band

Facing the rising popularity of rival browsers Firefox and Opera, Microsoft has launched its first-ever advertising deal with Live Nation (a concert ticket search engine) to promote Internet Explorer 8. The agreement promises to make consumers happy ... by offering free content with every download of IE8. Fans of popular Canadian rock band Nickelback will be most pleased with the deal. The agreement means that Internet Explorer 8 and Microsoft have signed on as the main sponsor for the rock and roll crew's Dark Horse tour, named after the band's platinum album of the same name. Something in Your ... (view more)

It's "A Beautiful Day" for Research in Motion (RIM), the BlackBerry maker which recently pried rock/pop superstars U2 from the clenched fists of competitor Apple. The band, which has been with Apple since 2004, will partner with RIM to promote its ... upcoming U2 360 Degrees Tour. It was almost five years ago now that world-renowned U2 lead singer Bono and guitarist The Edge stood next to Apple's ubiquitous Steve Jobs in order to promote the tech company's Special Edition U2 iPod. At the time, Apple, U2, and studio Universal Music Group (UMG) promised the triumvirate would deliver "innovative ... (view more)

Here's a new one for the copyright infringement crowd: Guitar Hero publisher and long-time video game staple Activision is being sued by 1980s one-hit wonders The Romantics for using a pseudo version of their song "What I Like About You". Needless ... to say, it isn't much of a 'rock and/or roll' attitude. The lawsuit was filed against Activision last Tuesday in a U.S. District Court in Detroit, Michigan. The California publisher is being sued for unspecified damages for the "What I like About You" version it uses in Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, a stop-point between the more popular Guitar ... (view more)

Music buffs unite! Microsoft has just launched Ignition, a new music initiative aimed at giving new recording artists exposure via various Microsoft channels. The Ignition program will utilize Zune, Xbox and MSN to offer exposure to new artists for ... over a month. Zune Marketplace and Zune.net will offer free downloads and features, Xbox LIVE Marketplace will feature video downloads, and MSN Video and MSN Music will provide promotional video and music streams. (Source: tech2.com ) As Microsoft's director of music marketing Christina Callo explains, "the Ignition program is designed to help ... (view more)

The first question that pops into this writer's head is: What is Lars going to complain about now? Metallica and most publicly, drummer Lars Ulrich, were one of the first and most vocal opponents to online music downloading. Their most sensational ... events were open and often angry speeches against Napster, the Internet's first massive peer-to-peer service. Since then, the bell has long since tolled for Napster, but others have picked up the torch, leaving a few veteran bands like Metallica shaking their fists at technology. However, the recent demise of downloading giant Kazaa (not that it ... (view more)