I’m not really interested in having a discussion, serious or otherwise, about Paris Hilton’s new album, but I’d love to know what people think of YouTube’s new ad model, which does feature a video from her new album. In case you missed the news, YouTube started to tell people late yesterday that it is launching several new ad products, including what it calls “Branded Channels” the first of which is the Paris Hilton Channel. For one (and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing), it's a great example of there being no division between content and advertising—the channel is sponsored by the Fox series Prison Break. The embedded video above appears on the site here, if you want to see how it’s incorporated into the YouTube home page. YouTube is calling the ad—which is really a Paris Hilton music video with a brief intro—a PVA, for participatory video ad. No, it doesn’t mean you can surgically alter the video using YouTube tools. It does mean that it can be shared, embedded and so forth just like other YouTube content. Anyway, tell us what you think.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor