Microsoft could be on the brink of publishing campaigns to the dashboard, ads to be delivered via Live.

According to the firm's Sean Alexander, "plans to bring IAB specifications for rich media technologies, including Silverlight, to within the year".

Silverlight is Microsoft's own rival to Flash, while the ads will take on the appearance of standard web adverts, as far as we can tell.

Microsoft haven't explained how ads will be used, but there's talk of this being used on Silver Live accounts only; while large ad campaigns could run across a number of platforms - including PCs and mobile devices.

More on this as we get it. Thanks Kotaku.

By Luke Guttridge