This story has been updated. See below for details.
Can you really take everything that's going on with movies, TV shows, music, Internet memes, and social media, and wrangle it all into an hour of live television? MTV believes it can--with some help from Twitter, Facebook, and a quirky British model-turned-TV-host named Alexa Chung.
The pop-culture cable network's new daily talk show, titled "It's On with Alexa Chung," premieres at noon on June 15 and expectations are high. The show is taking over the time slot once held by "Total Request Live," or "TRL," the music video countdown show that more or less defined MTV--and in turn, mainstream youth culture--in the late '90s and early '00s. Chung, 25, is a British import who's already solidified a reputation as a quirky TV host across the pond, but is largely unknown in the U.S.
But it's the dual partnerships that MTV has inked with Facebook and Twitter that are really generating buzz. There will be on-screen "tweets," content sourced from Facebook profiles and fan pages, audience contribution from polls to remixed YouTube videos, and round-the-clock updates from Chung's own Twitter account. If it's all done right, "Alexa Chung" could be both a milestone in the convergence between TV and the Web, and a fresh infusion of innovation for a TV network that many say was shooting itself in the foot for not catching onto the social media craze earlier.
Still largely unknown in the U.S., the star of the upcoming "It's On with Alexa Chung" has already established herself as a quirky TV host in Britain.
(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET)"The hope is that (social media) will just be something that is like the air that the show breathes on," said Dave Sirulnick, executive vice president of news and broadcast at MTV. "I think our audience, they'll expect this from us. They're going to expect us to talk to them the way they talk to each other. It's the way they experience the world, you know--it would be odd for us to mount this project, put this up on the air, and not have that happen, you know, because our audience, I don't think they look at it as something that is all new. This is just what they've grown up with."
A decade ago, if you wanted to get a message on MTV, your best bet was probably to write it on a poster and join the cheering crowds outside the network's New York studio during a "TRL" taping, hoping to make your way into the scope of the cameras sweeping overhead. Or if you were really lucky, you could call in and have your telephoned questions asked to celebrity guests on-air.
"In the old days our connection to the outside world on 'TRL' was one person on a phone," said executive producer Tim Healy. "Now with this new show it's definitely increased the scope."
MTV canceled "TRL" earlier this year--some would say belatedly. The network's reputation as a hub of pop-culture influence had long since started to fade: New music was being discovered on MySpace pages and niche music blogs. Popular clips from last night's TV shows were swapped via YouTube and Hulu links in instant messages and posts on Facebook profiles. Youth culture had grown segmented and fragmented with the mass availability of niche "long-tail" content on the Web, and social media had thrown out everyone's old notions of shelf lives--a 10-year-old music video can become an overnight hit on YouTube if enough people start telling their friends about it, whereas fresh Internet fads can be eclipsed and forgotten faster than ever. It seemed that when it came to encapsulating the cool-kid zeitgeist, a live TV show just couldn't cut it in the digital age.
With "Alexa Chung," MTV is making a totally different show. The iconic "TRL" set has been converted into something that looks like a loft apartment, with the studio audience scattered around like party guests. There will be no countdown--rather, a talk show format inspired in part by late-night programming, with topics ranging from movies and music to the latest YouTube sensations (whom Chung plans to regularly bring onto the set to see if their singing, dancing, or other oddball talents are for real). And there will be no screaming crowds in Times Square. Instead, there will be tweets.
The tweet smell of success?
"I think the genius of Twitter is that it's in the second. Not even the moment, it's right now," Sirulnick said. "Instant feedback from the audience, from what's going on, will be on-screen. Whether it's a persistent on-screen feed is something we're toying with right now. We haven't entirely decided."
This won't be MTV's first experiment with Twitter. Nearly two years ago, the network started a Twitter account for the "moon man," the mascot for its annual Video Music Awards, as a promotion for the ceremony. It went largely unnoticed: In the summer of 2007, Twitter was hardly a household term.
Alexa Chung, as pictured atop her Web site.
(Credit: http://www.alexachung.co.uk/)But after unofficial celebrity endorsements and an appearance on Oprah hurtled Twitter into the mainstream earlier this year, the situation is very different. A firestorm of gossip ensued last week when a report in Variety implied that the company was developing a reality TV series. The rumors got so out of hand that co-founder Biz Stone posted a clarification on the company's official blog: "We're not making a TV show," he wrote.
"That was very frustrating and unfortunate, and a misrepresentation of all sorts of things," Chloe Sladden, Twitter's director of business development for global broadcast and news media, told CNET News several days later.
As it turns out, the Variety report detailed one of a number of partnerships that Twitter is working on with media and entertainment companies. That's Sladden's specialty: she was hired by Twitter this spring, after she spent several years working at Current, the edgy cable news channel co-founded by former vice president Al Gore. While at Current, Sladden worked with Twitter to help supplement its 2008 election coverage with on-screen tweets. Now at Twitter full-time, she's helping media outlets--including, but not limited to MTV--integrate tweets, Twitter searches, trending topics, and the like into their broadcasts.
There's no financial transaction involved in the "Alexa Chung" deal, Sladden said, and that's the way Twitter intends it to be.
"We're trying to unlock the true potential of Twitter, and a lot of our strategy has been to let other folks build a lot of cool stuff on top of Twitter. So the model here is much like the application developers," she explained. When it comes to Twitter's media partnerships, "think of this as a creative API."
MTV's partnership with Facebook is a little more formal, and a little more out-of-the-ordinary for both the social network and MTV. "Whenever they have a celebrity guest, they're exclusively featuring Facebook's presence for that celebrity," said Randi Zuckerberg, who heads up marketing at Facebook (and, yes, is founder Mark Zuckerberg's sister). "Which is really cool. The majority of celebrities have Facebook fan pages right now, with thousands or millions of fans." There will also, of course, be a "fan page" for the show itself, where viewers can submit questions to celebrity guests, vote on which songs they want bands to play when they appear live, and provide general feedback.
But in addition to celebrity fan pages, viewers' own Facebook profile content might pop up on the show. "People in the studio audience will have the opportunity to temporarily 'friend' some of the producers," Zuckerberg said. "Basically, they'll 'friend' them for about two hours, the duration of the show, and then they're going to encourage people to do mobile uploads during the show, mobile status updates, mobile photos, et cetera." For those who aren't in the studio audience, questions for the celebrity guests can be accompanied by Facebook photos or other content.
It's still a touchy issue, considering that a lot of Facebook profile content still isn't public, and many people wouldn't want their party photos splashed all over MTV without very explicit permission. And it's a sharp turn from Facebook's erstwhile hardline attitude of keeping everything behind a login wall, which is why representatives from both companies say that the use of Facebook content on TV will be given the kid-glove treatment.
"Everything's going to be signed off on by the people who are asking the questions," Sirulnick said, adding that MTV has been working with Facebook to finalize and streamline consent procedures. "We're not going to be exposing anybody who has not explicitly agreed to have their material on television. It's important to us, it's important to the audience, it's fair. It's important to Facebook."
MTV + Facebook = ad potential
Unlike the Twitter partnership, this isn't a money-free deal. MTV and Facebook have assembled a joint advertising sales team to sell sponsorship packages that encompass both TV spots and social-media ads.
"A sponsor can have placement on the show, commercials or in-show integration, and also integration on Facebook," explained Randi Zuckerberg, who previously helped orchestrate a partnership with broadcast network ABC during the presidential debates last year. "So, they can do an event RSVP ad for their participation in episodes they're in. They can be integrated into the Facebook page for Alexa's show. There's a lot of great things that they can target to fans of a certain celebrity. We're really going out together and really involving sponsors on both Facebook and TV."
This is big news for the nascent social-network advertising market. Plenty of companies aren't yet comfortable putting ads on the likes of Facebook, having heard the rampant belief that returns aren't good.
MTV's Sirulnick said he sees the joint ad sales strategy as a way for longstanding MTV advertisers to take the plunge into social media, for example, "if Sponsor X is a sponsor of MTV, and has been looking to get into the social-networking space, and has been looking for a window in." But he said that MTV will keep the profits from ads on its own properties, and Facebook will do the same for its site. "The MTV and the Facebook sales teams are out there jointly putting together packages for sales, but it's not a revenue share."
Not everyone in digital media is sure that this hybrid of broadcast television and user-generated social-network content will work.
"As a device every now and then it's OK. When it's persistent, it's annoying," said Jim Louderback, CEO of Web video production company Revision3, when asked about the idea of bringing Twitter and Facebook to broadcast television. "Mixing two mediums together like that doesn't work. You lose what makes each medium work really well, and that's why television on the Web is different from Web TV. That's why WebTV from Microsoft didn't work."
That said, MTV executives say that they're shaping and tweaking "It's On with Alexa Chung" up to the moment it airs, and will continue doing so even after the June 15 debut. The network is clearly excited at this chance to reinvent its brand--and to keep reinventing it, ideally preventing it from growing stale the way "TRL" did.
"It's going to be something that every day we're trying to come up with new things (for)," Sirulnick said. "The folks at Facebook are very excited about this, the folks at Twitter are very excited about this, and the good news is that they get us, they get the audience, they know what works really well on their site. And so it's much more, We're just talking all the time."
Alexa Chung herself appears to be equally excited.
"First guests confirmed for my new show. SO GREAT," she posted to her Twitter account on Wednesday. "America can you watch me please?? Cos my mum doesn't live here."
Updated at 5:53 a.m. PDT: MTV has now settled on an official name for the show: "It's On with Alexa Chung."
(Credit:
Paramount)
Please note: Friendly seas ahead! This is a spoiler-free review.
NEW YORK--When I walked into a theater at Viacom's midtown headquarters for an advance screening of the new J.J. Abrams-directed "Star Trek" prequel on Wednesday night, I felt like that kid who hadn't done her homework--for an entire semester.
And yet that was crucial to my assignment: to see if it was possible for someone completely new to the "Star Trek" universe to understand, process, and more importantly enjoy this new film.
Here's my background. I had never seen any of the prior "Star Trek" films or television series. I knew little more than the fact that it's all about a bunch of people flying a spaceship called the Enterprise, that Leonard Nimoy played an extraterrestrial named Spock who had funny ears and liked to say "Live long and prosper," and that the Klingon language has such a rabid following that the Bible has been translated into it.
Technically, the closest I'd come to seeing anything related to "Star Trek" was the 1998 parody "Galaxy Quest," in which the actors from a washed-up Trek-like TV show are enlisted by benevolent aliens who think they're the real thing (Little-known fact: That was the first movie role for Justin "I'm a Mac" Long). But I'm also a huge fan of Abrams' hit series "Lost," so I suppose I had a leg up there.
So here is my verdict: This movie is awesome.
The new "Star Trek" film is less an homage to a legendary science fiction franchise than to storytelling in general, back through decades of cinema and television and beyond. A deep respect for literature, pop culture, and epic storytelling is something that Abrams has proven time and again to fans, from the litany of film-rooted "Sawyer nicknames" on "Lost" to the tradition of Japanese monster movies that powered last year's "Cloverfield." This is a movie that will probably be well-regarded by anyone with an appreciation for epic adventure and drama, not to mention fast-paced and often witty dialogue.
And that's what the "Star Trek" prequel needed, considering the hand-wringing that surrounded it from even before it was officially greenlit.
Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman was on hand before the screening to greet the audience and explain a bit about the film's origins: that Paramount, the Viacom-owned studio that is releasing the new film, was well aware of the complications and potential pratfalls of adapting "Star Trek, especially in a prequel form, and especially with the goal of reaching out to both "Trekkies" (or "Trekkers," as I hear there is a difference?) and potential new fans. He said that cinema luminaries, including Steven Spielberg, had warned Abrams that undertaking a project with such a history and legacy of loyal fans could be risky.
But the director went ahead, a second Abrams-helmed "Star Trek" picture was greenlit almost immediately, and his contract with Paramount was extended another five years. Obviously, this is a franchise in which the studio has some real faith.
Pretty early on, you can tell that this isn't the "Star Trek" of the '60s, even though I admittedly don't really know what that is. The first 20 minutes contain not only ear-splitting action sequences, but brand-drops of both Nokia and Budweiser (as well as 'Slusho,' a fictional brand from "Cloverfield"), one very Abrams-esque "gotcha" character reveal that will take most newbies like me by surprise, and the oddly effective use of the Beastie Boys' 1994 song "Sabotage."
There is a pivotal bar fight, which I first took as a nod to "Star Wars," but on second thought, the cinematic barroom confrontation really goes back much further than the Mos Eisley Cantina. (I need to brush up on my knowledge of Westerns.) Again, this is a movie deeply rooted in generations of storytelling both onscreen and off.
I can see why some hardcore "Star Trek" fans may have been nervous about the casting decisions: the Internet Movie Database informs me that Chris Pine, the young actor cast as Captain Kirk, was starring opposite Lindsay Lohan in some tepid romantic comedy a few years ago, and Sulu is played by John Cho, best known for playing Harold in the spliffed-up "Harold and Kumar" movies. I must say that Cho wields a retractable sword just as well as he does a joint, and Pine's Kirk keeps the frat-boy attitude to a relative minimum.
But more importantly, "Star Trek" is just plain fun. And I came to appreciate the fact that I was sitting in that theater without prejudice. I was concerned less about whether the cast would live up to the actors who originated their roles, and more about holy whoa, that spaceship just blew up!. There is, however, a flip side to the universality of the new "Star Trek" that Paramount might not love: The fact that it stands so well on its own might mean that it doesn't mint a new generation of Trekkies.
Like me, for one. As much as I enjoyed the prequel, I can't see myself Netflixing all the DVDs of the past "Star Trek" TV series and movies. I've already got "Lost" to deal with, and one fictional universe and canon is enough for me, thank you very much. Seriously--what does lie in the shadow of the statue? Losties, can you help me out here?
Oprah's second-ever tweet. Um, yeah.
(Credit: Twitter)A correction was made to this post. See below for details.
Oprah's crazy about it. Ashton Kutcher and Anderson Cooper are making fools of themselves trying to show what rabid fans they are. Friday, April 17, 2009, will pretty much go down as the day when the loyally followed indie-rock band known as "Twitter" made its big major-label splash.
If it were the late '90s, this would be its big debut on "Total Request Live" with Carson Daly emceeing and a bunch of screaming girls outside waving posters with crudely drawn fail-whales and "MARRY ME, EVAN WILLIAMS!" scrawled on them. But in keeping with the '90s pop-culture references, it's starting to remind me a little bit too much of "That Thing You Do," the 1996 Tom Hanks flick about a one-hit-wonder pop band that has a smash hit in the wake of the '60s British Invasion and is then never heard from again after mainstream fame makes them more about the image and less about the music.
(Credit:
20th Century Fox)
The issue I have with all this Twitter mega-buzz is that it has the capacity to pack a double punch--in a bad way. First, the media blitz and celebrity endorsements can solidify it as a fad, like the momentarily trendy "pet rock" of Web 2.0. And second, it can tick off the early adopters, the ones who were really at the core of Twitter for its first few years as a geek cult phenomenon. There are already a few who aren't too thrilled about the fact that the Kutcher-CNN million-follower race appears to have been gamed by Twitter itself.
Mainstream success is great for Twitter, which is legitimately shaking up media and communications in ways that I don't think many people thought it would a few years ago. But I certainly hope that all the celebrity frenzy isn't veering it off course on its real, long-term development strategy. You know, like a business model. In "That Thing You Do," the band's descent into gimmickiness is best expressed by the fact that the manager, played by Hanks, suggests that the drummer always wear sunglasses onstage. Let's hope that the Ashton Kutcher-mania doesn't turn out to be the same for Twitter.
On the other hand, back in the '90s Kutcher was best known for playing a teenage stoner on "That '70s Show." I'm pretty sure no one thought he'd ever be heard from again.
Yikes! As a number of you have pointed out in the comments section, I goofed on the movie trivia. In "That Thing You Do," it was indeed the drummer who had to wear the sunglasses. We've fixed that, and thanks all for the catch. (1:22 p.m. PDT)
Apologies for the poor camera-phone quality.
(Credit: Caroline McCarthy)NEW YORK--Spotted, Gossip Girl-style: Teen pop sensations the Jonas Brothers, heralding the launch of MySpace Music atop a billboard in Times Square. The launch of the News Corp.-owned social network's music service is coming any day now.
The Jonas Brothers display can be seen on the billboard on the corner of West 43rd Street, with the slogan "Songs We Can Agree On" and a short list of songs in the manner of a mixtape (which include selections from Elvis Costello, Prince, and Albert Hammond Jr.) That's a hint at the playlist-creation focus of the new music service. A URL for the Jonas Brothers' MySpace page accompanies the ad, indicating that high-profile artists will likely be pimping the service when it debuts.
Playlists and "digital mixtapes" are hot: we've seen this recently in the iLike developer API and the popular-but-shuttered start-up Muxtape.
MySpace Music will be launching with either three or all four of the major music labels onboard, depending on which sources are asked. It'll offer paid downloads as well as free streaming and concert tickets. And, presumably, it has the approval of the doe-eyed Jonas Brothers, or at least their publicist.
Last.fm, the social music service that CBS Interactive acquired last year, is venturing into original content for the first time with a new video series called Last.fm Presents.
The series consists of interviews with popular and rising bands and artists; among the first artists featured are techno legend Moby, rising alternative-pop singer Santogold, and popular indie band Spoon. Last.fm has also made a selection of live concert footage available on its site to complement the interviews.
Members can sign on to Last.fm Presents as they would with any other group on the social network. The videos will also be syndicated across the "CBS Audience Network" of content partners.
A number of social-networking sites have ventured successfully and semi-successfully into pop-culture content: News Corp.'s MySpace.com, which rose to fame as a promotional tool for independent artists, has launched a number of video shows, entertainment programming, and a live concert series as well as an ad-supported music service that will likely compete directly with the one Last.fm announced earlier this year.
Several smaller social-media sites also have begun to expand into original content with the aim of seizing the digital age's equivalent of the pop-culture niche that was occupied by MTV before the rise of the Web. Streaming media site Imeem has started to syndicate video content from partner companies, and Buzznet has acquired a handful of influential music blogs to beef up its editorial offerings.
Last.fm, still headquartered in London, continues to expand--one might say it's moving into MySpace territory. It promoted a number of concerts in the U.K. last year and plans to back new events in the U.S. and Europe soon. Earlier this week, CBS announced that Last.fm would be powering AOL Radio's online stations in Europe.
Buzznet.com CEO Tyler Goldman doesn't want people to think of his company as a social network. No, what Goldman says he's running is a music- and pop-culture-focused community site.
"We definitely wouldn't view ourselves as a social network, and we probably wouldn't disagree with folks that say the world doesn't need another social network," Goldman, a former executive at Movielink and founder of Broadband Sports, said in an interview. His preferred jargon? "Socially programmed communities." Buzznet, in other words, wants to be the 1980s-era MTV of the social-media age: an epicenter for youth trends and cultural influence, where the content is fueled by a community rather than hand-picked editorial content.
Goldman said he sees Buzznet as "much more competitive in term of an offering with an MTV.com or a Yahoo Music" than a MySpace or Last.fm.
That's some ambition. In an age when Facebook takes up all the headlines, MySpace still dominates traffic, LinkedIn invites are choking our inboxes, and the Web-futurist set is trying to come up with solutions to all the usernames and passwords we currently juggle, saying that you want to be the next big social-networking destination has gotten a little déclassé. And when the economy's grown tepid, the music industry has fallen and can't get up, and every day another blogger is talking about the tech bubble bursting, saying that you want to be the next mass-media hotspot is bound to raise a few eyebrows.
Buzznet's strategy is unapologetically think-big. Founded in 2005, the Los Angeles-based company counts veteran execs from Yahoo and Time Inc. among its upper ranks.
"Our goal is to build the world's biggest and best music experience and then to do the same thing in other pop culture topics," Goldman explained. Instead of starting from a grassroots following, the way MySpace did as a hub for independent band promotion, Buzznet wants to break out at the top by scoring high-profile investors, tasty acquisitions, and powerful partnerships. The company is rumored to have roped in about $25 million in venture funding, with one of the reported investors Universal Music's Interscope. (Goldman declined to comment on that.)
And Goldman said that next week, Buzznet will make the first of a number of partnership announcements designed to get more audio content on the site. When asked if that meant a record label deal, Goldman replied. "That's a logical assumption."
Buzznet does appear to be off to a strong start. Nielsen numbers last summer indicated a spike in popularity, and its VideoCensus numbers for February ranked Buzznet as one of the top 10 online video destinations for the 12-24 age demographic in the U.S., ranking ahead of Facebook and popular gaming-culture site 1Up. Goldman said Buzznet is now pulling in over 10 million visitors per month, and that because of its focus on content rather than networking, advertising click-through rates are promising. He declined to provide numbers.
But at the same time, Alexa traffic graphs show Buzznet has still been growing much more slowly than Imeem, another acquisition-happy social-media site targeting music fans. And MySpace has opted to refocus its efforts on media content with the launch of .
As a result, Buzznet's team is attempting the dual challenge of building a social community as well as pulling in established content--and its readers--through niche acquisitions. Gossip blogs JustJared and A Socialite's Life have already been pulled into the Buzznet fold, and earlier this month, Buzznet announced the acquisition of Stereogum, a popular independent music blog, and announced the launch of a sister blog, Videogum, edited by New York blogging veterans Gabe Delahaye and Lindsay Robertson.
It wasn't a traditional acquisition. Stereogum had been owned by the Pilot Group, the investment firm operated by former AOL executive Robert Pittman, who was so impressed by Buzznet that he traded it in exchange for an equity stake. "Pilot Group approached us awhile ago, and we have some common friends there," Goldman said of the Stereogum acquisition, which was finalized earlier this month. "They were interested in investing in the company. Unfortunately, we had already finished our investment round, so (the Stereogum trade) became an opportunity for them to invest in Buzznet."
Up next, per blog rumors, is reportedly Qloud, a startup backed by AOL founder Steve Case that makes music applications for social-networking sites. That's another rumor on which Goldman wouldn't comment.
But he would comment on the future. When asked if he was willing to say he wanted his company to be the next MTV, in true Buzznet fashion, he aimed higher. "I would say more the next Viacom," he replied excitedly. "We believe this formula of social-media programming is very successful and applies to all areas of pop culture...television, film, fashion, celebrity."
So have they made any mistakes along the way? Goldman was willing to admit to one.
"We've done a poor job," he said, "of explaining that we're not a social network."
MTV Networks announced Tuesday that it will distribute its video content across the Web through deals with a number of social-media sites and video portals: GoFish, Veoh, MeeVee, and Imeem. Through this initiative, users of the video sites will be able to view both short- and long-form content provided by MTV Network as well as embed them on blogs and social-networking sites.
The partnerships will start to go live over the next few weeks; representatives from Imeem, for example, said that MTV Networks video content will appear on the social network, which focuses on ad-supported streaming media, in February.
Jon Stewart: He's back from the writers' strike and invading the series of tubes.
(Credit: MTV Networks)MTV Networks, a division of Viacom, operates a total of 145 television channels and 300 Web sites across the world, but is best known for pop culture-oriented brands like MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and Spike TV.
Tuesday's partnership announcements add to existing Web syndication deals with AOL, Bebo, Fancast, Joost, and MSN. Additionally, some MTV Networks programs already have extensive content available on their own sites; last year, the Comedy Central programs The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and later South Park became fully available on the Web in a library of ad-supported clips.
The company's decision to syndicate its content to select partner sites across the Web comes at a time when many other big media players are choosing to do the same thing. NBC and News Corp. joined forces to create Hulu, which has both a central portal as well as syndication partners. Rival CBS, meanwhile, has amassed its own set of video syndication outlets.
For all these content creators, it's a way to make sure that their video can circulate online with advertising support. MTV Networks' parent company, Viacom, still has a $1 billion lawsuit standing against the Google-owned YouTube for allegedly facilitating the distribution of pirated video. And two of MTV Networks' new syndication outlets, Veoh and Dailymotion, are partners in the antipiracy coalition announced in October designed to combat infringing content--a coalition from which Google is notably absent.
No, it's not Daft Punk, but the robot-suit-clad techno heroes' influence is evident in the choices of artists for MySpace.com's second concert tour.
The tour, produced by concert powerhouse Live Nation, is slated to take place in March in a number of U.S. and Canadian cities. Headlining the tour will be French electronic duo Justice. Joining that act on select nights will be a combination of the electronic and hip-hop acts Diplo, DJ Medhi, Chromeo, Busy P, and Fancy.
The first show will kick off on March 3 in Austin, Texas, and will hit a total of 18 cities, winding up in Los Angeles on March 31. Interested fans will be able to buy tickets from January 9 to 12 through the MySpace Music Tour site, as well as through the venues and local ticket outlets.
MySpace's first concert tour, which featured a number of 'emo' and pop-punk artists, took place in October and November. Additionally, the News Corp.-owned site throws a series of "Secret Shows" concerts in cities worldwide, as well as a number of other live music events.
Music is true to MySpace's roots--the social-networking site gained initial buzz as a hub for indie music, where fans could discover and listen to new bands. It now counts more than 6 million bands among its user profiles--but the concerts are also a strategic move.
As the social-networking field grows increasingly crowded, MySpace has the advantage of big-media muscle and a reputation for pop-culture influence as a tool to keep it above the fray. This has meant not only high-profile music projects, but also original video programming and youth activism campaigns.
Justice, the French duo headlining MySpace's concert tour
(Credit: Justice's MySpace page)The dates for the March concert tour are as follows:
March 3: Austin (Stubbs)
March 4: Dallas (Palladium Ballroom)
March 6: Orlando, Fla. (The Club at Firestone)
March 9: Baltimore (Sonar)
March 10: Philadelphia (The Electric Factory)
March 11: New York (Madison Square Garden)
March 12: Washington, D.C. (9:30 Club)
March 15: Boston (Paradise)
March 16: Montreal, Quebec (Cepsum)
March 17: Toronto, Ontario (The Docks)
March 19: Detroit (Royal Oak Music Hall)
March 20: Chicago (Riviera Theater)
March 22: Denver (Ogden Theater)
March 24: Seattle (Showbox SoDo)
March 25: Vancouver, British Columbia (Commodore)
March 26: Portland, Ore. (Roseland Theater)
March 27: San Francisco (Concourse Design Center)
March 31: Los Angeles (Mayan Theatre)
On Monday, MTV Networks is set to unveil an initiative to connect its television, online, and mobile presences by helping music fans answer that crucial question--"Who the (expletive) sings that song?"
In other words, MTV Networks, the Viacom division that encompasses the MTV, VH1, and CMT brands as well as a host of other pop culture channels, is aiming to renew its focus on music by bringing lyrics to the forefront. This will begin rolling out in November and is expected to be complete by the middle of 2008.
On television, several of the networks' existing music-related programs will start to incorporate "lyrics and the artists' inspirations for their words" into their structure, and all three channels will air a new "Name That Tune" series, according to a release from MTV Networks.
Online, the networks' Web sites will feature lyrics search data from digital music database Gracenote, accompanied by multimedia artist information, trivia games, and a link to purchase the song in question--which will undoubtedly be tied into MTV Networks' Rhapsody-powered music store when that launches. And in the mobile space, curious music fans will be able to text-message inquiries (an artist's name, song name, or snippet of lyric) to a SMS code and receive a link to a mobile Web site containing data pertaining to the song and artist.
This is a potentially lucrative move for MTV Networks, which has not only struggled to bring its pop culture influence to the Web but has also fallen from some music fans' favor as its networks increasingly prioritize reality shows. Unlicensed lyrics sites are currently facing incipient copyright scrutiny--not to mention the fact that there's no such thing as a Google Lyrics Search.
Not yet, at least.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that one-time pop darling Britney Spears' performance at the MTV Video Music Awards earlier this month was a total and utter trainwreck.
Chris Crocker's 'Britney manifesto'
(Credit: YouTube)But, as viral video fans soon learned, some crazy guy with a YouTube account didn't agree. He promptly put up a clip of questionable sanity in which he lay in bed, sobbing, begging us haters to "Leave Britney Alone." The video has racked up nearly 8 million views on YouTube, reaching a degree of overkill that's made many of us hope the buzz will fade away quickly or give way to some other irritating pop-culture sensation.
But don't hold your breath. That impassioned young fellow is Chris Crocker, a 19-year-old from Tennessee whose 15 minutes (seconds?) of fame just might not quite be over: Variety is reporting that a television production company, 44 Blue Productions, has inked a deal with him for a potential TV show. It's not totally serendipitous, as the entertainment site explained that Crocker has actually had a sizeable MySpace following for some time now, and that he's been on 44 Blue's radar for almost a year.
"(The show is) going to pretty much be the 'Chris Crocker experience,'" 44 Blue co-founder Rasha Drachkovitch told Variety. "We consider him a rebel character that people will find interesting. He's going to be a TV star." In other words, they're catering to the Perez Hilton demographic.
Is nothing sacred anymore?
