Posts Tagged ‘Usher’

This diverse array of the greatest names in music will appear on one stage at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on two consecutive nights, September 23 and 24. The festival is a celebration of the official launch of the New iHeartRadio, Clear Channel’s free, industry-leading digital radio product. New iHeartRadio will combine more than 750 broadcast radio and digital-only stations from 150 cities with the ability to create custom stations, delivering listeners everything they want all in one fully integrated service.

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Super Bowl Sunday, at 10:07:16 p.m. ET, Twitter reached a new record for Tweets per second during a sporting event, 4,064, topping the previous mark of 3,283, during Japan’s 3-1 victory over Denmark during FIFA World Cup South Africa 2010. The all-time mark of 6,939 Tweets per second, reached just after midnight in Japan on New Year’s Eve, was never threatened, however.

Twitter added that Usher‘s surprise appearance during the halftime show by the Black Eyed Peas was responsible for the second-largest spike in Tweets during the game, followed by the headline act, Slash, Eminem, Christina Aguilera, and the first player on the list, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

The “Pug Attack” commercial for Doritos took the Twitter crown, followed by ads from Audi, Pepsi, Chevy, Coca-Cola, and Groupon.

MTV is getting ready to rock ‘n’ roll for the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, which will air live on the cable network from Nokia Theater L.A. Live in Los Angeles Sunday at 9 p.m. ET (tape-delayed PT), announcing sponsorship integrations with Yahoo! and Verizon Communications; integration with Twitter and foursquare; and VMA-themed collections from the Rock Band 3 Avatar Store.

Yahoo! and MTV teamed up on Behind the Lens, a series on the VMA hub on MTV.com that adds pop-up Flash overlays to five VMA-nominated videos: B.o.B‘s “Airplanes,” Katy Perry‘s “California Gurls,” Jason Derulo‘s “In My Head,” Usher‘s “OMG,” and 3OH!3 featuring Ke$ha‘s “My First Kiss.” Previous winners Beyoncé‘s “Single Ladies,” Green Day‘s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” and Justin Timberlake‘s “Sexy Back” are also featured. And Yahoo! is the official sponsor of the VMA live stream.

MTV News’ Jim Cantiello will contribute breaking news, backstage coverage, and insider access to Sean Kingston, sponsored by Verizon, which will offer two-minute clips via its V CAST video service and the MTV app for Android-powered mobile phones.

The music television network will also debut a new version of Stamen Design‘s Twitter Tracker, a real-time graph of activity on the microblogging service, which displays larger images for people or awards generating the most Tweets, and also allows users to sign on to their accounts and Tweet directly from the page.

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It’s the end of an era. The Associated Press is reporting that Bertelsmann AG will sell its 50-percent stake in music business Sony BMG to Sony Corp. in a $1.2 billion deal, the companies announced Tuesday. That gives Sony full ownership of the joint venture whose artists include Celine Dion, Bruce Springsteen, Justin Timberlake, Alicia Keys and Usher.

The new company will be called Sony Music Entertainment. “This move is consistent with our new growth strategy and will enable us to focus on our defined growth areas,” Bertelsmann CEO Hartmut Ostrowski said in a statement. “Sony has been an excellent partner, and they are the right company to take this business to the next step and ensure that it realizes its full value and potential.”

Sony continues to consolidate its portfolio as the only company that sells music players, cell phones, online music services, and is also a major music label that provides content for all of those things.