Nintendo’s press conference is happening in just two weeks! We’ll be there covering it and live-blogging it as it happens, but if you’d also like to see all the action take place live on your screen, Nintendo has you covered too.

The all-access press conference begins Tuesday, June 5 at 9 a.m. PDT and will be streamed on Nintendo’s E3 website. It will also be televised on MTV2 and Spike TV networks. Throughout the week, Nintendo will also be updating its Facebook page with announcements and will be live tweeting via its @Nintendo Twitter account. Videos and trailers will be posted on Youtube as well.

While Nintendo will let you feel like you’re at E3, we’ll be there providing you previews and impressions of everything the big N announces that week. Have anything in particular you’d like coverage on? Let us know.

Source: Nintendo

It must be difficult for anyone making a career decision to move to another country, let alone to make the decision when you’re thirteen. Cody Simpson — a cute blonde Australian boy — posted a couple videos of himself singing and playing guitar on youtube at the tender age of 13. Before he knew it, he was contacted by record producer Shawn Campbell and moved from Australia to Los Angeles to make an album with Atlantic Records.

His accomplishments seem boundless since: he has received over 110 million youtube views and well over 2 million facebook likes. His single, “On My Mind,” off of his second e.p. “Coast to Coast” reached #1 on Radio Disney and he has been on a myriad of television shows from the “Ellen DeGeneres Show” to “Live! With Regis and Kelly.” He is quickly becoming the next digital generation phenomenon.

Now at the age of 15, Cody is continuing to work hard in order to maintain his success.

When asked if there was a girl in his life – as his music mainly discusses relationships and love – Cody replied, “No, there isn’t at the moment. If the girl you’re talking about is named ‘Music’ then sure, I’m dating her. But really I am just focusing on my career at the moment. I’m a pretty focused kid and I am definitely very self motivated. And I think once I get everything established to where I want to be, than there is time for all that.  I got a while. I love to hang out with girls, but relationships are real hard for me at the moment. I have a lot of good friends, but nothing too serious.”

Cody is mature for his age. As a rising star, he is often compared to Justin Bieber. When asked what he thinks of being compared to Justin, Cody said, “I think a lot of people like to put things in boxes and say, ‘okay, he was discovered on YouTube and he sings and he is a teenager, so that means he is a new Justin Bieber.’ What? Like hold on a second…”

But despite the comparisons, Cody revealed, “Justin and I were just in the studio, like yesterday working together. Obviously I’m still at the more beginning stages of my career. But its cool to work with Justin and people like him. At the end of the day, it all comes down to the music and the creation of that. He is working on his next album and I am working on my debut. I think that this generation is definitely doing it big.”

On being a young artist, Cody said, “I think there are many disadvantages of being young and being a teenager. There are only certain things you can say musically and certain things you can do. I’m never really going to say anything risky or explicit in my songs. I definitely am more mature for my age. But I think as my fans grew up and as I grew up with my fans, we had to just create the music for them. A lot of people definitely expect a certain thing from a teen artist. But I think with my album, with the single, and the video, and this tour that I’m doing, I think I’m going to surprise a lot of people. I am really excited for the coming year. And I will see how it goes. I am definitely doing things that no one is expecting.”

A great example of Cody’s artistic and unexpected side is his cover of Drake’s “Marvin’s Room” — a song about drunk texting lost romances. But since the song is widely inappropriate for younger audiences, Cody decided to “re-imagine” it.

“I’m a big Drake fan in general. I love that song and I wanted to re-imagine it and create a version of the song I think my fans could listen to and they could relate to,” he said. “JoJo did the female side of things of that story, and then I wanted to create a story for my younger fans.”

So what is Cody doing when he is not recording, going on tour, or making music videos?

“I go to school in the morning usually. My tutor travels with me when I’m on the road. I think it’s important to stay in school,” he said.

But what about during his time off?

“I love to go surfing. I love to play golf. Golf is always relaxing when you have a day off. I love just being out in the ocean and I love just being out on the golf course.”

Now living in Los Angeles, golf and surf is easily available to him, though the surf is better “back home in Australia,” according to Cody. When asked about his life before fame, Cody misses “that time to chill with friends. I have friends back home that I am very close to that I still talk to every single day. We don’t really get to hang out too much. I miss them and my family and my lifestyle a little bit. I love writing music and [Los Angeles] is where you have to be for that.”

The future is promising. “I am creating my own album right now,” Cody said. “My single is coming out in the next few weeks. For right now, I am focusing on the tour.”

When asked where he would like to be in five years from now, he said, “I’ll be 20 years old, hopefully still making music as a respected artist and someone that has inspired a lot of people and has made some great music. That is all I really want to do.  I want to inspire my fans. I want to do work for charity in the next five years, definitely.  There is a lot of stuff happening to me and I want to make sure I am giving back to my fans and people less fortunate than me.”

Cody is currently touring the country. His tour dates can be seen here.

Take a gander and have a listen to YouTube user Mart0zz and friends as they belt out the classic Legend of Zelda theme on a marimba and a few other instruments.

(via Geeks are Sexy)

YouTube has finally agreed to pay licensing fees to the National Music Publishers Association, ending a four-year legal battle with over 3,000 independent music publishers.

The new contract will cover synchronization rights on behalf of the songwriters and will extend to cover versions of the songs as well.

This way, songwriters will get a portion of advertising revenue associated with videos featuring their songs, however the terms of royalties have not yet been disclosed.

The NMPA will drop its lawsuit against YouTube that has been in place since 2007.  The suit was filed because the NMPA felt that the site enabled infringements of songwriters’ rights.

Today it was announced that YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steven Chen have purchased the social bookmaking site Delicious from Yahoo, which acquired the site back in 2005.

Per the press release, Delicious will become part of AVOS, a new Internet company. Current users using Delicious will continue to use the service, but it will now be easier and more fun to save and share what is already on the web.

“We’re excited to work with this fantastic community and take Delicious to the next level,” said Chad Hurley, CEO of AVOS. “We see a tremendous opportunity to simplify the way users save and share content they discover anywhere on the web.”

“We spoke with numerous parties interested in acquiring the site, and chose Chad and Steve based on their passion and unique vision for Delicious,” said John Matheny, SVP of Communications and Communities at Yahoo!

The YouTube founders plan to work closely with the community over the next few months to develop innovative features to help solve the problem of information overload. “We see this problem not just in the world of video, but also cutting across every information-intensive media type,” said Chen.

Could this mean that sites like Digg and Reddit are not that far behind as being sold off as well? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Thirteen-year-old YouTube sensation Rebecca Black said Tuesday night on Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show” that she is going to donate proceeds from her “Friday” music video to Japan and to her school.

Black recorded this song after her mother paid $2,000 to L.A.-based Ark Studios. Even though this tune has been very controversial, Black was excited that she has heard from some famous people such as Ryan Seacrest, Simon Cowell, Nicole Richie, Joel Madden, and Willow Smith.

At a “Musicians @ Google” event in San Francisco on Tuesday, Lady Gaga said about this tune, “I think it’s fantastic. I say Rebecca Black is a genius and anyone that’s telling her she’s cheesy is full of shit,” Reuters reported.

The internet welcomed a new YouTube sensation in the past 24 hours and her name is Rebecca Black. She is a 17 year old “artist” signed with Ark Music Factory, an independent music label based in Los Angeles. While in most cases garnering viral video attention on YouTube is a great thing for aspiring artists, in the case of Rebecca Black it is more like a huge wake up call. The video is being taunted and made a mockery of all over Twitter and YouTube. The song is being critiqued for nonsensical lyrics and Rebecca’s talent is questioned. All of these responses are pretty much legitimate after you watch the video:

So now that you have decided what seat to take in the car and know what days come before and after Friday, we are sure your life is forever changed by that artistic expression of musical songwriting, production, and performance in some way…

The video has spawned the usual parodies and reaction videos on YouTube. Rebecca might still be able to revel in her internet fame and if she takes her comedic status lightly would do well to profit from the ringtones and appearances on talk shows that this could land her. Was it not Antoine Dodson who taught us all, with his “bed intruder” rendition, how to profit from embarrassment and use autotune to milk internet stardom until it could provide a somewhat steady trickle of income?

Check out some of the other “artists” that are currently signed to Ark Music Factory here:

What are your thoughts on this interesting label and their approach to discovering “talent”?

Share your comments below or tweet @joshtorres

Follow @blastmagazine for more news coverage and awesome contests and deals.

This is very adorable and heartwarming. Lady Gaga tweeted Thursday, “Myself +10 year Old Lady Maria of Winnipeg. She signed my t-shirt, she ate my heart, just like you?”

During the concert in Toronto that night, Gaga performed with Maria Aragon, the 10-year-old girl who got so much attention on YouTube with her cover of “Born This Way.” Aragon’s YouTube video has well over 17 million views, which brought her to appear on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” last month.

During the concert, Gaga welcomed Aragon to the stage and they played the piano and performed “Born This Way” together. Gaga was very emotional afterwards.

Last Wednesday, YouTube began talks with Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., Sony Pictures, and Warner Brothers concerning a movie rental service similar to iTunes and Netflix. This would mark the first time ever that the Google owned video site would charge for content. The fee would also be similar to the other video services, charging around $3.99 a rental.

YouTube is also in talks with many other partners in an effort to shore up its offerings of professional grade content, which advertisers prefer.

“We hope to expand on both our great relationship with the movie studios and the selection and types of videos we offer our community,” said YouTube spokesman Chris Dale.

Such a program would be quite a change for YouTube. We think this is due to pressure from investors who see that the cost of supplying video to users all over the world still isn’t bringing in its equivalent in advertising revenue.

YouTube became successful because it allowed people to share their own personal “LOL” with the world “" for free! Considering that there are plenty of other and more well established places to stream movies, most offering better quality or lower prices at this point, and YouTube is a late entrant into the game.

Maxthon International Limited, China-based developer of the Maxthon web browser for the Windows operating system, has begun testing a new feature for their browser. In this new addition floating windows allow users to watch two videos at once or watch videos while using a different web page entirely.

To activate this feature the “Float button” option must be enabled in the Maxthon Browser’s configuration panel. This will then cause a “Detach Video” button to appear in the upper right-hand corner of videos. Clicking the button detaches the video from the main page allowing the user to drag it anywhere on screen (or to a second screen should a user have dual monitors) and the video is automatically set to stay on top of other windows.

Internet videos are displayed with a detach button that allows the user to "rip" the video off the page.

The video can be hidden by use of another button and when closed the browser automatically reattaches the video to the original window. Maxthon developers released version 2.5.6 yesterday with the detach video button live. This feature is already supported by a slew of popular videos site including Youtube, Hulu, Yahoo Video, Shockwave.com, Truveo, AOL Video On Demand, Heavy.com and Atom.

If you want to give the Maxthon browser a try, download it here (Maxthon is Windows-only).

Mega-publisher Electronic Arts released this teaser trailer for the game’s tie-in video series dubbed “Driver Experiences” today, with an obvious goal of loudly proclaiming to the world that Shift is not your mother’s NFS.

Developed by Slightly Mad studios, Shift promises the most realistic physics and gameplay, which is quite a lofty claim, but the studio is also working with seasoned race professionals including Vaughn Gittin Jr., Tommy, Milner, and others, to truly, and hopefully, solidify that claim.

Furthermore, beginning tomorrow, and lasting all day, Need For Speed Shift will take over Youtube’s front page (can’t imagine the bill for that one) and will be a hub for all the exclusive videos, new car reveals, and lots more. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see to see what EA really have up their sleeve!

If the trailer for Warner Bros.’s newest frightfest “Orphan” wasn’t enough to have you crawling out of your skin, than your nerves are far stronger than mine are. Nothing says “Happy July” than a pre-screening to what’s sure to be one of the scariest movies of 2009, and Blast is more than happy to get you some passes.

We have 15 passes to give away for a late-night screening of the film next Tuesday, July 21 — but there’s a little catch. Record a video of your best horror movie scream, post it to YouTube and leave a link to it as a comment below, and we will give passes to the first 15 who post.

Plus, the best five screamers will win a prize pack full of summer goodies like shot glasses, frisbees, t-shirts, official movie poster and beach balls, to mix a little fear into your summer fun.

This giveaway ends Friday, July 17. “Orphan” hits theaters July 24.

While on an epic quest to discover the keys to creating successful web content and setting oneself up as an Internet star, Blast found two things: traditional media wishes it was as popular as online media, and our generation has little to no attention span.

Webisodes are hugely popular at the moment, and when Blast talked to Michael Buckley, from the “What the Buck Show,” Chris Hardwick, the host of the new G4 show “Web Soup,” and Christine Tse Kuecherer, from Take180.com, all three sources agreed that the success lies in the timing.

Take180.com creates Web series fed by viewer participation, like “Electric Spoofaloo,” but none are longer than 180 seconds. Christine Tse Kuecherer, Marketing Director at Take180.com, explained the reasoning for the time limit: “I think one thing we’re seeing with web video in general is that people may not have the long attention span that they might have with television. A great example is Hulu. They highlight Saturday Night Live skits and TV shows. That’s why we’re ‘Take180′ and nothing is over 180 seconds.”

The same concept applies to YouTube videos, and really any other content on the Internet. News ratings have plunged over the years, and it’s really no wonder why.

Michael Buckley blames the drop entirely on the Internet.

“I think people are just on their computers all day,” Buckley said. “They like to just read the little blurb, or they like to go online and see like a little one and a half to three minute video summary. They don’t want to watch thirty minutes, they just want ‘BAM BAM BAM.’ That’s what they want. Our attention span is so terrible anyway.”

While audiences don’t want to wait around to listen to all of the news, the web isn’t about to replace television as a whole any time soon. However, more and more television shows are beginning to produce their own webisodes and create extra content to keep their computer-loving viewers interested.

Kuecherer pointed out shows like “Heroes,” which have uploaded webisodes between regular episodes to keep fans coming back for more.

“TV is realizing that the web is a good way to get fans more interested “" they’re coming out with extra webisodes and back stories to create more interest,” Kuecherer said.

Buckley believes that TV will simply transform just a little more to cater to our culture’s growing need for speedy entertainment.

“Webisodes will probably be regular TV programming at some point,” he said. “The TV timeslots now are so strange, a lot of shows are like an hour and seven minutes or shows on cable channels are like 22 minutes, so I think that TV is going more the way of the web, and on demand. So I think it will definitely be an option to see five minute segments of all types of programming down the line.”

Television producers and writers have obviously noticed the trend, which can only explain the start up of a new spin-off of E!’s “The Soup” “" “Web Soup.” There’s enough interest in viral videos and webisodes online that now TV wants a piece of it too.

Chris Hardwick, tech expert and co-host of G4′s “Attack of the Show,” is now the host of the channel’s “Web Soup,” which is currently the top-ranked comedy podcast right now on iTunes.

Hardwick credits the web video craze to our culture’s descent into geekdom. “We’re coming back to that original definition of geek. A geek used to be a carnival performer who bit the heads of chickens and snakes, and now we’re back to where geeks put videos of themselves online where they’re biting heads off chickens and snakes. Geek culture is pop culture now. I had to suffer from it in grade school.”

And now he hosts his own show. “Take that, guy who stuffed me in a trashcan!”

“Web Soup” takes a critical look at viral videos and other random web hilarity out there with the intermittent appearance of guest celebrities like “Weird Al” Yankovic and the fill-in comedy sketch every now and then. The show won’t completely focus on videos, however.

“Someone had put a mixer online that was a soundboard of David Lee Roth,” Hardwick said. “If you can find it via the Internet, it’s fair game.”

While Youtube is practically synonymous with online video these days, it’s certainly not the only player in town, if you’ll pardon the pun. Hulu’s number of unique viewers skyrocketed 42 percent in the month of February, riding on the heels of its popular Super Bowl commercials. Hulu is now the fourth largest video site, behind Google (Youtube), Fox (Myspace), and Yahoo!.

Hulu’s growth is certainly impressive considering that most of Hulu’s offerings are all from network television, which typically don’t go viral like many of Youtube’s offerings. However as more cash-strapped consumers ditch their cable subscriptions and look to stream their favorite shows online instead, Hulu’s growth could easily continue.

Overall, 75 percent of people who signed online in February viewed at least one video during the month. While Hulu served only 2.5 percent of those videos, a full quarter of video watchers saw at least one video at Hulu (which for those who are still following the math is almost a fifth of the Internet populace).

Google maintained its lead at the largest video provider, showing over 5 million videos to 100 million unique visitors, almost 41 percent of all videos shown.

And as a final note, if productivity is what we need to get us out of this economic rut, these statistics don’t bode very well for us. Over 13 million videos were viewed in February, averaging out to about five hours per user. So much for actually getting work done at the office.

Thanks to YouTube, anyone with a digital camera, Internet connection and a modicum of talent can become a filmmaker.

But back in the 1980s, making your own film required perseverance, creativity and a lot of hard work.

Many of today’s aspiring filmmakers would find it hard to beat the work of Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala and Jayson Lamb — three boys from Mississippi who set the precedent for the ultimate homemade movie.

Together, they created a shot by shot remake of the 1981 Indiana Jones film Raiders of the Lost Ark, complete with a rolling boulder, ballsy leading lady and the infamous Nazi face-melting scene.

The trio of 12-year-olds were so inspired by Steven Spielberg’s original film that they designed storyboards, props and costumes and began production on their own adaptation in 1982.

Seven years, $5,000 and three sets of presumably frazzled parents later, their film was complete.

Their version, aptly entitled Raiders of the Lost Ark: An Adaptation, is a heartfelt tribute to Spielberg’s original, made all the more impressive by the obvious amount of effort the lads invested in the project.

Using only household objects and simulated stubble, and conning friends and family into joining the cast and crew, Eric, Chris and Jayson brought the whip-cracking adventures of Indiana Jones to life, albeit with noticeable pubescent voice-breaking.

The adaptation received its first official screening in 2003 at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Texas, more than 22 years after the boys began the pre-production process.

Since then, the film has screened to sold out audiences all over the world and has even gained the approval of Spielberg and George Lucas.

Blast recently caught up with Eric and Chris (now in their 30s), who fessed up about truck stunts, deals with Paramount and meeting the master himself.

Evil Iguana Productions chose Blast Magazine to premiere the trailer for their upcoming “Silent Night,” a serious drama set in the Batman universe.

“We thought we would take a quick break from comedy for a little while and attempt a dark drama,” said EIP’s Craig Deering.

Cast:
Craig Deering as the Joker
Kyle Bridges as Gordon
Joe Korbel as Batman

Featuring Katie Diedrick and Tom Skobel

Directed by Craig Deering and Allen Murphy

Evil Iguana’s team is nervous about this movie, because it’s their first attempt at a “non comedy.”

“At first we where all very afraid at attempting a drama but after looking at some edited footage and seeing the trailer we are very excited now and hoping others will have the same reactions,” Deering said. “It took a little over a month to film, and now we are in the post production aspect.”

We offered our warmest “thank you” and a big hug to the Evil Iguana guys:

“No problem haha we are glad you guys can premiere it, hopefully you guys will enjoy it as well,” Deering said.

Every day millions of people upload videos to YouTube in the hopes of sharing something meaningful with the world, but few find the success that Leah Kauffman did. About one year ago, the 21-year-old Temple University student, released a spoof of a spoof titled "My Box in Box," with the help of Barely Political production. The video parodies the now famous Saturday Night Live sketch, "Dick in a Box," starring Justin Timberlake and Andy Samburg.

"I created a parody of a parody," Kauffman said, "because I thought it would be interesting to explore ‘Dick in a Box’ from a female perspective."

Her idea was wildly popular and "My Box in a Box" was quickly named one of the most viral videos on the internet. One of the most intriguing things about the video was the secret identity of its star, known only as Bunny. It was eventually revealed that Bunny was in fact two women. Kauffman provided the voice and 20-year-old University of Pennsylvania student, Melissa Lamb provided the body.

"Ben Relles, a co creator of ‘Bunny’ posted an ad on Craigslist for a model [and] Melissa answered the call," Kauffman said.

The video features Lamb dancing around wearing a gift-wrapped box in front of her "bunny" and lip-syncing to Kauffman’s singing. The lyrics have similarities to "Dick in a Box" lyrics, such as step-by-step instructions to make a box in a box and a list of holidays in which the special gift could be given. These varied from the original holidays used in Timberlake’s version, like Flag Day, and "mi caja en una caja" for Cinco de Mayo.

"My Box in a Box" has gotten wide media acclaim. Rolling Stone magazine called the video "clever" and Inside Music Media said "Leah Kaufman can sing!" Kauffman and Lamb were even featured as the "Most Viralest Video" on MSNBC with Keith Olbermann. "Bunny" has more than 1,500 friends on MySpace and there are more than 1,100 members of the "My Box in a Box" Facebook group. The video has even earned its own article on Wikipedia.

Since "My Box in a Box", Kauffman and Barely Political have released two more videos: "Crush on Obama" and "I like a Boy." Their success is evident with these videos; they have bigger casts and better production values. "I like a Boy" even features Mims, the rapper best known for his hit "This is Why I’m Hot."

Kauffman has also had great personal success in the music industry. "My Box in a Box" was released on itunes and she has signed a record deal with Rock Ridge Music. To top it all she recorded an album, Modern Monster, which is available for listening on MySpace. Certainly more YouTube users will try to get their 15 minutes, like the two female students, but they will have to be as creative and talented as this pair has been.

"We’ve gotten a lot of attention through our music videos," she said, "and it’s exciting to be on the forefront of new media."