NEWS: Timbaland Creating Mobile Album For Verizon

Timbaland has announced a deal with Verizon Wireless to make the first "mobile album," which will be exclusively available to subscribers of V Cast, Verizon's mobile entertainment service.

As Verizon's mobile producer in residence, Timbaland will produce one song per month throughout 2008. Each month, he will work with a different artist on a track while touring the country on the Verizon Mobile Recording Studio Bus, which will also capture making-of footage for V Cast subscribers on a dedicated Timbaland channel.

Timbaland says the deal will let him reach more fans because "every place don't get a CD [but] everybody has a mobile phone." Plus, there's history to be made. "Just producing a mobile album has never been done. I'm the first to ever do it," he tells Billboard.

And while major artists have of late left major labels in bids to reach fans in new ways, Timbaland isn't leaving Interscope, which put out "Shock Value" and distributes his Mosley Music imprint. (However, he says he is out of contract with the label to put out his solo albums.) Interscope is involved in the Verizon deal from the standpoint that Timbaland plans to work with the label's artists for the mobile-only tracks. Whether a mobile album deal could replace a major-label deal in the future, "that's something we'll have to see," Timbaland says.

Each mobile Timbaland track will be released days after it is produced. Songs will be released as a full-length download, ringtone and ringback, and will be available only through V Cast and Verizon. At the end of the year, some sort of compilation "album" will be released exclusively through Verizon, according to Ruth. Whether the music is worked to radio during the exclusive period or made available via broader distribution afterward is up to Interscope.