ro had the opportunity to speak with Naughty by Nature’s Vinnie, to discuss the group’s partnership with Bill Gates’ brainchild, Microsoft, to promote HTC’s Touch Pro2 and Naughty by Nature’s upcoming album, Anthem Inc. –john burnett
Tell us about the group’s promotion with Microsoft. How did that come about?
Through divine intervention, I was on a flight to Detroit with a guy who had a Windows mobile phone and I said, I see you have an AT&T Tilt, and he told me that he worked for Microsoft. I showed him all of my Microsoft products and the theme we were developing. Then he said, ‘We would definitely like to work with you. And, I can put you in touch with marketing.’ He told me to e-mail him some screenshots of our theme … and I did. By the time I returned from Detroit, I had an e-mail from Microsoft.
How does the promotion on Facebook work?
All you have to do is sign up on Facebook: https://facebook.com/windowsmobile. It started June 15 and ends July 15 and the winner will get HTC’s Touch Pro2 phone. It’s the newest, sexiest Windows mobile device coming out this summer. They’ll get that pre-loaded with our theme and new single [‘Get to Know Me’]. Then Microsoft will fly the winner and a guest to our show at the Nokia Theatre on August 15.
Right now the iPhone is the phone to have. Make a case for the Touch Pro2 over the iPhone.
[Laughs.] The iPhone has far less features than the Touch Pro2. For one, they’re just getting copy and paste. [With touch Pro2, you can tether] … you can take a Touch Pro2, sync it up to your laptop and use your data connection as a modem to surf the Internet. [Whereas] iPhone just released their 3.0 update claiming you can tether. Once people upgraded, they said tethering is coming at the end of the summer. [On the iPhone] you can’t even take a picture and send it as a text message. Windows mobile devices have always been able to do that! Not to mention, we can also send video messages through text.
