RIM Bring's Will.i.am's Social Network Dipdive To BlackBerry Users

Pop artist Will.i.am, the brains behind the Black Eyed Peas, is proving to be quite the mobile content maven. Will.i.am has struck a deal with RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) to make his content and online community Dipdive available on the BlackBerry. It's yet another move by RIM toward broadening its appeal beyond government and corporate employees, who currently make up two thirds of the BlackBerry maker's subscribers. RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie told Reuters that the "two hottest trends in wireless are social networking???and multimedia, which is principally portable music," and that the two were increasingly merging into one. He called Will.i.am's community an example of where "politics-heavy blogging meets video content." Will.i.am was also behind Barack Obama's "Yes We Can" video, a huge hit on YouTube. The deal, Balsillie added, brought "the artist in direct relationship with the fan."

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