Elanso

-- Sony (NYSE: SNE) Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC) said today that it will be partnering with Grammy Award-winning artist Usher and AT&T (NYSE: T) to market Sony Ericsson's Walkman music phones in the U.S., Canada and 20 European countries. Sony Ericsson said Usher will discuss the details of the partnership and make a surprise announcement (is it really a surprise if you say it's coming?) at a New York event May 28, or a day after Usher releases his new album Here I Stand. Sony Ericsson will be the title sponsor for Usher's North American tour later this year, and the partnership will include access to exclusive content on Walkman phones, and contests, such as winning a chance to meet Usher on a video shoot, and getting VIP tickets for a concert. Release.

-- Social networking site Friendster has launched a mobile site at http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/moconews/~3/296050829/m.friendster.com, reports WirelessWeek. The site should be accessible from pretty much any wireless device, and is where users can get updates on friends, check messages, review requests, post shoutouts, browse photos, browse profiles, search for users by name or e-mail and post bulletins. It's a little odd that the company is only launching the site now, but said that the mobile site is the first of many mobile offerings coming soon.

-- Sprint (NYSE: S) said that the Samsung Instinct—an iPhone look-alike—will be available for sale June 20. The phone has a touchscreen, fast EV-DO network connection and GPS. The company is supposedly throwing millions behind the marketing campaign and already has set up a snazzy Web site at http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/moconews/~3/296050829/www.nowisgood.com. The timing of the phone will be interesting since Steve Jobs is expected to announce the 3G iPhone on June 9 during Apple's (NSDQ: AAPL) Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco (although of course that doesn't mean it will go on sale that day).

-- NowPublic.com, a news network, said it has partnered with ShoZu so that users can send photos and videos to NowPublic from their mobile phones. ShoZu is including NowPublic as a destination option on its phone application and in its website catalog of destination sites. The ShoZu service ships on some Motorola (NYSE: MOT), Samsung and Sony Ericsson handsets and is available as a free download to more than 340 additional models.