Billboard.com reported Friday that rapper Missy Elliott will appear in a new commercial for PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE: PEP)'s Frito-Lay Doritos division beginning in mid-September. According to the piece, the rapper will stop working on a new song for her upcoming album to eat some of the brand's new "Collisions" chips, where two different tasting chips reside in the same bag. As a result, the rapper decides to mix her hip-hop track with country, mimicking the pitch of the snack line.

The commercial is accompanied by a website that contains a link for fans to connect directly with Missy Elliott's website and interact with information about her new album The Countdown, set for release in December. An interview with the rapper's manager Mona Scott confirmed that the campaign, in particular the online experience, is seen "as a great way to further maximize Missy the artist and the new album" due to the provided exposure. The online campaign includes exclusive footage of the rapper, in addition to allowing consumers to create "mash-ups" (the article notes the campaign's use of the word "collision") of other tracks using the new song as the base.

Of course, the success that this campaign yields Missy Elliott and Warner Music Group Corp. (NYSE: WMG)'s Atlantic Records, is that fans will already be familiar with the new album when it is released. The growth of digital downloads rests with the success of online campaigns such as this (even if it is based in a TV campaign), and adds to their accessibility (even more than the TV component offers). It is in no way a new idea, but basing it with a new product and a tried and successful music style (mash-ups) offers a new perspective and potential for music growth online, even if it hurts CD sales.

Coming soon to a desktop near you are these four next hottest tech toys.

1. Image recognition software: As more and more limited English speakers plug into the internet, language search tools must either adapt or be replaced by visual search tools, such as those used at the online shopping site Like.com. This site allows shoppers to search the product database by first capturing an image of a product either on Like.com's site or any other site, and then searching for that item or a reasonable facsimile instantly. Want the same shoes your favorite actress wore on Oscar night? Capture the image and then search for the same pair or a look-alike. Such image recognition capabilities will have an enormous impact on online retailing for both business and personal use.

2. Desktop search engines: Ever been working on a report and needed a piece of information in an e-mail attachment? Usually this means logging out of the document in order to access the e-mail. Not anymore. Pretty soon all data on the computer will be available for searching through a central search engine located on a toolbar in the browser. Both Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s Desktop Search and Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO)'s X1 search tool are available for personal use and may soon be upgraded for business users.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) keeps trying to climb the mountain of services available for its web partners in the attempt to compete with Google Inc.(NASDAQ:GOOG). While Yahoo! has more global visitors than Google, it's not monetizing that viewership like Google has with its search business, much to the dismay of the YHOO investor these days. But, the Internet pioneer is making moves so as not to be left behind.

This week, Yahoo! launched Yahoo Pipes, which is a visual-development tool that lets people manipulate data feeds from Web sites to create new applications. In other words, Yahoo! is trying to get its customers to use this new tool to combine pieces of data from multiple websites in order to integrate all that information in a completely new way. Hence, better decisions from Yahoo! business customers (and individuals like bloggers) can be made. In Web 2.0 speak, this is called a "mashup".

An example of a mashup would be an application that lists real-estate listings on top of a mapping solution, so that realtors and house hunters can see both pieces of information --- at the same time --- which makes a decision much easier. Think of back in 2000 -- if you wanted to go looking for houses, you could have printed out a MapQuest map for all street locations and stapled that to a printout of "homes for sale" from a local realtor; not an elegant solution. Fast forward to 2007 and a more efficient method is becoming a reality.