Coca-Cola Co.'s Sprite soft drink brand is targeting college students who are hip-hop fans by becoming the first sponsor of the new UrbanWorld application for the iPhone and iPod touch.

UrbanWorld Wireless, a provider of urban entertainment content, has combined urban entertainment and lifestyle into the free, ad-supported UrbanWorld application, which features the up-to-the minute news of the hip-hop world, the Cali Fly Girls Women of Color wallpapers and exclusive new music and videos. Sprite, a lemon-lime drink, is running banner ads within it to promote its Step Off dance tournament giving fraternities and sororities the chance to appear on television and win $1.5 million.

?Sprite is the first sponsor of the UrbanWorld app, and they?re doing mobile marketing to promote Sprite Step Off, their new music initiative,? said Mike Johns, CEO of UrbanWorld Wireless, Los Angeles. ?This campaign appeals to the college market, and the best of the best across the country compete.

?UrbanWorld?s role is promoting this event via mobile advertising with our new iPhone app,? he said.

UrbanWorld Wireless is a content provider, aggregator and digital entertainment network with global distribution geared toward the urban lifestyle market. Its core demographic is urban tastemakers and trendsetters ages 17-35 who are fans of hip-hop.

UrbanWorld Wireless offers a mobile content catalog that includes full-length digital music downloads via its digital music label UDub!Music, the latest technology news with an urban twist via its Hi' Tech Pimpin' Web site and UDub!News, which offers up-to-the-minute urban and hip-hop news delivered via WAP, SMS, MMS, RSS and email.

All of these services are currently delivered to a worldwide subscriber base of nearly 4.6 million.

Spright steps
Users of the Urban World iPhone application can click on the banner ad to go to Sprite?s landing page to get original content.

Through each of the rounds of the Sprite Step Off tournament, fraternity and sorority stepping teams will compete for their share of the $1.5 million prize pool. Winners of tournament events will win scholarship prizes of varying levels.

The Sprite Step Off will culminate in a nationwide broadcast of the National Final in Atlanta.

Features in the UrbanWorld application include UDub!News, UDub!Video, UDub!Music and the Cali Fly Girlz image gallery.

Comedian Katt Williams taped an exclusive ad to endorse the UrbanWorld application, which is being spread virally via TouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

In the first week alone, and with little promotion, nearly 30,000 iPhone users downloaded the application.

?Creating this app was done out of a need, because there are so many different apps out there now, and the hip-hop community has played a big role in the mobile community, and there was nothing in place for them,? Mr. Johns said. ?We created an app for the hip-hop community that gives them the hip-hop news they want to hear without having to log onto the Web.

?The way music industry is going, we decided to make that a business, letting fans get leaked tracks on the iPhone in advance before they come out from top artists like Chris Brown and Snoop Dogg,? he said. ?We?re like BET or MTV in your hand, with full tracks and videos.?

Tip top for hip-hop
In phase two, UrbanWorld will feature Party Alertz, consumers? mobile VIP connection to parties in major cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, Miami and New York.

One of UrbanWorld?s partners for this next effort is Interscope Records.

?It could be a discount off admission or a free event, for example, whenever Interscope Records throws a new album release party,? Mr. Johns said.

Additional mobile offerings will include Hip Hop 101, a standalone Cali Fly Girlz application and King of the Dancehall, hosted by reggae superstar Beenie Man.

UrbanWorld will soon be available in the Android and BlackBerry storefronts.

UrbanWorld will also be available for Palm Pre, Microsoft?s Windows Mobile phones and in Nokia?s Ovi Store.

?We?re committed to having the UrbanWorld brand on all platforms,? Mr. Johns said. ?We want to take what print magazines and cable TV did and say, ?We?re the new frontier in mobile.??