OverRoll.com

With last week’s release of Rock Band from Harmonix (the original developer of Guitar Hero), two unlikely competitors hit the ring. Guitar Hero III, published by Activision, takes on Rock Band, published by MTV Games (distributed by Electronic Arts). While both games let users live out their rock and roll fantasies (and also continue to grow the casual gaming market), it is likely that Guitar Hero III will lead in the immediate head-to-head sales numbers. Keep in mind, the same folks who created Guitar Hero now develop for the competitor and the competitor (MTV) has its own multi-channel network to organically market its Rock Band product. This is an interesting battle between a ‘traditional’ video game maker and an entertainment brand who specializes in music and culture. All said, this line blurring of entertainment, music and games continues to get more blurry. We expect Rock Band to catch on as the property works out some issues. In the end, better Wifi capabilities will allow you to conduct band practice (even if your guitarist is living in Shanghai). As for the battle of the bands, MTV vs. Activision, well, get your ear plugs out because things are just heating up.

Photo: via The New York Times

It seems as if Google Talk will finally be integrated with AOL’s AIM client.

This upgrade to Google Talk and AIM couldn’t have happened any later!

It has been two years since Google bought 5% of AOL and announced, amongst other things, that the integration of the two clients would occur as long as certain conditions were met.

As to how the integration will work or what all the conditions may be, that is still largely unknown, but it is safe to bet it has something to do with Google serving ads through AIM.

Given that Google has been strategically partnering with and acquiring many companies that it now uses to serve ads through. It seems like the most logical step for Google is to now desire to serve ads through AIM, the most popular instant messaging on the web.

If my predictions become a reality, Google will take on step forward to becoming the one stop shop for anyone looking to buy ads in RSS feeds, search engines, in many popular web destinations, and a many other, now unforeseen, locations- basically almost the whole internet.