Media Deals

Mobile game developer Artificial Life has inked a three-year deal with Warner Bros. and Linkin Park to develop the rock band's "official" iPhone applications.

Artificial Life intends to release two interactive apps for each year of the deal, with the first scheduled to launch in Q4, provided that it makes it through the App Store approval process in time. The applications will feature the band’s likeness and music in unconventional styles (whatever that means).

"We want to offer our fans every opportunity to enjoy our music," said Linkin Park member Joe Hahn, who helped design the initial game.

[Image courtesy of Amazon.com]

Fast Company and mobile platform provider Crisp Wireless have partnered to launch Fast Company Mobile.

The business magazine's readers can now use their phone to read feature articles, daily news and analysis. With Crisp's Save/Share feature, mobile readers can share interesting articles with friends or post them to a social networking or bookmarking site, just as they can do with Fast Company's traditional Web site.
In addition to hosting the site, Crisp will also sell and serve up the ads for Fast Company Mobile.

The new mobile magazine is at http://m.fastcompany.com.

Boost Mobile is bringing local news to its customers through a partnership with Local Solutions Network (LSN). LSN claims to power the largest mobile network of local news sources, which includes affiliates of ABC, NBCU, Telemundo, McGraw Hill, Cox Broadcasting and a host of others.

Under the deal, Boost, the prepaid unit of Sprint Nextel, will provide LSN's local news, sports, weather and other content as part of its $50-a-month unlimited plan. Customers who use Boost's Pay As You Go service can still get their local news, but it costs 35 cents a day - kind of like those old local daily newspapers, but much more interactive.

LSN's media-to-mobile service works on all Web-enabled Boost Mobile phones. A Spanish-language version is available via LSN's Local Inalambrico service.

American Idol fans can get closer to season eight's lucky 13 finalists than they've been able to get to performers from any of the show's prior seasons. Provided that they have an iPhone or iPod touch.

Courtesy of Zumobi and FreemantleMedia, American Idol Season 8 Exclusive, the first official AI application for the iPhone, is now available for download from Apple's iTunes App Store.

The $1.99 app promises in-depth bios of all 13 finalists plus pictures, news and exclusive behind-the-scenes video. Fans who download the app can keep up on their favorite finalists through daily news updates. They can also see how their opinions match up with the tens of millions of voters using the My Rankings feature where they can make predictions and track the results throughout the rest of the season.

Also, throughout the remaining weeks until the season finale, app downloaders will have access to 78 videos of the contestants.

Crain Communications has suspended publication of both the print and online versions of RCRWireless. The print publication has been around since 1981. It suffered from a significant decline in ad pages last year and fell victim to the current economic downturn.

According to minonline, the wireless industry news site and publication were shuttered on Tuesday. Twenty staffers lost their jobs as a result.

Mobile publishing platform provider Verve Wireless and AccuWeather.com have formed an alliance that gives Verve's customers access to AccuWeather's localized weather info. This means that local media companies using Verve’s platform can add current conditions, forecasts and weather alerts to their mobile sites. AccuWeather.com's content can be searched by zip code or city and state, in English or Spanish.

For AccuWeather.com, the partnership initially adds 134 newspaper and TV mobile sites to its distribution network. Verve has more than 150 local media company clients including daily and weekly newspapers and local radio and TV stations across the country.

Samsung Mobile and Paramount Digital Entertainment have hooked up on a promotion for the Samsung Delve from Alltel Wireless.

The phone maker and movie studio are offering a free 2GB microSD card pre-loaded with all three Mission Impossible films to everyone who buys a Delve from now through April 16.

Once they've purchased the snazzy new phone, customers can send in a mail-in redemption card and expect the movie-filled memory card in four-six weeks.

Jump Technologies has hooked up with Fox to create an interactive mobile channel around the network's new series, Dollhouse, which debuts on February 13.

Dollhouse Interactive is a new channel within Jump's Nabbit service that lets mobile users "Nabb" content that interests them with the press of a button.

For the premiere episode, Nabbit users can access the interactive Dollhouse channel to answer a trivia question related to the episode. Viewers who answer correctly will have the chance to win an autographed wardrobe item.

Users who want to make sure they don't miss the episode can set up a text alert within Nabbit by texting "Dollhouse" to 878787 to receive a reminder on Friday afternoon.

Dollhouse, the latest offering from Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon and starring Eliza Dushku, marks Nabbit's first interactive television deal. Prior to this, it focused on interactive radio.

Orange has struck a deal with Fox Mobile's distribution unit (FMD) that allows the operator to offer FMD's aggregated content, along with content created by Fox Mobile Studios, to its 117 million customers in some 30 countries.

The arrangement makes available goodies from Fox brands like The Simpsons; Fox Mobile Studios original characters such as the Snuggle Bunny and Howie Heart and licensed content from third-party brands. Subscribers can access the Fox apps, videos, ringtones, wallpapers, games and themes through the Orange World portal.

Fox is crowing that the Orange customers will also be among the first to try their hands at mobile magic through FMD's exclusive offering of mobile magic tricks from Trixcell.

For Orange, the new partnership means more popular content for its subscribers. For FMD, it means increased reach plus a move in its desired direction of closer relationship with mobile operators.

Warner Bros is pushing its upcoming Watchmen flick with a new mobile Web site. The site, at m.watchmenmovie.com, has news, content and videos to get both Watchmen newbies and fans of the classic comic pumped up for the film's March 6 release, IntoMobile reports.

According to the post, the site was designed to render correctly for any Web-enabled handset.

Glu Mobile has announced a mobile game based on the movie as well, which will likely launch around the time of the movie's debut.

[Image courtesy of Warner Bros]