The 39th Annual American Music Awards are currently underway at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles and breakout singer of the year Adele is missing.

The British singer who is nominated for four awards (Best Female Artist, Best Adult Contemporary Artist, Artist of the Year, and Favorite Album) is recuperating at home after undergoing surgery in Boston last week to remove a benign polyp in her throat.

While a full recovery is expected for the U.S. and UK’s best selling artist of the year (4 million albums worldwide for her sophomore album 21) she has already been forced to cancel her US tour and all other appearances until the end of the year and is not traveling as she recovers.

Other top nominees in attendance include Kat Perry, Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Taylor Swift along with The Band Perry and Lil Wayne, all of whom are nominated for three awards each.

In the meantime Adele wrote on her blog this past Tuesday:

“Thank you for all your positive thoughts and get well wishes. I’m doing really well, on the mend, super happy, relaxed and very positive with it all,” the “Someone Like You” singer wrote.

Not having Adele at a music awards show in 2011 just seems wrong but we’re happy she’s getting the treatment her throat needed so she can continue to write the type of songs that propelled her to fame, perhaps she’ll be taking some of her time off to compose her next smash hit album.

Are you a fan of Adele?

[Image via Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com]

Adele Missing AMA’s To Recuperate From Throat Surgery is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) today announced the finalists for its annual awards shindig, the 2011 Mobile Marketing Awards.

The finalists encompass some of the world’s biggest brands, including Coca-Cola, Giorgio Armani, Pepsi Max, Pringles, and Converse. All will be fighting out across categories such as ‘Branding,’ ‘Innovation,’ ‘Best Product Launch’ and more.

The winners will be announced at the MMA Awards Gala in Los Angeles on November 17th. MMA bossman Greg Stuart had this to say:

“The over 25% increase in submissions from all over the world is indicative of how mobile marketing is being embraced by major brand marketers everywhere as integral to their marketing mix. Chosen from an extraordinarily competitive field of entrants, our finalists showcase the immense potential of the mobile medium.”

Yeah, thanks, Greg. Here’re the finalists in full:

BRANDING

Coca-Cola and UM and McCann Worldgroup Ltd. for “Coca-Cola Summer Campaign” Hong Kong / APAC
Converse and R/GA for “Converse The Sampler” USA/NA
OMO washing powder and BRANDTONE for “OMO ‘DOOR TO DOOR CHALLENGE’ – BRANDTONE mobile engagement” South Africa/EMEA
Louis Vuitton and Ogilvy France for “Louis Vuitton” France/EMEA

CROSS MEDIA INTEGRATION

Pringles and Crispin Porter + Bogusky for “Pringles Crunch Brand App”
Old Navy and Crispin Porter + Bogusky for “Old Navy Records”
Coca-Cola and Scholz & Volkmer GmbH for Coca-Cola “Snowglobes” iPhone Application Germany/EMEA
National Geographic Society and One to One Interactive for “National Geographic Kids Almanac 2012 QR Code Campaign” USA/NA

DIRECT RESPONSE

Pepsi MAX for “Cut to Max – Clubhouse in the Corn” USA/NA
Situation Sthlm and Mobiento for “Sms is King!” Sweden/EMEA
Unilever and BRANDTONE for “SUNLIGHT LAUNDRY BAR – BRANDTONE Mobile engagement campaign” South Africa/EMEA
Garanti and Rabarba for “Garanti-The Last Person on Earth Who Doesn’t Use Online Banking” Turkey/EMEA

PRODUCT/SERVICES LAUNCH

MINI / MINI and MOBILE DREAMS FACTORY for “MINI COUNTRYMAN” Spain/EMEA
Lawry’s and R/GA for “Lawry’s Digital Dinner Bell” USA/NA
HBO and PHD for “HBO GO” USA/NA
Peugeot and NAVTEQ Media Solutions for “Peugeot RCZ launch” UK/EMEA

PROMOTION

Coca-Cola and UM and McCann Worldgroup Ltd. for “Coca-Cola Summer Campaign” Hong Kong / APAC
United Airlines and Barrie D’Rozario Murphy for “Promotion for Travel Options” USA/NA
Pepsi Co. and Rabarba for “Pepsi- Content In a Bottle” Turkey/EMEA
Mobiento for “What the … fast” Sweden/EMEA
Mars Canada and Proximity Canada and for “M&M’s Find Red” Canada/NA

RELATIONSHIP BUILDING

Syniverse for “Text4baby Campaign —National Healthy Mothers; Healthy Babies Coalition” USA/NA
Dressbarn and MSLGROUP Americas for “dressbarn Mobile Fashion Club” USA/NA
Nike+ and R/GA for “Nike+ GPS App” USA/NA
Hennessy V.S.O.P. and Cherrypicks for “World’s first location-enabled Augmented Reality Vision; iPhone and Android App”

INNOVATION

Converse and R/GA for “Converse The Sampler” USA/NA
ESPN and Wieden + Kennedy for “WatchESPN” USA/NA
Coca-Cola and UM and McCann Worldgroup Ltd. for “Coca-Cola Summer Campaign” Hong Kong / APAC
Old Navy and Crispin Porter + Bogusky for “Old Navy Records”

SOCIAL IMPACT

Giorgio Armani and R/GA for ” Aqua di Gio Armani Drops for Life App”
Waterfall Mobile for “Waiting for ‘Superman’ Social Action Campaign”
YoungAfricaLive & Praekelt Group for “YoungAfricaLive”
Busday and TELiBrahma for “Busday gets buzzier”

MOBILE MARKETING ACADEMIC OF THE YEAR

Jeff Rohrs and Morgan Stewart for “SUBSCRIBERS, FANS & FOLLOWERS”
William F. Humphrey, Jr., MBA ; Debra A Laverie, Ph.D. for “Brand Community and Location Service Social & Mobile Research”
Ramin Vatanparast

MMA Announces Global Mobile Marketing Award Finalists is a post from: The Inquisitr

Billboard Magazine has named Taylor Swift as their 2011 ‘Woman of the Year.’

Swift, a four-time Grammy winner will receive her special award at the Billboard Women in Music event to be held in New York City on Dec. 2.

The 21-year-old singer/songwriter is the youngest person to receive the honor which has went to the likes of Reba McEntire, Beyonce, and Fergie.

The honor comes as Taylor celebrates the last 12 months atop the best selling album charts with her Speak Now record selling 3.6 million copies since Fall 2010.

According to Billboard Editorial Director Bill Werde:

“Taylor has shown the power of good songwriting with music that has transcended genres, and we’re thrilled to recognize all of her successes over the past year by honoring her with the Billboard Woman of the Year Award. At the young age of 21, Taylor has already made a major impact on music and has been an incredible role model for aspiring singers/songwriters and young women everywhere. I look forward to watching her career continue to flourish in the years to come.”

Taylor Swift is no stranger to being the youngest person to win major awards, in 2010 she became the youngest person to win the Grammy for Best Album when Fearless nabbed her the top prize. Swift has also won ACM, CMA, and AMA Awards.

Does is surprise you that Taylor Swift managed to pick up the Billboard “Woman of the Year” award for her efforts or was the award a well deserved nomination given her recent successes.

Taylor Swift Named ‘Billboard Woman Of The Year 2011′ is a post from: The Inquisitr

Tell your mom that I said congratulations on her new award!

[via sofapizza]

Good Oral Skills is a post from: The Inquisitr

Awards are for the most part just a way to boost already inflated egos and generally a pointless to show just how important you are – especially when it comes to the new so-called social media awards. sure I can see the momentary glory as you brag about winning some award for best blog or coolest podcast but having an award show for Tweets – c’mon, give it a rest.

For those of you who didn’t know there is an annual awards gather called the Shorty Awards and it’s whole purpose is to hand out awards to Twitter users for their entire body of work and *gag* brilliant tweets over the past year *gag*.

Really?

Man talk about ridiculous. We are talking about nothing more than 140 characters of what amounts to either generalized dribble or mindless self-promotion. There is nothing happening on Twitter that even comes close to being immortalized by handing out a plexi-glass award at some sponsored event.

This kind of thing amounts to nothing more than self-aggrandizement by a bunch of people who are floating by on made up terms like social media consultant, social media guru, or social media thought leader.

But like with all pompous back-slapping you can be sure to find a flurry of posts in March sometime announcing who this year’s winners are.

*YAWN*

image via The Next Web

Twitter Awards? Seriously? is a post from: The Inquisitr

Its budget might be only a fraction of its bigger rivals, but indie game Limbo has received more nominations than any other title in the 11th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards.

The small but beautiful puzzle-platformer received seven nominations, ahead of Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption (six nominations) and epic sci-fi action-RPG Mass Effect 2 (five).

While the latter two are full-price games, Playdead Studio’s Limbo can be bought for around ten bucks on the Xbox 360′s Xbox Live Arcade service. And buy it you should, because it is flippin’ ace, a dark, mysterious, beautiful little puzzler that’s also creepy as hell (those spiders).

The full list of nominees is below, and the gongs will be handed out on March 2nd in a glittering ceremony of nerd worship in San Francisco.

Best Game Design

* Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo)
* Mass Effect 2 (BioWare)
* Limbo (Playdead)
* Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar San Diego)
* God of War III (SCE Santa Monica)

Innovation

* Heavy Rain (Quantic Dream)
* Kirby’s Epic Yarn (Good-Feel & HAL Laboratory)
* Minecraft (Mojang)
* Limbo (Playdead)
* Dance Central (Harmonix)

Best Technology

* Starcraft II (Blizzard)
* Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar San Diego)
* Heavy Rain (Quantic Dream)
* Mass Effect 2 (BioWare)
* God of War III (SCE Santa Monica)

Best Handheld Game

* God of War: Ghost of Sparta (Ready At Dawn/SCE Santa Monica)
* Cut the Rope (ZeptoLab)
* Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (Kojima Productions)
* Game Dev Story (Kairosoft)
* Dragon Quest IX (Level 5)

Best Audio

* Limbo (Playdead)
* Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar San Diego)
* Halo: Reach (Bungie)
* Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (DICE)
* Mass Effect 2 (BioWare)

Best Downloadable Game

* Costume Quest (Double Fine)
* Limbo (Playdead)
* Super Meat Boy (Team Meat)
* Minecraft (Mojang)
* Monday Night Combat (Uber Entertainment)

Best Writing

* Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar San Diego)
* Heavy Rain (Quantic Dream)
* Mass Effect 2 (BioWare)
* Costume Quest (Double Fine)
* Fallout: New Vegas (Obsidian)

Best Debut Game

* Limbo (Playdead)
* Darksiders (Vigil Games)
* Minecraft (Mojang)
* Monday Night Combat (Uber Entertainment)
* Super Meat Boy (Team Meat)

Best Visual Arts

* God of War III (SCE Santa Monica)
* Limbo (Playdead)
* Call of Duty: Black Ops (Treyarch)
* Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (Ubisoft Montreal)
* Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar San Diego)

Game of the Year

* Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar San Diego)
* Mass Effect 2 (BioWare)
* Call of Duty: Black Ops (Treyarch)
* Limbo (Playdead)
* Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (Ubisoft Montreal)

[Via press release]

Limbo leads big-money rivals at 2011 Game Developer Awards is a post from: The Inquisitr

Personally I can’t figure out why a cable network is doing an awards show for video games but I guess that those of us not living in basements of spending fortunes on man-caves aren’t meant to understand. However the yearly Spike Video Game Awards appear to be a pretty big deal and their list of nominees has hit the web.

So here you go folks – this years nominees courtesy of 1UP.com

Studio of the Year

• BioWare
• Blizzard Entertainment
• Bungie Studios
• Rockstar San Diego

Best Xbox 360 Game

• Alan Wake
• Fable 3
• Halo Reach
• Mass Effect 2

Best PS3 Game

• God of War 3
• Heavy Rain
• ModNation Racers
• Red Dead Redemption

Best Wii Game

• Donkey Kong Country Returns
• Kirby’s Epic Yarn
• Metroid: Other M
• Super Mario Galaxy 2

Best PC Game

• Fallout: New Vegas
• Mass Effect 2
• Civilization V
• StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty

Best Handheld Game

• God of War: Ghost of Sparta
• Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
• Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
• Super Scribblenauts

Best Shooter

• Battlefield: Bad Company 2
• BioShock 2
• Call of Duty: Black Ops
• Halo Reach

Best Action/Adventure Game

• Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
• God of War 3
• Red Dead Redemption
• Super Mario Galaxy 2

Best RPG

• Fable 3
• Fallout: New Vegas
• Final Fantasy XIII
• Mass Effect 2

Best Multiplayer

• Battlefield: Bad Company 2
• Call of Duty: Black Ops
• Halo Reach
• StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty

Best Individual Sports Game

• EA Sports MMA
• Shaun White Skateboarding
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11
• UFC Undisputed 2010

Best Team Sports Game

• FIFA Soccer 11
• Madden NFL 11
• NBA 2K11
• MLB10: The Show

Best Driving Game

• Blur
• ModNation Racers
• Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
• Split/Second

Best Music Game

• Dance Central
• DJ Hero 2
• Def Jam Rapstar
• Rock Band 3

Best Soundtrack

• Def Jam Rapstar
• Dj Hero 2
• Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
• Rock Band 3

Best Song in a Game

• Basket Case (Green Day Rock Band)
• Far Away (Red Dead Redemption)
• Goldeneye (Goldeneye 007)
• Won’t Back Down (Black Ops)
• Replay / Rude Boy Mashup (DJ Hero 2)

Best Original Score

• God of War 3
• Halo Reac
• Mass Effect 2
• Red Dead Redemption

Best Graphics

• God of War 3
• Heavy Rain
• Kirby’s Epic Yarn
• Red Dead Redemption

Best Adapted Video Game

• Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4
• Scott Pilgrim vs The World
• Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2
• Transformers: War for Cybertron

Best Performance by a Human Male

• Daniel Craig as James Bond
• Gary Oldman as Sgt Reznov
• John Cleese as Jasper
• Martin Sheen as The Illusive Man
• Nathan Fillion as Sgt Edward Buck
• Neil Patrick Harris as Spider-Man
• Rob Wiethoff as John Marston
• Sam Worthington as Alex Mason

Best Performance by a Human Female

• Dame Judi Dench as M
• Danica Patrick as Herself
• Emmanuelle Chriqui as The Numbers Lady
• Felicia Day as Veronica
• Jennifer Hale as Commander Sheppard
• Kristen Bell as Lucy Stillman
• Tricia Helfer as Sarah Kerrigan
• Yvonne Strahovski as Miranda Lawson

Best Downloadable Game

• Costume Quest
• Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
• Monday Night Combat
• Scott Pilgrim vs The World

Best DLC

• BioShock 2: Minerva’s Den
• Borderlands: The Secret Armory of General Knoxx
• Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker
• Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare

Best Independent Game

• Joe Danger
• Limbo
• Super Meat Boy
• The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom

Most Anticipated Game

• Batman: Arkham City
• BioShock Infinite
• Gears of War 3
• Portal 2

Spike’s Video Games Awards list of nominees is out is a post from: The Inquisitr

Just as the movie business, television and theater business have their yearly awards to pick the best of the best so does the outdoor advertising business with its yearly Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

The 10 ads in this post are only a small segment of the larger collection that you can find at Fresh Pics but these are my pics as the best of them all.

10 of the best ads in the world is a post from: The Inquisitr

Now I remember as a young man have the occasional aquarium but for the most part they ended up more as algae farmlands so it is no surprise that I didn’t know that there is a yearly contest to select the best aquarium ecosphere in the world. Yup sine 2001 the International Aquatic Plant Layout Contest (IAPLC) has been awarding people for the best and most creative planted aquarium designs.

These ten are my favorites from the winners, and honorable mentions, of this year’s contest. You can see them all over at Best Bookmarks.

10 Absolutely incredible aquarium ecospheres is a post from: The Inquisitr

The number of votes he got was more than all the votes for U2, Britney Spears and The Beatles combined. All this based on his 1987 hit Never Gonna Give You Up that became the basis of an internet trend called Rickrolling in which people are tricked into watching his videos. His hit song has now been watched more than 20 million times on YouTube.

As Richard Godfrey; a senior VP at MTV and executive director of the awards said in an interview

“We’ve been well and truly Rickrolled,” Richard Godfrey, a senior vice-president at MTV and executive producer of the awards said. “We wanted to see who our audience would nominate and, given that we’re in Liverpool, we thought it would be someone like the Beatles. But before the nominations were even announced he shot into the lead.”

Rickrolled – the Literal version (via Nothing to do qith Arbroath)

European MTV Music Awards rickrolled is a post from: The Inquisitr

Are you as terrified as I am for Britney Spears tonight at the VMAs? The clock is ticking down, and I’m not sure if I want to see something fabulously sensational or watch Brit prove that she’s cleaned up her act for real. There’s also the possibility that she’ll whip out a performance after all, since MTV has kept us guessing.

9 pm ET SHARP, September 7th. If there are going to be any f-ups, it’s live! That always makes for a good time.

Will Britney Have a Second Disastrous Year at the VMAs? is a post from: The Inquisitr

Wild child Lindsay Lohan has gotten enough attention to last a lifetime, but it’s much too stereotypical to blame the parents, right? Probably– but at the same time, praising them probably serves as total overcompensation.

Mingling Moms, a Long Island social group, has popped out of the woodwork to honor Dina Lohan for not doing much– just for raising Lindsay and getting her into the spotlight. She’s not the only one, thank goodness, with other honors going to moms who have raised celebrity-grade brood, from Natalie Portman’s mother Shelley Stevens Hershlag to Patricia Vian, Mariah Carey’s mother.

Could we sense just a little awkward tension in the Mingling Mom’s rep’s most recent statements? “We’re just honoring celebrities’ moms on Long Island. It’s something for Mother’s Day.” *Just*? Way to downplay your own celebrity awards banquet. Could someone be getting a tad defensive?

I have a feeling that someone’s going to be plugging “Living Lohan” at a certain banquet in Long Island today.

Image: Harper’s Bazaar

Dina Lohan, Mom of the Year? Surely You Jest. is a post from: The Inquisitr