iPhone apps for Lady Gaga, Pussycat Dolls and other UMG artists
Interscope Geffen A&M is launching iPhone applications for five of its key artists, through a partnership with mobile firm Kyte. The five are Lady Gaga, the Pussycat Dolls, Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em, the All American Rejects, and Keri Hilson.
The free apps include video content from the artists’ Kyte channels, as well as branding and advertising, click-through links to buy music and merchandise, a built-in RSS reader to pull in news updates, and community features like chat, comments and sharing.
“Kyte allows us to easily deliver iPhone and iPod touch apps that connect our artists with their fans in a fully immersive, interactive experience,” says Ted Mico, executive vice president of digital for IGA. “Fans will be able to watch exclusive, behind the scenes content, chat in real-time, and purchase artist content, all from their iPhone and iPod touch.”
The apps came about through Kyte’s deal with Interscope Geffen A&M’s parent company Universal Music Group. Although artists’ Kyte sites have been accessible through mobile web browsers for some time, this is the first time individual artists’ content has been packaged up into apps.
The apps are due to be live on the App Store today. Kyte will be offering the technology behind them as a turnkey service for other artists and labels in the coming months. We caught up with Kyte’s Daniel Graf at Mobile World Congress last week for a hands-on demo and to talk more about the thinking behind them. Stand by for a post covering that interview.
Tags: app store, apple, iphone, Kyte, lady gaga, pussycat dolls, soulja boy, UMG
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Lady CaCa is HORRIBLE! Her only fans are Perez Hilton and 100 15-year-olds that hang out on Perez’s website every day.
Google her “before surgery” pics. It’s nice to know she is such a edgy “do her own thing” type of artist… all the while she had that plastic surgery to fit right in…
Her 15 minutes were over 2 months ago.
February 23rd, 2009 at 2:48 pm
[...] par les Presidents of the USA de la sortie de leur application Iphone, c’est au tour d’Universal Music Group de dégainer et d’annoncer la sortie d’applications iPhone en partenariat avec Kyte . [...]
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:18 pm
What is so special about these apps is that unlike say the recent Death Cab for Cutie one, these are updated constantly. With the ingestion of RSS, every launch of the app will present new content. You could easily pull flickr/youtube/imeem/google news APIs to effectively let these run themselves and simply aggregate all freely available content.
As we saw with band URL’s and email lists in the late 90’s, I anticipate a fight in the near future between label and artist management over who controls the admin pages of these apps. It might come down to who paid Kyte to build them. If were a manager I’d be out commissioning these or atleast ensuring some contractual control, as the label will move on to another priority after the records release cycle.
February 24th, 2009 at 6:02 am
[...] Gaga, the Pussycat Dolls, Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em, the All American Rejects, and Keri Hilson (via MusicAlly). The apps for all five are more or less the same, but with different content and different visual [...]
February 24th, 2009 at 6:28 am
[...] Gaga, the Pussycat Dolls, Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em, the All American Rejects, and Keri Hilson (via MusicAlly). The apps for all five are more or less the same, but with different content and different visual [...]
February 25th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
[...] iPhone apps for Lady Gaga, Pussycat Dolls and other UMG artists Kyte Offers Branded iPhone Apps for Celebrities and Musicians Category: Music, TechnologyTags: advertising > ihpone > kyte > mobile > musicians > TuneBooks [...]
March 4th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
[...] Gaga, the Pussycat Dolls, Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em, the All American Rejects, and Keri Hilson (via MusicAlly). The apps for all five are more or less the same, but with different content and different visual [...]
April 1st, 2009 at 6:35 am
Hi, to the person who’s posting negative comments, we’re not blocking them because you don’t like the apps, we’re blocking them because of the tone. Lay off the capitalised swearing and homophobic abuse, and you’ll be fine. Thanks.
January 4th, 2010 at 4:38 pm
I like blogs like this one, I am sure you put an effort on it to keep it up. Nice post, grazie mille .