LG to give $1M to the fastest texters on the planet

Today LG announced the initiation of the second Mobile Worldcup competition for fast and accurate texting. Mobile Worldcup 2009 is the official name of the contest that will have a stunning prize pool of 1 million US dollars.

This first round of this year's competition will start on 15th August in Indonesia, four weeks after the commencement of the national league and other related mobile events. 200 texters will battle it out in Jakarta Theater for the place in the finals and a prize of of 100 million rupiah (approximately 9,900 US dollars).

Similar events will be held in 13 more countries, including Vietnam, Malaysia, South Africa, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Russia, China and South Korea.

The winners from those will join the U.S. and Canada finalists, who have already been named, in the World Championship finals in the U.S. in November. There the participants will compete over several rounds for the title "The World’s Fastest Texter". The lucky winner will also walk away with 100 000 US dollars from the prize pool.

Last year, 700 000 people took part in the LG Mobile Worldcup, but the company expects this number to increase to over 6 million this time.

Update: It seems that a part of the prize pool will go for some of the concomitant events too. Those include game tournaments, a user-created “Mobile Pop Art” competition, a photo contest and a celebrity-studded gala concert.