Friskies has already capitalized on the trend by releasing cat-specific tablet games like JitterBug and Tasty Treasures Hunt.

But what’s even better than transcending species lines by watching animals interact with computers? Playing against them. At least that’s the gimmick behind You vs. Cat, the free Friskies game released today. I’m not even a cat person, and I love the idea.

Here’s a March Madness promotion for the game, which has the cat and human square up on opposite sides of an iPad, with the human flinging onscreen objects to try to get past the goal-tending cat:

Update: Here’s another interspecies iPad game from 2010, Cat Cat Revolution, but it seems to be more of a research paper and less of a publicly available game.

Social media tools are the latest in a long line of time-stealers in the workplace, following in the footsteps of March Madness brackets, afternoon golf games, morning water cooler gossip or cigarette breaks. But social media like Twitter and Facebook are more visible from a distance (of both time and space), so they are easier to criticize and quantify.

– Dwane Lay, human resources director at Missouri Baptist Medical Center

Some of the college basketball tourney’s games will only be available to Web users whose cable providers have deals with Turner Sports, or those who pay a $3.99 one-time fee to access the games on PCs, Google/Android and Apple/iOS devices.

Games that CBS broadcasts, though, will still be available to anyone with a Web browser, through the network’s own site.

Here’s the practical breakdown, nicely summarized by BTIG’s Rich Greenfield (registration required):

• CBS will stream the games airing on the CBS Network throughout the country live on CBSSports.com for free. Consumers will only be able to watch on PCs/Macs, with no tablet/smartphone access.
• TBS, TNT and TruTV will stream the games airing on each network live at TBS.com, TNT.tv and truTV.com for consumers who authenticate their respective MVPD service provider (currently all major MVPDs authenticate these network Web sites, except Time Warner Cable). As with CBS, the games will only be available via PC/Mac (no portability).
• Complete access to March Madness on Demand via PC/Mac, smartphone and tablets with interactive features, regardless of whether you have subscribed to MVPD service, will cost a consumer $3.99 (one-time fee for the whole tournament). Streaming online and across portable devices will be available from the selection show through the championship game.

A few more notes: CBS and Turner split the games, so you won’t run into the paywall every time you want to watch — Turner will have 41 of the games. And as Greenfield notes, most pay-TV operators have deals with Turner, which says that means about 75 million homes will have Web access via “authentication.” That said, if you’re planning on watching the games that way, better prepare now, by hunting down your subscriber info, etc. — the process isn’t nearly as easy as it ought to be.

Big picture: This is a switch from the precedent CBS established in 2006, when it started streaming all of the tournament’s games on the Web for free (for three years before that, it had charged around $15 to watch online).

Each year, the network loudly trumpeted the number of eyeballs and ad dollars that Web streams attracted, while arguing that it didn’t hurt traditional TV ratings at all. Last year, you could even watch the tournament on an iPad for free.

But it’s in keeping with the broader move we’ve seen from big media companies, who are pulling back on free Web video. Back when Hulu launched in 2008, it seemed that most big TV networks were going to put all their shows online, but in the last couple of years, we’ve seen the pendulum swing the other way, as networks tie “free” Web TV to pay-TV subscriptions.

One exception to the rule has been the annual March Madness NCAA college basketball tournament, which CBS has been broadcasting for free on the Web for several years.

Which is smart: A big chunk of the tournament occurs during weekday work hours, so giving people the opportunity to stream games to their PCs isn’t a channel conflict, it’s just a chance to collect more eyeballs.

This year is the first year that CBS and Time Warner’s Turner are splitting up broadcast and digital rights, and the two networks have added a new twist: Free streaming of all the games to Apple’s iPhone and iPad. (No luck this year for Google Android fans).

[UPDATE: Several of you have asked when the app will show up at iTunes. March 10, Turner says.]

In the past CBS has offered iPhone streaming, but only via a paid app; this will be the first year the tournament is available on the iPad.

The tournament, which now features an extra four teams and an extra two days of games, kicks off March 15; we’ll see then how Verizon Wireless and AT&T, which is one of the tournament’s digital sponsors, hold up to demand.

The network said people watched 3.4 million hours of live streaming video and audio, a 21 percent increase from last year’s first day. The most-watched game online was the double-overtime Florida vs. BYU game Thursday afternoon.

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CBSSports.com reports that its March Madness on Demand video player had about 7.5 million unique visitors by the end of the tournament, a 58 percent increase from 4.8 million users over the same period last year. The first four days of the tournament saw more unique visits–5.6 million–than last year’s total traffic.

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And now it’s gone. At least temporarily.

Federated has taken down the site at the request of the National Collegiate Athletic Association and has put up a placeholder search page in its place. The problem? The college sports group, which keeps a tight grip on any and all trademarks related to its teams, games and tournaments, says the site infringed on its copyrights.

You’d think that might have crossed the minds of Twitter, Federated or at least the folks at AT&T (T), who already work with the NCAA. But no matter. Federated spokesguy Matthew DiPietro says the site will be back up with a new look, a lack of copyright violations and a different URL in time for the tournaments Final Four games this weekend.

Does this derail the great Twitter advertising strategy? Nope. But it does illustrate just how new and unformed this stuff is, both for Twitter and its ad partners. Which DiPietro is happy to admit. “These are first-of-their-kind executions,” he told me. “They’re very experimental… things will get worked out.”

Everything about the newest ad gambit is parallel to the earlier one: It’s run via Web ad agency/network Federated Media, and consists of a page that Twitter endorses and will promote on its site.

And just like the ExecTweet page, most Twitter users won’t see Twitter’s promotions since most Twitter usage happens away from Twitter.com. And just like ExecTweets, March Tweetness is a collection of themed Tweets that you could find on your own, using Twitter’s handy search function, which it paid $15 million for last year.

But this one looks marginally more useful to me: Unlike ExecTweets, there is a rhyme and reason to collecting Tweets tied to specific events–in this case, different games during college basketball’s March Madness tournament. One of Twitter’s most compelling features, after all, is its ability to deliver snippets of thoughts, in real time, so I could see people actually using this one.

BoomTown posted from various spots in Europe this week, yet managed to follow the geek-tastic goodness of Silicon Valley’s own contender, Apple (AAPL) co-founder Steve Wozniak, who competed while injured this week on “Dancing With the Stars”–and escaped elimination via the love of viewers in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Another founder made the headlines this week–BoomTown noted that Steve Case appeared at a huge pep rally at Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL. Case and former AOL exec Ted Leonsis gave their support (and a lucky green tie) to new CEO Tim Armstrong. Elsewhere, Pure Digital, the maker of BoomTown’s favorite gadget–the ever-present Flip digital video camera–sold itself to Cisco (CSCO) for $590 million in stock, and BoomTown urged Silicon Valley to remember it’s not immune to the recession, to put its nose to the grindstone and to avoid party-hearty inanity.

Guess no one’s taking heed of the warning, though: MediaMemo reports that no one’s getting anything done at work–CBS (CBS) says its March Madness Web traffic is up 57 percent compared to last year. On top of that, television viewership rose various percentages throughout the week. MM wasn’t watching much basketball this week, though–there was plenty to blog about: The New York Times (NYT) cracked down on unauthorized use of its photos; Discovery Communications (DISCA) announced a patent infringement suit against Amazon and its Kindle Reader; Palm (PALM) delivered dismal third quarter results, putting even greater pressure on the success of the Pre; and in a Q&A with BusinessWeek editor Stephen Adler, Steve Ballmer said he’s open to a phone call from Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz whenever she’s ready to talk. Oh, and in case you were wondering what happened at SXSW, MediaMemo got a Google (GOOG) guy to explain it.

Digital Daily’s March Madness started with a liveblog of Apple’s St. Patrick’s Day press event to unveil version 3.0 of its iPhone OS, a chronicle of the myriad features displayed onstage and a live photoblog to back it up. DD noted that sales of the iPod touch and iPhone have outstripped RIM’s (RIMM) combined BlackBerry sales by a factor of… well, by a LOT. Kind of supports the data that say mobile Web use doubled over the last year. Which is good, because Mac sales were no good in February.

In Personal Technology, Walt Mossberg reviewed the latest release of Microsoft IE8 (MSFT), its most comprehensive release in many years. His verdict? Mixed, of course. In Mossberg’s Mailbox, Walt talked to readers about the many models of BlackBerry phones and how they differ from one another, the new iPod shuffle and its earphone compatibility and upgrading Vista to Windows 7. In the Mossberg Solution, Katie Boehret reviewed the Ee Top, Asus’s first foray into the all-in-one PC market.

More next week. Go Woz!

CBS (CBS) says it logged more than 2.7 million uniques to the player in the first day of tournament; last year it logged 1.75 million during the same period. And it says it has streamed 2.8 million hours of live video and audio so far, up 65 percent from last year.

Bonus stat for the good people of Comcast (CMCSA), who are sponsoring the player’s “Boss Button”–users have clicked on the defraud-your-employer tool 1.5 million times. Last year’s figure was 2.5 million for the entire tournament. But no stats from CBS on the number of people who have used Microsoft’s (MSFT) Silverlight software to watch the games on HD.

Most important stat for CBS and its advertisers: Television viewing, which is still much more important than any Web metric, was up nine percent for the day. Another vote in favor of the “Web video is additive, not cannibalizing” argument.

Hackers are taking advantage of bracket-related Web surfing and initiating some madness of their own, with tactics as sneaky as spreading malicious software through March Madness blog posts.

Online security company Websense discovered two March Madness-related malware scams earlier this week, one in the form of URLs posted in blog comments that took users to a phony anti-virus scanning site, and another as a search engine optimization scam that infected basketball-related terms and pushed them to the top in Google (GOOG).

It’s a clever and common tactic, particularly for an event like the NCAA tournament, which has fans checking sports sites, blogs and mobile devices for updates on their favorite teams. Websense’s chief technology officer, Dan Hubbard, says that hackers try to capitalize on popular events or stories on the Internet, whether it’s a major athletic event such as the Olympics, the recent presidential election, or a celebrity breakup that drives Web traffic. Users need to be wary of links to fake anti-virus scanners that urge installation. “Just because something comes up on your screen and tells you to install it doesn’t mean you have to actually do it,” he says. “That’s a really hard message to get across to the consumers.”

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Most sports/Web/mobile experiments have way too many caveats to make them really interesting–last month, when Time Warner’s (TWX) Turner let iPhone users stream the NBA All Star game, for instance, it wasn’t letting them watch the actual telecast of the game, just a series of alternate takes. But this is the real deal–you’ll see the actual CBS telecast, for all the games, commercials and all.

Of course, there are still asterisks with this one. It only works with WiFi, not a 3G wireless connection, which means you have to be fairly close to a computer to watch this on your phone. So why not watch it on that computer? Also, it’s not gratis: CBS (CBS) is selling the “NCAA March Madness on Demand” app for $4.99 on Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes store.

It’s an interesting inversion of the clichéd-but-true “analog dollars for digital pennies” phenomenon, whereby traditional content loses value as soon as it moves to the Web. In this case, CBS is asking you to pay money for something you could normally get for free.

But consumers, or at least early adopters who ingest content on their mobile phones, seem OK with this proposition. Presumably, that’s because they’re trading cash for convenience. I’m not quite sure how this will play out with college basketball, where those who really care about the games are going to get themselves in front of a big screen. But it’s cool to have it available, period.

CBS (CBS) says it has locked up AT&T (T) Coke (KO) and General Motors’ (GM) Pontiac as “presenting sponsors.” And Comcast (CMCSA) is paying to associate itself with the Webcast’s “boss button,” which you’re supposed to hit if one of your remaining superiors waddles by your cube while you’re watching the Duke game.

Chris Albrecht at NewTeeVee thinks CBS will need to take some of that extra dough and plow it right back into bandwidth bills, since the company is using a high-end player from Microsoft (MSFT) to stream the games this year. I’m not so sure about that–last I looked, Microsoft was still trying to persuade companies to use its player instead of Adobe’s (ADBE) Flash, and I have to believe it’d be willing to make it worth CBS’s while to do so.

That’s because the network will be delivering its March Madness coverage using Redmond’s Silverlight streaming media technology, which for some reason stirs apoplectic emotions among a subset of tech zealots. Supposedly these folks would rather look at a blank screen than use dreaded Microsoft (MSFT) tech.

Why? Got me. I downloaded Silverlight onto my MacBook to watch NBC’s Olympics Webcasts last summer. And whenever I could find the events I wanted to watch (much harder than it should have been), I got a really great picture on my laptop.

So did some 40 million other people, which was why Microsoft wanted so desperately to get the rights to the event–it is trying very hard to gain some ground on rival Adobe’s (ADBE) Flash technology, the de facto standard for Web video. So it spends a lot of time focusing on big Web video events where it can introduce its tech to consumers.

[UPDATE: CBS wants you to know -- see comment below -- that you don't have to use Silverlight to watch the games online.]

March Madness isn’t nearly as big as the Olympics, of course: Last year, some 4.8 million people watched the tournament via CBS’s Webcast. But it’s a very big deal for CBS (CBS), which generated more than $20 million in extra advertising revenue out of the event. No word on what Microsoft had to pony up in order to get the rights this year, but Les Moonves and company certainly didn’t give them away.

CBS paid $1.8 billion for CNET last summer, and today it is dealing with the consequences: A re-org and layoffs.

CBS execs won’t release specifics on the firings and won’t say how many people were let go altogether. So news will be coming out in piecemeal fashion for some time.

The best that I can tell, though, the cuts came throughout the company’s interactive group, from its London-based last.fm radio service through CBS (CBS) headquarters in New York to CNET’s homebase in San Francisco.

Based on the fact that CBS Interactive boss Quincy Smith flew to the west coast to quarterback the re-org this morning–and the fact that CNET was much, much bigger than the CBS Interactive group–I’m assuming that more CNET employees were let go than anyone else.

Quincy, if I’m wrong, please let me know. And CBS Interactive/CNET employees can reach me directly at peter@allthingsd.com.

In the meantime, here’s the new structure of Smith’s group, via an internal memo that comes from him and Neil Ashe, his CNET counterpart:

Team,

As we come to the end of 2008, we have a lot to be proud of. CBS Interactive is the best online content network for information and entertainment. Our properties are expanding, advertisers are capitalizing on our properties and their scale, and we are positioned well to continue to grow. As we prepare for 2009 and beyond, we’d like to update you on this progress, announce some organizational changes and comment on the broader market environment and how it impacts CBS Interactive.

Progress

CBS Interactive is the 8th largest Internet network in the world. Our combined traffic is up nearly 30% since we closed the merger this summer. CNET, CBSSports.com, BNET, GameSpot, TV.com, CBS.com, last.fm, and CHOW have each had record traffic within the past three months. Our commitment to our users is paying off.

Advertisers have noticed. We have recently signed and announced deals across several of our properties with Microsoft, AT&T, Intel, Bertolli, EA, and GM. In these challenging economic times, marketers are consolidating their efforts with their best partners. Our properties, our audiences, our ideas and our insights will continue to differentiate us in the marketplace.

Finally, we have contributed to and benefited from the TV and Radio divisions of CBS. We’ve done nearly 1,500 purpose-driven promotions to our properties on Broadcast TV, Radio and local TV Stations; CHOW and GameSpot content is running on the CBS Outernet; and CNET ran a major consumer campaign in markets like New York and San Francisco through CBS Outdoor. CBS Interactive is also a key partner to CBS Television Network for major broadcast events. In just the last week, we featured complementary content for events including The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, the Grammy Nominations and the SEC Championship.

Moving forward, we have a lot to look forward to. Events like CES, The Grammys, and March Madness on Demand are all just around the corner. Each represent huge cross-platform opportunities where CBS Interactive will again help complete the experience with coverage on air, online, and on mobile for our audiences.

Organizational Promotions and Changes

As we enter 2009, we are making some changes to our organizational structure to capitalize on audience and advertiser overlaps. We are also making some changes to key functions so that we can realize the benefits of our position in the marketplace. These changes mark another significant milestone in our integration, as we fine-tune our organization to best take advantage of the power of our entire network.

Sports, Games and Music

We are combining our Sports, Games and Music properties into a single group led by Steve Snyder. Steve has tremendous product and leadership experience and an enthusiasm for each of these categories. In addition, Tom Jones will be moving over from CNET to head-up the sales efforts for this group. Within the group, our talented senior leaders including Jason Kint, Rich Calacci, Jaci Hays, Kevin Menard, Felix Miller, Doug Schmidt and others will report to Steve and to Tom.

Entertainment & Lifestyle

We are also moving our Lifestyle properties, CHOW and UrbanBaby, to the Entertainment group (TV.com, CBS.com, The CBS Audience Network and TheInsider.com) to capitalize on the similarities in audience and advertisers. This group will continue to be led by Anthony Soohoo with sales led by Ken Lagana. We’re excited to see the innovation that will come from this group in 2009.

Technology & News

Under the continued leadership of Joe Gillespie, our Technology & News division will bring CBSNews.com and CNET News.com into a single CBS Interactive News Group. Each site will maintain its own brand identity, while benefiting from shared resources in design, product and engineering to deliver deeper and more comprehensive coverage of major stories and events. Led by Mark Larkin, with Dan Farber as Editor-in-Chief, CBS News.com and CNET News.com will also have the opportunity to share content and collaborate on stories for the benefit of their unique audiences.

CBS Interactive Marketing

We are bringing together our key marketing functions into a new group called CBS Interactive Marketing led by Mickey Wilson. The group brings together expertise from across the organization so that we can capitalize on our biggest opportunities, and elevate the company to be a strategic marketing partner whose products, consumer insights, and ad innovations are critical to our clients’ long-term success. They will establish the company as the standard for premium content online, and define and evolve brand strategies to capture the biggest opportunities for audience and revenue growth through market planning, insights and execution.

CBS Interactive Business Development

We are also bringing together all of our business development activities. This group will be led by Mike Marquez. Mike and his team will be responsible for the development of all new partnerships, investments, and acquisitions. They will be charged with taking advantage of knowledge sharing across the whole company to ensure that we are the strategic partner of choice for the industry.

Market Conditions

As you know the general economic environment continues to be a challenge. We have always been very aggressive about managing our costs, and that requirement is even more critical now than it has ever been. We believe this new, more efficient organizational structure will produce better results for CBS Interactive, and also result in lower operating costs. It is always very difficult to make these kinds of reductions, but they come after a thorough review of how we are organized and how we operate, and what best serves our many users, advertisers and employees.

CBS Interactive is a special place because of you, and we thank each of you for what you have done, are doing, and will do to exceed the expectations of the tens of millions of people who come to our properties every day.

Today, we sit in a great position. People seek out our brands because we provide them with the information and entertainment they want and need, and marketers seek us out because of the powerful audiences we attract. We are positioned to grow in 2009 and beyond.

Best,
-q, NA