Having gained a stable subscription revenue base from World of Warcraft, Activision Blizzard may look to monetize some of its other titles through subscriptions -- like Guitar Hero, CEO Bobby Kotick said today.

Activision Blizzard beat estimates to the tune of $711 million in
revenues for its first quarter as a combined company, the company revealed today.

Anticipating investor concerns about an uncertain economy, president
and CEO Bobby Kotick reassured them on the company's results call that
stable subscription revenue from World Of Warcraft "gives us advantages over many of our competitors -- especially as we enter the holidays."

And Kotick added that the just-launched Guitar Hero: World Tour's song creation utility's early success might end up as a new revenue source.

Kotick says that there are now 25,000 user generated tunes that have
been created for the game, and projected "up to 100,000 songs" by the
end of this year.

"The ability to offer these songs on a subscription basis may very well
result in the newest subscription opportunity in our portfolio," he
said.

LINK (via Gamasutra)

Tom Conrad has some pretty compelling evidence that mobile advertising could sell at a fat premium to web-based ads.

Conrad, the CTO of online radio station Pandora, says the click-through rates on Pandora's iPhone app ads have easily trumped the click-through rates on the web.

"Something like 3 percent of our iPhone ad impressions get a click while we get about 1 percent on our web product. And that's true even though we're oversaturating users with Beck's and Best Buy ads," said Conrad, while speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

The assumption is that if mobile ads are seen by more consumers, then the ad rates should reflect that.

And as an unrelated side note: Conrad also throws cold water on rumors that Apple is singling out and blocking specific iPhone apps that it considers competitive.

"I'm extremely skeptical of these theories that Apple is crippling certain apps. Pandora is actually a music company, and Apple has a huge music business . . . At the end of the day, I think it's quite likely that your app will get rejected by Apple if it provides a poor user experience. "

LINK (via Epicenter)

There were many marketing lessons that any business could learn from Obama's
campaign, but perhaps the strongest is the power of having a strong AND
shareable brand. Obama's logo and brand identity were consistently used
across all his communications, but also treated with a flexibility that
would drive many holders of a brand identity completely mad. Instead of
taking a closed approach to his brand identity, the Obama campaign let
people remix the brand for their own uses.

To take an inside look at the power of this brand, I created two
visuals that I believe pretty much tell the story of the power of Brand
Obama and how it was used to help him win the US Presidency in a way
that is much more powerful than I could ever describe.

LINK (via DigitalMediaWire)

London - Video games are set to generate more sales in the U.K. than music or video this year, the BBC reported, citing market research firm Verdict Research.

Spending on games is expected to grow 42%, to $7.5 billion, while sales of music and video combined will total $7.06 billion.

"The music and video market is not just suffering from a slowing of growth but a massive transfer of spend to online," Verdict Research's Malcolm Pinkerton told the BBC.

Steve Redmond, of the Entertainment Retailers Association, noted for the BBC that the Verdict figure includes sales of video game hardware.

Redmond added that the ERA itself predicts that video game spending will eclipse video by the end of the year, but not music and video combined.

LINK (via DigitalMediaWire)

Sony Computer Entertainment America has taken an active hand in
ensuring PlayStation 3 instrument peripheral cross-compatibility
between Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero: World Tour, Singstar, and newcomer Rock Revolution, according to a new blog post by SCEA third-party relations director Michael Shorrock.

Irregular hardware and software compatibility between games from competing developers Harmonix Music Systems (Rock Band) and Activision-owned Neversoft (Guitar Hero)has put strain on both the patience and wallets of music game aficionados, many of whom are known to be less than thrilled at the prospect of owning multiple plastic drum sets.

Specifically, Shorrock notes that Rock Band 2- and Guitar Hero: World Tour-branded guitar and drum peripherals will function properly with all three band simulators, while Rock Revolution's drum peripheral (though it supports guitar gameplay, publisher Konami has not announced unique guitar hardware for its game) will also be compatible with all titles.

The microphone peripheral for Sony's own SingStar karaoke game will work with both Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour. Sony hopes to expand its compatibility doctrine to existing music games already on the market.

Similar music game peripheral enforcement has yet to be enacted (or at least officially announced) on the Xbox 360 platform.

[UPDATE: Following up on this post, Microsoft's Chris Paladino has officially announced that the same interoperability will be true for the Xbox 360 versions of those third-party titles.

Talking on the company's official Gamerscore Blog, he referenced the
final paragraph of this article, which noted that Microsoft has yet to
announce similar compatibility, and explained:

"For the record, we also do that, so consider this an official announcement. All the instruments from Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero: World Tour, and Rock Revolution will be cross-compatible... In other words, welcome to the party. ;)"]

 LINK (via Gamasutra)

We know that the looming recession doesn’t mean that all funding
will immediately stop, but amidst the waves of layoffs and cautionary
e-mails sent by VCs it’s nice to see widget maker RockYou getting an additional 17 million dollars, which brings their C Round total to $52 Million.

This investment comes from Softbank, leading shareholder of Yahoo!
Japan, and SK Telecom Ventures, the venture capital arm of SK Telecom;
initial C Round investment of $35M was led by DCM. Put everything RockYou has amassed so far and you get an impressive number: 67 million dollars.

To put this into perspective, its competitor Slide raised $50M so far this year, Gigya raised $9.5 million in March, while Clearspring snagged $18M in May.

RockYou will use the funds on several fronts. First, they’ll open
offices in New York, Los Angeles and Detroit. Furthermore, they plan to
expand into Asia-Pacific market; SoftBank and RockYou will set up a new
joint venture company to develop widgets for use on PCs and mobiles in
the Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Chinese markets.

Finally, they plan to grow the internal ad sales team (and this at a
time where many companies are laying off people in that same
department), as well as strengthen their Automotive, Retail and
Entertainment specific application verticals. Recession? Meh, says
RockYou.

 LINK (via Mashable)

Black Sheep's "The Choice is Yours" was one of hip-hop's great party
tunes, dropping in 1991 in the full swing of the genre's Golden Age. But our era has knit politics and art together like few that came before. And so Black Sheep's Dres has remixed, refashioned and re-introduced the tune as an election-year plea.

Dres teamed up with Austin-based production houses Voodoo Cowboy Entertainment
and Super!Alright! Media and knocked out the revision in a mere two days after the idea came to Definitive Jux label co-founder Ameachi Uzigowe, no lie, in a dream. And while the video is overtly pro-Obama, it is also overtly cool.

LINK (via Listening Post)

Only one percent of cellphone users have an iPhone, and while it may
seem like most iPhone owners are just dropping disposable income on the
latest tech gadget (present company excluded, of course), that is changing rapidly. The fastest growing group of iPhone owners is lower income people, according to ComScore.

43 percent of iPhone owners may earn in excess of $100,000 annually, but lower income people are increasingly viewing the iPhone as a one-stop alternative to buying multiple products that surf the web, play music and send email, says the study.

“A $200 device plus at least $70 per month for phone service seems a
bit extravagant for those with lower disposable income,” said ComScore
Senior Analyst Jen Wu. “However, one actually realizes cost savings
when the device is used in lieu of multiple digital devices and
services, transforming the iPhone from a luxury item to a practical
communication and entertainment tool."

LINK (via Epicenter)

R&B vocalist Chris Brown is the star of a new advertising campaign for Hasbro's U-Dance, a motion sensing dance video game.

As part of the promotion visitors to the site udancegame.com can see extra footage of Brown dancing and enter a contest to star in their own dance video. The game comes with twelve songs, including Brown's "Run It", "ABC" by The Jackson 5 and "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" by M.V.P. featuring C+C Music Factory.

LINK (via Billboard)

Artists and labels have a new way to strengthen ties to fans and
make them buy more music: mobile phone apps, which could be the new
MySpace page.

An iPhone app might seem like an awkward way to distribute music
when the device also supports podcasts and the iTunes music store, but
the apps' versatility gives bands a great way to draw their fans closer.

Recording artist Pink is the first (updated) to make waves in this area with a free iPhone app called "P!nk's Funhouse" (iTunes link), according to Billboard,
which includes 30-second previews from her upcoming album, news, photos
and other "essentials to connect you to Pink's music." Others rumored
to be working on similar applications include Fall Out Boy and Snow Patrol, while Nine Inch Nails plans to release a special version of the iPhone app Tap Tap Revenge that will let players tap along with various NIN songs.

IPhone apps are becoming a viable platform for the promotion and distribution of music.

LINK (via Listening Post)