Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » MTV Networks

Taco Bell Introduces QR Codes to Unlock MTV Content

Riley Kennysmith — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:53:40 +0000

Taco Bell has teamed with Scanbuy to use QR codes in an MTV marketing program. Customers who scan the QR codes (found on large fountain drinks and Big Box Remixed boxes) unlock exclusive content from MTV-selected musicians. Taco Bell is sponsoring the MTV Video Music Awards this year, and the QR codes will introduce one artist per week up to September 4th. The VMAs air on August 28th. [Mashable]

GROU.PS Acquires Social Project From MTV

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 05:08:37 +0000

GROU.PS is a social network platform that lets users create their own custom social networks. The company has acquired Social Project from MTV Networks. As part of the deal GROU.PS now owns the company and their users. MTV will keep the Flux social media publishing platform. The financial details of this deal were undisclosed. Social Project used to be known as Tagworld. MTV bought them out in 2008. GROU.PS has 5.5 million users and is used in about 160,000 global networks. [TechCrunch]

Gabi Gregg Hired As First MTV Twitter Jockey

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:54:03 +0000

Gabi Gregg (@gabifresh) has been hired as the first MTV Twitter Jockey (TJ). The announcement was made earlier this week. Gregg is from Detroit and was one of the 20 contestants chosen by MTV through a partnership with American Express’ ZYNC. Gregg will earn $100,000 as an MTV TJ. Gregg will now run the @MTVTJ account.

“My main goal is to really connect with the audience,” said Gregg. “I don’t want to be the same as the MTV Twitter; I want to keep it personable and keep in touch with the followers. I want to give them a voice.” Gregg plans to pay off her student loans with the money earned with this job.

App Shows Foursquare Reviews From Jersey Shore Characters [FIST-PUMP]

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:16:51 +0000

There is a new iPhone application called the Jersey Shore City Guide. The application is fully integrated with FourSquare and it features characters from MTV hit show The Jersey Shore. The app lets you access reviews left by the characters themselves about the establishments that they visit. The app costs $0.99 and is available now [iTunes link]

Below are some sample reviews:

The Situation – Time Supper Club, Montreal: “Not much to say except that this club was INSaNe! Canadian fans are second to none and may have some of the hottest girls I have seen yet! Canada is on my list as one of my # places to go in 2010!”

Snooki – Greenhouse, New York: “I took over VIP there! Snook the night!”

Vinny – Nikki Beach, Miami: Go on a Sunday, nonstop party all day and make sure you get a pitcher of Mojito, all for yourself.”

Foursquare Launches Celebrity Mode With DJ Pauly D On Board

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 20:41:21 +0000

Foursquare has launched a new Celebrity Mode of checking in. Ashton Kutcher has already been a part of this feature and now Jersey Shore’s DJ Pauly D is on board too. Celebrity Mode gives the ability for Foursquare users to share their location with real-life friends or all of their friends. MTV and VH1 have partnered with Foursquare for this feature. DJ Pauly D (Paul DelVecchio) is the first MTV celebrity to use the feature.

“Celebrity Mode is a modified version of the standard Foursquare model which allows users to ‘follow’ a celebrity and lets high-profile users to choose whether check-ins are sent to inner-circle friends or to both friends and followers,” stated Foursquare in a press release. “Foursquare users can also view tips that the celebrities they are following have left behind at places all over the world.” [CNET]

Rock Band: The Beatles Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band Now On The 360, Wii, and PS3

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:41:42 +0000

The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band edition has made its way to the Sony PlayStation 3 (starting later today), Microsoft Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii. The game was developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by MTV and EA.

It’s On With Alexa Chung To Replace TRL, Will Use Twitter and Facebook

Amit Chowdhry — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:44:25 +0000

For those of you that are in your mid-20′s like I am right now, you probably spent your high school afternoons watching MTV’s Total Request Live (TRL) TV show to find out what the hottest music is. Starting this Monday, MTV will be starting a new show called “It’s On With Alexa Chung” that will replace TRL’s time slot. The show will have Facebook and Twitter integrated.

Many TV shows already have Facebook and Twitter integrated already, but Chung’s show will be using the services as one of the main highlights. The audience will be able to ask questions to the celebrity guests on the show using Facebook and Twitter.

Chung, a half Chinese and half British 25 year old model is from Britain and has hosted music and pop culture programs on Channel 4 in Britain. ”It’s On With Alexa Chung” will be filmed in the same studio that was used in TRL. TRL was cancelled last November.

The studio audience will add MTV producers as a friend on Facebook temporarily so that the show will have access to their status updates and pictures they take from their seats.

[via The New York Times]

Rock Band Franchise Hits $1 Billion Sales

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 01:11:38 +0000

In 2007, MTV’s Rock Band franchise launched. Now the franchise as a whole has hit a major milestone, $1 billion in sales. These numbers are based on the North American market. The numbers were released in a press release this past Thursday. Rock Band players have also downloaded more than 40 million songs from the DLC selection.

Even though Rock Band 3 has not been announced yet, there will be a Beatles version of the game for the PSP coming out soon. Electronic Arts is the distribution company of the game and it was developed by Harmonix.

There are about 600 songs available for download to add to the game. It took Guitar Hero about 26 months to hit the same milestone whereas it took Rock Band about 15 months. The complete version of Rock Band costs almost $200.

[via Ars]

Viacom Wants Jackass.com Domain Name, But Future Media Architects Won’t Give It To Them

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:34:27 +0000

The Jackass TV show on MTV started in 2000. The show grew popular and ended up launching a movie series owned by MTV parent company Viacom. Anyone that has registered domain names before also knows how important it is to secure the .com for their business name right away. Future Media Architects has made things a lot more difficult for people that want to buy the .com for their business name including the Jackass franchise.

Future Media Architects is known as a cyber-squatter, a company that buys domain names and doesn’t put any content on it… only advertisements. Future Media Architects (FMA) won’t hand Jackass.com to Viacom because they plan to create a website for it about donkeys and “their contributions to society.” The World Intellectual Property Organization knew that the FMA was full of it but decided that they cannot hand Jackass.com over to Viacom.

Future Media Architects owns 100,000 domain names, many of which only have ads on them. FMA is based in the Virgin Islands and has a CEO based in Kuwait. Viacom filed the complain to the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center saying that FMA was using the domain name in bad faith. For the last 6 years, Jackass.com only had CPC ads on them, but during the case the FMA even showed future website mockups of donkey websites.

“The Respondent offered no explanation as to why it has taken approximately 4 years to launch the donkey website. The Respondent also made no effort to explain why it suddenly wishes to operate a website promoting donkeys, and what benefit it will receive from pursuing this course of action,” according to the WIPO report.

A three part test was conducted to determine that FMA was the winner of the domain name. The first test was whether the domain name was identical or confusing to the Viacom trademark. Yes. The second test was whether Future Media had any legitimate interests with respond to the domain name. Yes, but Viacom failed to show that FMA did not have any legitimate interests. And the last test was whether the domain name was registered and used in bad faith. FMA made no attempt to sell the domain name to Viacom after purchasing it so they won from that standpoint.

My advice to anyone interested in starting a business is to snap up the domain name right away before the FMA takes it.

Forget June 29th For A Minute & Realize The Importance Of July 15th

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 01:25:35 +0000

[Image credit: Radio And Internet Newsletter: www.kurthanson.com/dos]

Internet radio listeners, forget about the Apple iPhone releasing on June 29th for one minute and realize the consequences of what will happen on July 15th, 2007.Â Royalty rates for Internet radio will be increasing at an alarming rate and was set by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington D.C.Â Two days ago, about 21 Internet radio websites shut down their service to make a statement.Â It was officially the Internet Radio Day of Silence on June 25th.Â I was not aware that this was going on until I read a blog post on Yahoo’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal^[1].

“The new royalty rates are higher than the revenues anyone can hope to make from related advertising. In other words, we all lose money on Internet radio starting July 15th. Yahoo! has no intention of operating LAUNCHcast radio as a loss-leader,” wrote Ian C. Rogers of Yahoo! Music.Â Rogers began working for Yahoo! Music three and a half years ago after Yahoo! acquired Mediacode.Â Rogers wrote a brief history of the situation with the Copyright Royalty Board on the Yahoo! Music Blog.^[2]

If the bill passes, Internet radio companies will start losing money.Â Less than 3% of Yahoo! Music subscribers pay for music and the money made from ads is not sufficient enough for the hike in royalty fees.Â So if Yahoo! Music keeps losing money along with the other Internet radio companies, keeping them afloat won’t be easy.Â Many companies cannot afford the royalty rates and may even shut down.

Royalties will increase between 300 and 1200 percent.Â Internet radio currently pays double of what satellite radio pays and Internet radio listeners jumped from 45 million listeners per month to 72 million listerners since last year.Â Yahoo! Music has been providing value to Internet radio listeners for years and for free.Â I don’t want to see the service taken away as it is one of my favorite products made by Yahoo!

For more information, visit http://www.savenetradio.org.

[1] Yodel Anecdotal: Yahoo! Music goes radio silent
[2] Yahoo! Music Blog: Yahoo! Music Goes Radio Silent