snapshot 7/3/07

iPhone Incompatibility Could Hurt Sales, Napster Warns
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20070703/tc_cmp/200001877;_ylt=AkfWZmBk5888IXtd.QOyFp5kM3wV
Digital music purveyor Napster is warning that sales could be hurt by the fact that it distributes songs in software formats not supported by the iPhone, Apple's hot new phone and music player. In a note to investors, Napster said Apple products could come to dominate the handheld PDA market to the point where vendors, including itself, that don't offer compatible offerings could suffer financially.


iPhone May Sell Fast But Not RAZR Fast
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/history-lesson/iphone-may-sell-fast-but-not-razr-fast-274545.php
For one thing, the iPhone is exclusive to one carrier (AT&T) and one technology (GSM), whereas the RAZR was eventually sold by every carrier on both GSM and CDMA networks. Without Sprint and Verizon Wireless, the iPhone reaches less than half of its potential US customers.
Motorola's sales were worldwide, while the iPhone is currently only sold in the US. Although there is buzz that Vodafone is vying to carry the iPhone throughout Europe, no plans have been announced.
In addition, iPhone falls into the "smartphone" category in many people's opinion, and the market for smartphones is significantly smaller than the market for, well, dumb phones. Besides, corporations dominate the smartphone business, and the iPhone is not even sold through AT&T's business division.


The iPhone's Secret Blindspot
http://blogs.business2.com/apple/2007/07/the-iphones-sec.html?section=money_topstories
Now that the initial euphoria has passed, developers have started to talk about what's missing from Apple's (AAPL) iPhone: things like Flash, Java, streaming and full AJAX -- the linchpin, as Matt Buchanen at Gizmodo puts it, of innumerable Web 2.0 apps.

But there may be a deeper problem, one that Swedish entrepreneur and blogger Peter S. Magnusson puts his finger on in a long, thoughtful post entitled iPhone's Missing Killer App: Social Networking. At a fundamental level, Magnusson says, Steve Jobs doesn't understand the new end user.
Today, people chat; they blog; they share multimedia like pictures, video, and audio; they flame each other on forums; they link with each other in intricate webs; they swap effortlessly between different electronic personae and avatars; they listen to internet radio; they vote on this that and the other; they argue on wiki discussion groups."


Amie Street Celebrates First Birthday
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/03/amie-street-celebrates-first-birthday-free-music-for-techcrunch-readers/
Amie Street’s business model is dead simple - Artists upload their music for download on the site. Users download songs, with the starting price at free. When downloads pick up for popular songs, the price starts to rise, all the way up to $0.99. If a song gets to $0.30 or so, you know its popular. The artist keeps 70% of revenues after the first $5 in sales. Songs are sold DRM-free in MP3 format. Users can also generate credit in Amie Street by recommending songs. Only a few recommendations are allowed, but if the song you promote does well, you get credit in your account that you can use to buy other songs.

Well known artists are starting to use the service. Barenaked Ladies, Master P, Romeo and the Meat Puppets are all distributing music on the site, which has now sold over half a million tracks to users.


Intel Preps Major Music-Related Advertising Campaign
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/070207intel/view
Intel is now preparing a major, music-related advertising campaign, according to several major label sources. The executives, who hail from one of the larger majors, spoke on the condition of anonymity. The sources pointed Digital Music News to a campaign that will feature "several prominent bands," including a number of multi-platinum and legendary acts, though specific identities were not revealed. The "full marketing campaign" will likely traverse different forms of media, though the sources would not delve into specific outlets or media spend allocations. In terms of timetables, delivery dates were promised "this month," and the launch period is considered imminent. Subsequent discussions are likely to reveal further details over the next few days.


Popularity crunch: Lala's free streaming goes dark, will return
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070703-the-day-the-music-died-lalas-free-streaming-goes-dark-will-return.html
John Kuch, who handles PR duties at Lala, said in an e-mail that "labels have been contacting us to get up and running on lala.com. Many of our unique, forward-looking features have generated significant consumer excitement but have also generated an overwhelming load on our systems. To avoid falling short of consumer expectations, we're holding off on upgrading and returning some aspects of our offering until we can provide a fuller catalog that meets the demand of consumers and includes music from a broader cross section of the industry."