages you to sign up your friends, and involves real-life locations as territories. The marketing model is to seek sponsor companies, who get to "present" tournaments and sections of the site, etc., and piggyback onto the positive buzz.
In a lot of ways this is a model for the post-advertising dogma we like to bandy about: it's "opt-in," it generates tons of memorable stories, it engages people both on- and offline, and it inspires other media. And you, the friendly sponsor company, are the one who makes it possible.
So the sponsors get a nice little "Hey, We're a Company That Pays For Cool Stuff" boost, which is no small accomplishment among college-age kids (and is also about a thousand times better than spending money on traditional 30-second spots, by the way). Instead of broadcasting ads that nobody wants to see, they're bringing an interesting game to an engaged audience; clearly that's a step in the right direction.
Of course, in a perfect post advertising world, every company would be trying to tell interesting stories and engage its audience directly, as the guys running the game have been doing...but you knew I was going to say that.
*MMORPG = Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, you newb.