Bands SPK 2 GR8 fans

Fall Out Boy, others use latest tools to stay in touch

Antony Bruno, Special To The Rocky

Saturday, May 5, 2007

If you're going to Fall Out Boy at Coors Amphitheatre, bring your mobile phone - and not just to call friends and let them hear the concert.

The band is on the cutting edge of acts who use mobile phones to interact with fans at all times, including Friday's concert at Coors Amphitheatre.

"The most important thing to us is our fans," said Alex Hurley, the band's drummer, in a recent phone interview. "The bigger a band gets, the harder it is to maintain that relationship, and it's really important for us to maintain that in any way we can."

Here are a few ways they do can that with mobile phones:

• One fan will have the opportunity to go backstage and meet the band via a text-messaging contest held live during the performance.

• The band is encouraging fans to take camera-phone photos during the show and upload them to a section of their Web site called "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs," text-message shorthand for "thanks for the memories" and also the title of their current single.

• In some tour venues, fans will be able to send the photos directly to video screens on either side of the stage, a multimedia upgrade from the now-common practice of displaying audience text messages.

It's all part of a text messaging fan club campaign the group launched in late March. Fall Out Boy developed a set of five mobile trading cards that fans can only receive by signing up for the service and texting in updates on a regular basis. Each time fans text in a message, they receive one randomly selected card. Some are rarer than others, so the odds of getting the rarest card increase with the number of messages sent.

The trading cards are in the form of Tarot cards, designed around graphic themes from the band's new album, Infinity on High. Once downloaded, fans can use them for their phones' wallpaper images.

After joining the text-message fan club, fans will get updates on Fall Out Boy news such as when the band's next video will premiere, ticket alerts for local secret shows, updates about about the band members, and other information - all delivered directly to their mobile phones.

"We're all collectors and are total nerds," Hurley said, explaining the trading-card concept. "I collect comic books. Pete (Wentz) collects transformers and GI Joes. It's just cool to have that collectibility aspect to things."

Method of choice

Text-messaging has become the communication method of choice for the teen set. According to a wireless industry trade group, close to 94 billion text messages were sent in the U.S. in the second half of last year alone, an increase of 93 percent over the same period in 2005.

So bands with a teen fan base are working hard to develop text message mailing lists to complement the e-mail lists kept to date.

"There's just no way not to take advantage of mobile," said Karen Wiessen, the Fall Out Boy's publicist with Island Def Jam. "For us to not use mobile phones would be ridiculous. This is how kids interact with each other."

Fall Out Boy is not alone in this effort. The group uses Mozes to manage its text-messaging efforts; the Palo Alto, Calif., company claims another 700 artists also use its service.

Mozes CEO Dorrian Porter said Fall Out Boy has signed up "tens of thousands" of fans since the Tarot card promotion began, and recently had the fifth-most subscribers on the service, after Hinder, Korn, hellogoodbye and Boys Like Girls.

Mozes also runs the backstage pass contest at FOB tours. The company first tested the concept last fall with rockers The Plain White T's. For each show, roughly half of those attending responded to the content to get a backstage pass - a staggering response rate.

"It looked like a sea of teenagers pulling out their phones at once," Porter said.

Already, mobile phone screens have replaced lighters at concerts - something U2's Bono called a "20th century moment" during the band's Vertigo Tour.

"You have to have the perspective of a 17-year-old," Porter said. "E-mail is just not the way they communicate with their friends, let alone other people they care about. The reality is this is where young people are - on their phones, texting all the time.

"If you want to engage with them, sending them an e-mail puts you on the same level as the school administrator, as opposed to the form of communication they're actually looking for, which is their phone."

Getting in on the call

Denver-based company 9 Squared develops entertainment-related content for mobile phones. This year the company introduced a paid subscription mobile fan club service called "The In Crowd," most notably featuring hip-hop superstar Snoop Dogg.

"The idea is to offer content that you can't get anywhere else," said 9 Squared CEO Brian Casazza. "It's a real immediate and effective way for artists to communicate (to fans) relevant messages when they're on the road or promote upcoming album releases."

For $10 a month fans get three text messages a week from Snoop on topics ranging from interesting (behind-the-scenes glimpses of his recording work) to odd (a reminder to reset your clock for Daylight Savings Time.) Not all of the messages offer what would be considered earth-shattering information. Consider this recent one:

"When I was on tour with Diddy . . . he brought everything to the stage . . . dancers, pyrotechnics . . . the whole nine . . . his show was off the hizzle for shizzle . . . ya dig?"

That may explain why the service has not gained a large number of subscribers yet. So 9 Squared, with 70 employees in its downtown Denver offices, is in the process of revamping the service with a lower price and additional benefits such as a mobile magazine customized for each artist, containing news, free downloads and more.

Because today's mobile phones are growing increasingly sophisticated, artists are developing a wide range of products to engage fans.

• Atlanta rapper T.I. is readying a full-on mobile assault in advance of his forthcoming album T.I. vs TIP in July. Plans include a mobile trading card promotion similar to Fall Out Boy's, which can be redeemed in certain combinations for free merchandise; a text-message fan club; several mobile games; and a custom ring tone service that lets fans remix his songs as they like.

• Justin Timberlake's JT-TV service on Verizon Wireless delivers four channels of video programming dedicated to music, film, fashion and travel.

Back at the show

Concerts offer a variety of ways for bands and fans to interact using mobile phones. Artists already let fans choose which song they should play during their encore via text-message voting. Or they can remix a song played live that night into a custom ring tone available only to those who attended that specific show.

"It's just part of the whole interactive world of the Internet, and any way you can sync into that with whatever you're creating, it just enhances the experience," said Hurley of Fall Out Boy.

"For the kids, it's cool to be able to post photos online or on the screen at the show. At the same time, for the kids who don't get to go to the shows for whatever reason, they can stay in touch as well. So I think it's really cool."

See some of these ideas in action when the Vans Warped Tour comes to Denver on July 8. Kevin Lyman, the brains behind the alternative rock festival, has already begun integrating wireless alerts into the tour - everything from announcing the day's lineup to giving a heads up on autograph sessions or exclusive backstage acoustic shows. Eventually, he hopes to send concert tickets directly to fans' mobile phones, scanning a bar code on the phone screen like a ticket to get in.

"It creates an interactive environment onsite at the shows," Lyman said at a recent wireless industry conference. "We need to stay current with our audience if we're going to continue being relevant."

Going mobile

Some of the artists using mobile phones to communicate with fans, and how you can sign up.

Fall Out Boy

Collect a set of five mobile "trading cards" designed like Tarot cards to use as your phone's wallpaper image, as well as upgrade concert tickets. Get text updates on ticket alerts, local events and upcoming video premieres.

Cost: Free, but standard text-messaging rates (which vary by provider) apply.

Sign up: Text "FOB" to the shortcode 66937 to sign up to their mobile fan club and get a free Tarot card; or sign up through its MySpace page or Web site at:

falloutboyrock.com

Justin Timberlake

Programming four video channels (Music, Fashion, Movies and Travel) exclusively on Verizon Wireless VCast to give fans an exclusive look at his ongoing activities.

Cost: VCast subscribers pay $15 a month on top of their regular phone bill.

Sign up: Become a Verizon Wireless VCast subscriber

Snoop Dogg

Receive three text messages a week on various topics; plans for additional content such as free ringtones and exclusive wallpaper images are coming soon.

Cost: $10 a month (but a price cut is pending)

Sign up: Text SNOOP8 to the shortcode 94000; or sign up at: theincrowd.tv

T.I.

None is available yet, but the Atlanta-based rapper plans a fleet of mobile services to support his July release of T.I. vs TIP. They include a text-message fan club, a series of mobile trading cards that can be redeemed for prizes, a custom ringtone service featuring his songs, and several mobile games such as "T.I. Racing" and "FanJam: T.I. Edition."

Cost: Hasn't been announced.

Sign up: You can't yet, but keep an eye on trapmuzik.com for details.

Linkin Park

The rap-metal group documented the creation of its new Minutes to Midnight album on video.

Cost: About $10 a month on Sprint or Cingular.

Sign up: The 15-part series is available to MobiTV subscribers on Sprint or Cingular.

There's more . . .

As many as 700 artists use the Mozes service to keep in touch with fans via text messaging. They include 50-Cent, Hinder, Godsmack, hellogoodbye, Korn and Boys Like Girls. View all the artists available and learn how to sign up at: mozes.com.

Flying fingers

Text-messaging has grown at a furious pace since the start of 2006:

• 64.8 billion text messages in the first six months of 2006. That's an increase of 99 percent from the same period in 2005.

• 93.8 billion text messages in the last six months of 2006, up 93 percent from the same period in 2005

• 158.6 billion messages total during 2006, a 95 percent increase from 2005

• 18.7 billion messages in December 2006, up 92 percent from December 2005

Antony Bruno is the Denver-based senior correspondent for Billboard magazine.