This article is interesting not just because it gives me an excuse to run a photo of Jessica Simpson, but because Jessica’s latest single, “A Public Affair,” is being released in hundreds of “personalized” versions, all of them DRM-free.

What makes that so interesting? It’s cool for the Simpson fan, who wants to buy a version of the song with Jessica cooing his or her name. It’s doubly cool for that fan (though not so cool for ringtone vendors out there) because the lack of DRM (digital rights management) lets downloaders use the song any way they want, including as a ringtone.

So: Customers pay once, use many times, many ways … which is exactly what music-lovers want from downloaded music.

I’m not sure a Jessica Simpson single is the best test case for this sort of thing, but rest assured the music and ringtone companies are going to be watching this one closely.

ad:tech Chicago is underway. You can read all about it in the ad:tech blog or over at DMNews. Why, it’s almost like being there!

WebEx has an excellent tagline they’ve trademarked: “We’ve got to start meeting like this(TM).” So why is it nowhere to be found on their home page?

The English version of Wikipedia has 1,270,339 articles as I write this. But did you know that Wikipedia has a Random Article link on the left navigation that is as likely to take you to any one of those 1,270,339 as any other? I use Wikipedia a lot, but I haven’t played with this until recently. Try it — it’s fun.

Ten clicks on the Random Article link just now yielded articles on: Fundamental polygon, Maggi noodles, Betting strategy, Atavistic Records, Balancing selection, John Bell Hatcher, Floyd Chalmers, William Shakespeare, Somatic Responses and Sarah Good. How’s that for random variety?

John C. Dvorak via his son via TWiT 62 alerts us to The 9 from Yahoo! TV, which debuted July 10. It’s a daily video roundup of “the 9 best, weirdest, and funniest photos, sites, stories, and videos on the ‘net. We quickly bundle it all together into a neat, fast-paced, and work-friendly package and try to get it up by about 9 a.m.”

The navigation is really well done, but hostess Maria Sansone needs to beef up her Yahoo! 360 page (care to explain the Hasselhoff obsession?) and the community element needs to be incorporated (where can viewers of The 9 make snarky comments on the day’s links or Maria’s outfits?). But it’s in beta, so maybe there are improvements to come.