At the 3GSM show in Barcelona, Nokia and YouTube announced a partnership that gives Nseries phones access to the upcoming YouTube mobile site. RSS feeds and connectivity with Nokia Video Center for more control.

“We are thrilled to be giving users easy access to entertaining YouTube videos anytime and anywhere. By partnering with an industry leader like Nokia, we’re able to bring YouTube videos to mobile phone users worldwide,” said Steve Chen, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer for YouTube.

More press release mumbo-jumbo over at Nokia.com.

The Nokia Nseries is entertainment focused phones in the higher price range. They have all the features most business users will need, and then some more. The N93, for instance, is a MPEG4 video camera as well, although not a pretty impressive one if you ask me.

What will the deal mean for Motorola, Sony Ericsson and other mobile phone companies? Not much, since mobile access to YouTube is expected with the upcoming mobile site. Still, the Nokia connection will most likely be pretty well tailored so that might appeal to YouTube-aholics wanting their fix on the go.

Originally posted on February 13, 2007 @ 2:56 am

Game publisher Electronic Arts is teaming up with Virgin Records and Epiphone (hey, I’ve got one of their acoustic guitars!) for Burnout Bandslam, a international music competition for unsigned bands. It’s on MySpace and in social media fashion everybody can vote on their favourite songs.

What can you win? Well, one band from every company gets a Les Paul Custom Guitar, lucky bastards. One American and one European band lands a demo contract and will be featured in an upcoming Burnout game.

Yes, game. That’s what it’s all about, a PR spin but a pretty nice one if you ask me. It’s not as open as it looks either, since a national jury will decide which of the top 5 bands from each country that will win, and possibly get that demo contract.

More on the Burnout Bandslam site.

This is how MySpace should be making money. Ads clearly aren’t the success you would think it would be… Creative thinking, that’s very Web 2.0 and new media.

Originally posted on February 13, 2007 @ 12:29 pm

So I’m reading that TrueHoop, a NBA blog, have been bought by ESPN. That’s great news for the owner, who most likely got a little pile of cash and landed a full-time gig as a blogger at ESPN.

From your perspective as a reader, I don’t think it will mean all that much. The writing, and the way TrueHoop is created will not change. I’ll be reading and linking to the same newspapers, blogs, magazines, and websites every day.

The various executives and editors at ESPN have been nice enough to make clear, even in writing, that they aren’t interested in monkeying in any profound way with the way things happen here. (The changes are along the lines of not swearing, and not linking to porn. Not big concessions for me.) It will continue to look more or less like what you are looking at right now. I’ll be sitting at the same desk, doing the same work.

[Read more…]

Originally posted on February 15, 2007 @ 2:21 am

The Second Life craze continues.

Interactive advertising agency TMP Worldwide, which specialises in recruitment, said on Monday it will allow corporate recruiters to hold job fairs and interview potential employees via TMP’s space on the Second Life virtual world.

I’m not the least surprised, not after that Swedish embassy thing. Still, I think it’s silly. 3,3 million users is of course quite a bit, but it doesn’t merit this kind of attention. Sure, it’s a lot cheaper to actually put up something in Second Life and perhaps have someone watching it on select hours, than doing the same thing in real life. TMP, in the story quoted above, is doing the right thing there, in principal, since job fairs are expensive and time consuming.

But let’s face it. This Second Life craze is nothing else than new media link bait for old media coverage.

Originally posted on February 13, 2007 @ 1:14 am