Webware

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.

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.

In a move that further shapes its image as an MTV-like pop-culture hub as well as a social network, News Corp.'s MySpace.com has announced that it will be sponsoring a concert tour this fall.

Appropriately called the MySpace Music Tour, the series of shows will kick off October 16 in Seattle and will host more than 30 performances before winding down in Las Vegas around Thanksgiving.

The headlining acts for the tour will be two artists who have built up large followings on the social-networking site--geeky pop band Hellogoodbye and emo act Say Anything.

The tour will also include the Japanese punk band Polysics, which has been signed to the new MySpace Records label, as well as yet-to-be-announced guests.

In a statement from the company, Say Anything frontman Max Bemis is quoted as saying, "We are stoked as beans to be on the first MySpace tour with Hellogoodbye!! It's going to rock!"

MySpace users will be able to prepurchase tickets starting Friday. Those who are not MySpace members will have to wait until September 6.

The site has not released a full list of concert dates or venues, but those will presumably be available by the time sales open. Sales will be conducted through a branded community page on MySpace, which will also feature photo galleries, contests and band blogs.

UPDATE: MySpace has released a full list of tour cities. The Polysics will be opening for the shows through the Allentown show on Halloween:

10/16: Seattle, Wash.
10/17: Portland, Ore.
10/19: Magna, Utah
10/20: Denver
10/21: Wichita, Kan.
10/22: Milwaukee, Wis.
10/24: Chicago, Ill.
10/25: Detroit
10/26: Covington, Ky.
10/27: TBA
10/28: Atlantic City, N.J.
10/30: New York
10/31: Allentown, Pa.
11/1: Providence, R.I.
11/2: Gettysburg, Penn.
11/3: Emmitsburg, Md.
11/4: Raleigh, N.C.
11/6: Orlando, Fla.
11/7: Miami Beach, Fla.
11/9: Houston
11/10: Dallas
11/11: San Antonio
11/13: Tucson, Ariz.
11/14: Tempe, Ariz.
11/16: San Francisco
11/17: San Diego
11/18: Los Angeles
11/19: Los Angeles
11/20: Anaheim, Calif.
11/23: Las Vegas, Nev.

In an appeal to the coveted youth vote in the upcoming presidential elections, MySpace and MTV announced Thursday that they have joined forces for a series of "one-on-one dialogues" with all the major candidates from both political parties--televised and Webcast events in which presidential hopefuls will answer questions from MySpace members and MTV watchers. Formally, it's a collaboration between MySpace's "Impact" political channel and MTV's "Choose or Lose" election effort (which it has been operating since the dinosaur days of the 1992 election), and it's the first collaboration that the News Corp.-owned social networking site has had with the Viacom-owned pop culture conglomerate.

The conversations with individual presidential candidates will be held town-hall style on college campuses, webcast live on the MySpaceTV video platform (previous coverage here) and MTV.com, and broadcast later that evening on MTV as well as the MTVU college campus television network.

"These dialogues are not going to be a debate," Ian Rowe, MTV's vice president of strategic partnerships, said in an interview with CNET News.com. "They're going to be one-on-one, unfiltered conversations between a group of young people who are sitting inside a college campus auditorium (and) an audience online (that) will have the ability to submit questions in real-time." Rowe added that this will be a totally interactive experience. "They'll be able to literally respond to what the candidate is actually saying during the conversation. Even if you don't have the opportunity to physically be in the room, you can participate tangibly in the conversation."

MySpace had initially announced its plans to hold presidential town hall events in May, but no further developments were provided at the time. The social network also plans to hold a mock election early in 2008.

The first of the MTV-MySpace dialogues has been confirmed for September 27, with Democratic candidate John Edwards in the key primary state of New Hampshire. Future events will individually involve Democrats Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Christopher Dodd, and Bill Richardson; and Republicans Rudy Giuliani, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, John McCain, and Sam Brownback. The only missing candidate of note is arguably former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican whose surprising second-place finish in the Iowa straw polls suddenly catapulted him into the label of "dark horse."

If the prominence of blogs in the political process was the major digital media development of the 2004 presidential election and the "paper trail" of YouTube videos was what marked the 2006 midterms (recall former Sen. George Allen's "macaca moment"), it appears that "interactive" conversations with presidential candidates, thanks to new media platforms, are coming to define the '08 campaign. Earlier this summer, CNN and YouTube collaborated on a formal Democratic debate in which YouTube users could submit video questions in advance of the event. In the MTV-MySpace "dialogues," these questions may be submitted live--through either the MySpaceIM instant messaging platform, e-mail, or text messaging.

"We're offering participation through all the tools of new media," said Jeff Berman, MySpace's general manager of video operations. Representatives from both companies hinted that further details will become available throughout the next few weeks.

(Credit: Twitter)

Could this finally be what breaks Twitter out of the early-adopter geek set and into the population at large? The microblogging service has partnered with the inarguably mainstream MTV for its upcoming Video Music Awards (or VMAs), according to an e-mail sent to Twitter members by founder Biz Stone.

So far, the partnership isn't totally clear. A Twitter account has been set up for the VMA "Moon Man" mascot, the pop-culture awards' equivalent of the Oscar statue. In Stone's e-mail, he elaborated that the VMA Twittering will expand, too: "(MTV has) some fun ideas which involve artists and celebrities including the MTV Moonman twittering from Las Vegas during the whole weekend leading up to the VMA broadcast on Sunday, September 9th," he wrote, adding that Twitter would also be featured on TV.

This is indeed prominent placement for the heavily hyped Twitter, which gained a rabid following among the social media junkie crowd at this spring's South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas. But as for breaking into the crowd that restricts its social networking use to Facebook, MySpace, and maybe Last.fm, Twitter hasn't been quite as successful. The MTV partnership could flop embarrassingly, or it could give the little site a big push.

Just think about it: maybe, the next time you go to the local mall, that teenage girl texting on her cell phone in Abercrombie & Fitch just might be Twittering about how she like, OMG totally loves those cute zip-up hoodies.