The Viacom Music Group has relaunched its OMusicAwards.com site and opened up nominations for its third O Music Awards digital event scheduled for June 27.
The digitally driven event, which allows fans to suggest potential music categories and to nominate and vote on bands in the run-up to the awards show's 24-hour live stream on June 27, will feature a band touring through eight cities in the Mississippi Delta as it tries to break the world's record for the most live concerts in a single 24 hour period.
For the Awards show's live 24 hour stream, cameras will follow the band through the eight city tour on a tricked out bus as they meet up with fans and presenters who will give out the awards.
Confirmed sponsors for the digital event include Honda, SK Energy and Starbucks Frappuccino beverages.
Last year, the effort produced significant digital traffic. The O Music Awards 2 generated more than 1.4 million live streams and 22.3 million votes, nearly doubling numbers for the first one.
Shannon Connolly, VP digital music strategy at MTV Music Group, noted in an interview that the company started the O Music Awards in 2011 as "a laboratory to experiment where we could try out new things" both to tap into new trends in digital music and to experiment with new ways "to reinvent the award show format."
As part of that, the Awards show has in the past included TV, mobile and web efforts, with the digital 24 hour live stream being the most prominent feature.
The TV portions of this year's effort and a number of other features are still to be unveiled. In terms of apps, the event is likely to be bundled into one of their popular existing apps, such as MTV News. The site is also optimized for mobile access, which would allow it to reach a much wider array of devices.
Unlike previous versions of the event, which were based in specific area, this year's effort will travel though the Mississippi Delta, birth place of the blues and then rock and roll, starting in Memphis and ending up New Orleans.
Also new to this year, fans will be allowed to nominate categories for awards and the effort will feature expanded social media applications. Since the live stream will be centered around a yet to be named band touring through the Delta, geo-local features, Instagram and other features for uploading photos and video are likely to be part of the mix.
While Connolly hopes to see higher traffic this year, she also notes that they will be focusing on feature that would boost engagement and time spent on the site.
