Pontiac introduced its limited edition Solstice on "The Apprentice." When the episode ended, viewers were pointed to Yahoo! for additional information about the vehicle. Pontiac's goal was to sell 1,000 cars in 10 days.

Mark-Hans Richter, Pontiac's director of marketing, was dumbstruck by the results. "A 10-day program was over in 41 minutes for the first 1,000 Solstices. We thought about 10 days was reasonable for a car no one's driven before." Not only did Pontiac make its target before the show even aired on the West Coast, but 4,000 additional cars sold in advance of the launch -- Pontiac's entire first-year production.

"That's $125 million worth of steel that has been moved in about four hours," pointed out Jim Moloshok, Yahoo!'s just-departed SVP of entertainment. "This shows that online can move big-ticket items. Maybe a CPM-plus-CPA model could be considered by automakers. What percentage would GM be willing to give back as a sales commission?" he mused, adding, "Some people went to Pontiac's site, so we can't take all the credit."

"Going into this you don't know what to expect because you don't have a lot of control," Richter told me. "You're yielding control for potentially more risk, and more reward."