Monday, August 20, 2007

snapshot 8/20/07

Universal Music tests the mixtape waters
In a move designed to fill the void created by the Recording Industry Association of America's crackdown on the formidable business of mixtapes, Universal Music Enterprises (UME) is trying its hand at legal mixtapes. The company has created a series titled "Lethal Squad Mixtapes," expected to retail for $5 to $6. But it's unclear whether a corporate take on the grass-roots idea of mixtapes -- compilations, usually of copyrighted songs from other sources -- will wash


‘Fifth Major’ Merlin Launches To Cut Music Indies’ Online Deals
Seven months after it was announced, Merlin, the body designed to represent thousands of indie music labels in striking online deals, announced finally plans to go live on Monday. Independent labels represent 30 percent of worldwide music sales and 80 percent of new releases, but in negotiating licenses for online sale and streams they have been fragmented. Dubbed a “virtual fifth major”, the organization was announced in a press conference at the Midem music industry conferences in Cannes back in January; now it has incorporated as a non-profit company in London and Holland, owned by its member labels. The aim is to put indies on a level playing field, correcting what Merlin reckons is a growing assumption that emerging media need only strike licenses with the four major labels.


Building B Builds A God Box For Internet Video
Building B became the latest startup to join the Internet video set-top box sweepstakes today with the Belmont, Calif.-based company’s announcement that it has developed a video god box capable of marrying traditional television with video-on-demand and Web video. The service seamlessly integrates traditional television with on-demand premium content and Internet video — all delivered to the living room television without the need for a PC. ….. leverages the unique strengths of wireless broadcast technology.


Interactive MVI discs are the CD's newest rivals
Several acts are turning to the MVI (music video interactive) disc, a format poised to succeed the fading DVD-Audio and SACD. It plays in DVD players, computers and some game consoles but not CD players. With its increased storage capacity, superior sound and interactive capability, many see a potential to revitalize physical album sales.

The format's first title, Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight, sold about 60,000 copies in MVI, or roughly 10% of its opening week total in May, rivaling the download slice of 13%. The Linkin Park CD retails for $18.98, the MVI $27.98.

MTV Networks Readies Refreshed Music Initiative
TV Networks is now planning a refreshed digital music initiative, according to information received Monday afternoon. The company is expected to outline the details of the updated concept during an official announcement Tuesday morning, though company representatives declined to offer additional details ahead of that point. Meanwhile, one executive with ties to the company pointed to a music-focused social networking play, and cited a pre-release demo. That information could not be independently verified, though MTV Networks has been steadily aiming to deepen its online audiences.


Another Blank Check Digital Media Acquisition Firm To IPO
Another blank check digital media rollup firm is being started, by Phillip Frost, Miami’s billionaire entrepreneur in pharmaceuticals...Ideation Acquisition will offer shares to the public in the next several months to raise $78 million to $90 million, reports Miami Herald. The company, based in LA, plans to focus on businesses in the digital media sector.


EA selling games in the Apple Store
…Friday they dropped a press release that the exact four games we'd called MIA were now available in the Apple Store (and sure enough, they are). As our good friends over at Joystiq noted, EA also promises that those games will also be available in brick-and-mortar Apple stores by the end of August, with Tiger and Madden coming later this year.


Top 200 Sales Show The Long Tail Creeping In
In the last month or so I've shown some trends in album sales over the last three years. I looked at how different places in the Top 200 album chart have changed over the years, such as the #200 album, and how the sales of the #100 album have dropped far more than sales of the #10 album.

Today I have a graph that shows the percent of total weekly album sales that are represented by the Top 200. As the theory of the long tail would predict, the Top 200 accounts for a lower percent of total album sales today that it did three years ago. Between July 2004 and June 2007, that percent dropped about five points to about 35% from 40%. That's a small but meaningful annual change, about 4% per year.


Forget pop music, it's all about ringtones
Carnes, a songwriter for nearly three decades, laughs when he considers that his work is more valuable as a ringtone--just a few seconds of his music--than a full version of one of his songs downloaded from the Web. Until last October, music publishers were able to pocket 10 percent of the retail price for a song, according to Steve Gordon, a copyright attorney. This meant that for a $2.99 ringtone, the publisher could make 30 cents and typically split half with the songwriter.

But the labels are now threatening to choke off that extra income. Record companies claim songwriters and music publishers charge too much and want prices restricted to a rate of 9.1 cents per song. The labels argue that they are entitled to the extra money because music publishers pay nothing of the large upfront costs associated with producing master recordings, according to Gordon.


More songs to buy, download and share
Artists such as Jay-Z, Amy Winehouse and the Beach Boys today will join the Rolling Stones, Norah Jones and others who have tunes for sale online free of copy restrictions.

Major label Universal, which also is home to 50 Cent, Sting and Gwen Stefani, begins testing the market for digital music without digital rights management built in to hinder sharing. Tracks will be available through online music retailers such as Google, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Rhapsody but not the largest seller of music downloads, iTunes.


Facebook's social networking numbers
  • Over 150,000 registrants daily since January.
  • 35 million current users.
  • In September there were no users from outside colleges, today that user base consists of over half.
  • Average visitor stays for 20 minutes.
  • 47,000 Facebook groups.
  • More than 2000 applications.

New search engine "listens" to music to help you find new tunes
Peer-recommendation services like Last.fm and Pandora are pretty good at leveraging the power of the community to help you discover new music, but a recent grant from the National Science Foundation to the College of Charleston aims to take the concept to the next level, by creating a search engine that "listens" to music and creates critical comparisons between works. The system, as described by Ars Technica, involves a neural network that is trained to recognized the composer and style of music, an evaluation engine that's supposed to simulate human taste, and a set of objective metrics like pitch, tempo, and duration. The results are then combined and the system can then recommend matches to find similar music. The researchers have already demoed a similar system with good results…

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