Death Cab for Cutie to Headline Free Concert for Winning College, Sponsored by PhoneTag; Guitar Hero To Provide Scholarships for Winning Students

Contest Kicked Off on MTV’s TRL with Hayden Panettiere

NEW YORK - September 9, 2008 - MySpace, the world's premier social network, and five of the leading voter registration and civic groups in the US today announced a partnership to launch the Ultimate College Bowl, a contest that will award scholarships and a free concert with Death Cab for Cutie to the students and school that register the most students to vote.  This nationwide effort constitutes the largest voter registration drive ever devised using viral online technology and grassroots organizing coupled with incentives, all in an attempt to get schools and students competing to register the most voters. The contest will be run via an application and widget available to all college students at www.myspace.com/ultimatecollegebowl.

This is the first time America's four largest non-partisan voter registration groups – Declare Yourself, HeadCount, Student PIRGs, and Rock the Vote – as well as Why Tuesday?, a leading voter education organization, have joined forces to register voters. Incentives include scholarships to students who get the most friends to register to vote, provided by Guitar Hero; a chance for students from every state to become a "delegate" at the Constitutional Convention 2.0 at the National Constitution Center in January 2009, in Philadelphia; and concerts for the school whose students register the most by number and by percentage of student body, funded by PhoneTag.com. Seattle-based Death Cab for Cutie, fresh off their No. 1 album “Narrow Stairs,” has agreed to perform at the campus with the highest registration totals.

The contest utilizes the latest online viral technology to allow students to register to vote and receive credit for all of their peers whom they register. An application, built on MySpace’s developer platform, is available for MySpace users and an embeddable widget is available for placement on other sites, including MTV’s chooseorlose.com. Declare Yourself, HeadCount and Rock the Vote, the three leading youth voter-oriented registration organizations, are making the application available on their respective websites. The technology and contest rules also allow for groups staging on-the-ground voter registration, including the Student PIRG’s, to participate. Every college student and every college campus in the U.S. has the ability to compete. 

“MySpace has always been an open platform for self expression and civic engagement,” said Lee Brenner, Director of MySpace IMPACT. “As such, we’re thrilled to host the UCB and bring together an historic alliance of civic organizations who are using music and accessible viral technology to motivate college students to participate and encourage their peers to do the same.”

“College students are so important to our country yet remain one of the most underrepresented constituencies in America. The Ultimate College Bowl is an effort to make American democracy more accessible and sustainable,” says William B. Wachtel, Founder and Chairman of Why Tuesday?, which conceived the Ultimate College Bowl and is coordinating the partners’ efforts. “College students have a right to be heard now more than ever, and by using viral internet technology we are making their civic participation more convenient. The UCB and Constitutional Convention 2.0 will ensure that the voice of college students will forever have the seat at the table they richly deserve.”

Red Octane, a division of Activision Inc. will use the 14 campus stops on its Guitar Hero promotional tour to highlight the UCB campaign, and provide Guitar Hero software and hardware as contest incentives. MTV’s Emmy award-winning “Choose or Lose” campaign, which aims to engage, inform and empower young voters on the political issues that matter to them most, is also on board to help spread the word about this contest to young people across the country.   Heroes TV-star Hayden Panettiere launched the contest on MTV’s Total Request Live program. Additionally, MTV will promote the contest on multiple MTV platforms, including on its 24-hour college network, mtvU, which currently broadcasts to over 750 college campuses.   

Voter registration and civic participation is a key component of the MySpace IMPACT Channel at http://impact.myspace.com, which empowers MySpace users to make a difference in the world and allows politicians, non-profits, and civic organizations to connect with MySpace’s global audience. The IMPACT Channel houses the official MySpace profiles for the 2008 Presidential candidates, as well as tools to enable voter registration, fundraising, and volunteering.

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About MySpace
MySpace, a unit of Fox Interactive Media Inc., is the premier lifestyle portal for connecting with friends, discovering popular culture, and making a positive impact on the world. MySpace has created a connected global community by integrating web profiles, blogs, instant messaging, e-mail, music streaming, music videos, photo galleries, classified listings, events, groups, college communities, and member forums. MySpace's international network includes more than 20 localized community sites in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Latin America, Mexico, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, India, Japan, and New Zealand. Fox Interactive Media is a division of News Corp. (NYSE:NWS - News, NWS.A - News; ASX:NWS - News, NWSLV - News).(*) Among the top 2000 domains comScore Media Metrix, July 2008. For more information on comScore Networks, please go to http://www.comscore.com

About Death Cab for Cutie
Grammy nominated recording group Death Cab for Cutie's acclaimed new album NARROW STAIRS debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200. The album, the follow up to the platinum selling PLANS is shaping up to be the band's most critical album to date with four starred reviews in both Rolling Stone and Blender while MTV.com hailed, "Unquestionably the best thing they've ever done...an early contender for best album of 2008." Death Cab for Cutie spent most of the Summer on the road with headlining tours of the US, UK, Europe, Japan and Australia. The band returned to their hometown of Seattle, Washington on September 1st for the first time in two years where they closed out the mainstage  at the annual Bumbershoot Festival. This is followed by a string of headlining dates beginning October 3rd including one night at New York City's Radio City Music Hall on October 6th. The band will then join forces with the legendary Neil Young on his Fall tour beginning October 14th in St. Paul, Minnesota. Death Cab for Cutie is: Ben Gibbard: guitars, keyboards, vocals *Chris Walla: guitars, keyboards *Nick Harmer:bass * Jason McGerr: drums

About Why Tuesday?
Why Tuesday? is a non-profit, non-partisan organization founded in 2005 to raise awareness about the state of America’s voting system and to find solutions to increase voter turnout and participation in elections. Using Web 2.0 technology, Why Tuesday? provides a platform for national dialogue about the current voting system, problems with our current voting system, and solutions that can directly improve the voting process, increase registration and drive turnout. Members include Andy Young, Jack Kemp, Bill Bradley, Ken Mehlman, Norm Ornstein, and Sara Taylor. The Why Tuesday? documentary video blog has been seen over 1 million time across multiple online and traditional media platforms, including national news outlets. Why Tuesday? is the recipient of the Film Your Issue Award as well the only non-mainstream news outlet nominated for the 2008 Webby Award for Best Political Blog. To learn more please go to www.whytuesday.org.

About Declare Yourself
Declare Yourself is a national nonpartisan, nonprofit campaign that energizes and empowers every eligible 18- to 29-year-old in America to register and vote in the 2008 presidential election. Partnering with leaders in education, the entertainment industry, popular online destinations and media outlets, the fashion industry and retailers, Declare Yourself registered more than 1.2 million people in the 2004 and 2006 elections at http://declareyourself.com. The nonprofit, founded by TV producer and philanthropist Norman Lear, was launched in 2003 as the culmination of the Declaration of Independence Road Trip, a nationwide multi-media exhibit and tour of an original copy of the Declaration of Independence.

About HeadCount
HeadCount is a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to registering voters and inspiring participation in democracy through the power of music.  In 2008 we are staging the largest event-based voter registration campaign in the U.S., registering voters at nearly 1,000 concerts and public gatherings.  Artists affiliated with HeadCount include Death Cab for Cutie, Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, Jack Johnson, John Mayer, My Morning Jacket, the Allman Brothers Band and members of the Grateful Dead.

About The National Constitution Center
The National Constitution Center is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing public understanding of the U.S. Constitution and the ideas and values it represents.  The Center serves as a museum, an education center, and a forum for debate on constitutional issues.  The museum dramatically tells the story of the Constitution from Revolutionary times to the present through more than 100 interactive, multimedia exhibits, film, photographs, text, sculpture and artifacts, and features a powerful, award-winning theatrical performance, “Freedom Rising”.  The Center also houses the Annenberg Center for Education and Outreach, which serves as the hub for national constitutional education.  Also, as a nonpartisan forum for constitutional discourse, the Center presents – without endorsement – programs that contain diverse viewpoints on a broad range of issues.  For more: http://constitutioncenter.org.

Student PIRGs
The Student PIRGs are independent state-based student organizations that work to solve public interest problems related to the environment, consumer protection, and government reform.  For thirty years the Student PIRGs have been conducting grass roots efforts on campuses across the country trying to engage students in the civic process.

About Rock the Vote
Rock the Vote's mission is to engage and build the political power of young people in order to achieve progressive change in our country. Rock the Vote uses music, popular culture and new technologies to engage and incite young people to register and vote in every election. And we give young people the tools to identify, learn about, and take action on the issues that affect their lives, and leverage their power in the political process. Rock the Vote is creative, effective, and controlled by nobody's agenda but our own — we tell it like it is and pride ourselves on being a trusted source for information on politics. We empower the 45 million young people in America who want to step up, claim their voice in the political process, and change the way politics is done. www.RockTheVote.com

About Choose or Lose and MTV
“Choose or Lose ’08” (http://www.ChooseorLose.com) is MTV’s Emmy-Award winning campaign to engage, inform and empower young voters on the political issues that matter to them most.  First launched in 1992, the campaign has helped fuel several of the largest youth voter turnouts in US history, including in 2004, when it helped inspire nearly 22 million 18-30 year olds to register and vote.  Other elements of “Choose or Lose ‘08” include the pioneering MTV / MySpace Presidential Dialogue Series, which has featured Senators McCain, Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Governor Huckabee and Representative Paul taking unfiltered questions – in person and online, in real time – from youth nationwide; “Choose or Lose Presents Clinton & Obama Answer Young Veterans”; and MTV “Street Team ’08,” 51 specially-recruited citizen journalists, one in each state and Washington, D.C., covering the 2008 elections from a youth perspective.  “Street Team” members file weekly multi-media reports, tailor their coverage for mobile devices and focus on the political issues that most impact young people in their respective states.  On July 4th Choose or Lose presented exclusive 60-second video messages on MTV2 from presumptive Presidential candidates, republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator Barack Obama.  These messages paid tribute to the young men and women who have served in the nation’s armed forces.  All “Choose or Lose” content – plus more information on the candidates, issues, registering to vote and a spirited debate – can be found on http://www.ChooseorLose.com.

Contact:

MySpace
Nicole Bilodeau / nbilodeau@myspace.com / 310-435-0643

Why Tuesday?
Barnett A. Zitron, Managing Director / barnett@whytuesday.org / 917-374-3017

MTV “Choose or Lose” / Janice Gatti / Janice.gatti@mtvstaff.com / 201-424-0482
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