snapshot 7/31/07

Apple says iTunes sales top 3 billion songs
Apple Inc. said on Tuesday sales at its online music store iTunes have topped 3 billion songs.


AT&T Mobile Music Hits the Airwaves With eMusic Mobile
AT&T Inc. has announced the launch of an over-the-air music download service with eMusic, the world's largest retailer of independent music. The eMusic over-the-air
(OTA) service will give AT&T's customers the ability to preview and purchase music via their wireless devices from a catalog of 2.7 million songs, the nation's largest wireless music catalog. T

eMusic Mobile will be initially available on some of AT&T's most robust music devices, with many to be added in the future. Users of the Samsung a717, a727, new versions of the popular Samsung SYNC and the Nokia N75 will be able to access the eMusic wireless store by clicking on the music note key, choosing the Shop Music option and then selecting eMusic.

Interesting to note – no iPhone?


Dave Matthews Band Live and Exclusive at Starbucks
Starbucks Entertainment announced today that Dave Matthews Band “Live Trax” CD will be exclusively available at Starbucks Company-operated locations in the U.S. and Canada beginning on July 31, 2007. The exclusive compilation from Bama Rags/RCA Records features recordings of Dave Matthews Band performances dating back to 1995. Since 2004, Dave Matthews Band has released albums in the “Live Trax” series via their Web site and at concerts. “Live Trax,” exclusively available at Starbucks, is the first national retail release in the series.


Survey Shows eMusic Helps Independent Labels by Adding Incremental Sales
In recent surveys of more than 4,000 of its active U.S. subscribers conducted, eMusic found that 61% buy music from the website that they would not have otherwise purchased. Additionally, 62% of subscribers said they purchase more than 10 additional songs per month than before they joined eMusic, 84% felt they discovered music they would not otherwise have known about, and 44% of subscribers believe they download less music from major labels now that they are in the eMusic fold.

The results show that eMusic is helping independent labels gain market share by selling albums and songs that wouldn't have sold otherwise to customers willing to experiment and discover music. This mirrors sales trends that are tracked by Nielsen SoundScan. A recent analysis of Nielsen SoundScan data shows that independent label digital album sales increased by 42% from 2005 to 2007 year to date.


Digital downloads over the Internet are helping purveyors of classical music stage an encore.
Classical music hardly seems like a growth business. In fact, classical music is doing a lot better than you might think. Although total sales in all music categories (on- and offline) fell 5 percent last year, classical sales grew by a whopping 22 percent. The biggest companies of the classical genre are now earning about 20 percent of sales from digital music, double or triple the average for other categories.

Classical is different—consumers like to geek out on niche recordings, reveling in different versions of the same work or finding obscure versions of well-known pieces. Of the 146,031 tracks offered by Naxos online, about half have sold only 10 units or less. Still, that was enough to push digital revenues to a quarter of the company's total $82 million in sales for 2006, increasing profitability and helping offset a decline in offline sales.


Led Zeppelin join the net generation
Veteran rockers Led Zeppelin, who have sold more than 200 million albums worldwide, are to enter the modern age and offer an album of specially selected tracks to download on the internet. Mothership, a collection including 'Stairway to Heaven', 'Whole Lotta Love' and 'Dazed and Confused', will be available on Apple's iTunes and is the band's first venture into selling Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones have chosen the tracks themselves. Mothership will be available online on 12 November.


Playlists, new samples player, web subscription playback
Continuing the torrential pace of new software, we have released a playlist page, a new player for thirty-second samples, and the ability to play subscription tracks in the browser. All of this software is somewhat beta.


Toshiba Laptops To Ship With Napster To Go
Buyers of Toshiba Satellite and Qosmio laptops will find a 30-day trial of Napster To Go bundled onto their machines, in a bid by the online music service to continue to grow its user base. I've always thought that Napster, Rhapsody, and other paid subscription services make sense for a some people -- especially that small segment who don't want or have an iPod -- but that somehow, those people rarely are exposed to them.


Study: Social Media Sparks Music Downloads
According to the 2007 Digital Music Survey conducted by the UK's Entertainment Media Research and law firm Olswang, social media is having a profound impact upon how people discover and purchase music. Over 50 percent of survey respondents said they actively surf social network sites to discover new music and artists. The rate is higher still on MySpace (75 percent), Bebo (72 percent), and YouTube (66 percent).