snapshot 10/31/07

Review: Free tunes service carries price
For one, I couldn't download more than one song or video at a time. Users can fill a queue with tracks, but must go back to SpiralFrog's home page and click a button after each song is transferred to start the next. This meant that to download an entire album I had to stay near my computer. And while I'm often stuck there anyway, it's a pain to interrupt whatever I'm doing to click through to the next song. I tried beating the system by setting up two queues on two different Web browsers, but SpiralFrog was wise to my game: The site interrupted both downloads.


Songbird, a browser-integrated media player, received $8M last year
Although we reported in October 2006 that Songbird had taken $1 million from Atlas Ventures and Sequoia Capital, it apparently only took another two months for the company to land another $8 million. The funding in December 2006 came from the same two funds, according to TechCrunch. It remained unreported, until now.

Songbird works within Mozilla Firefox as an open platform that developers can use to integrate a customized media player into their own website. By working within Firefox, the company adroitly avoids the need for consumers to download and install applications, which people tend to avoid. The player’s main value to other companies seems to be in providing developers with an easier way to build music-focused websites than coding their own platform. We’re not so sure how the company plans on making money, although there may be some options for revenue sharing with online music stores.


Facebook Music is Coming!
The new platform is set to be announced at ad:tech in New York City next week. Leading up to this announcement Facebook has been holding top-secret meetings with high-level representatives at each of the four major music labels. Major and independent label artists and will register their sub-domain name through Facebook. Like “www.facebook.com/insertbandnamehere” for example. On this page Facebook users will be allowed to become “fans” of the artist and connect to the media hosted on the “artist page.”

In the first generation of Facebook Music “fans” will be allowed to listen to artist’s music, watch videos, upload pictures, add music to their page, receive tour information and interact with other fans. Online music moguls, be warned. Future generations will come quickly and allow unprecedented targeted marketing, ad buys and media promotion. Facebook is developing artist specific sales widgets to allow for music sales through the site as well.


Creative MP3 Player Share Falls 24% Over Last Year
"Creative Technology, the Singapore-based company that's a distant third behind Apple (AAPL) in the MP3 player market, full further behind last quarter. The company, which delisted from the Nasdaq earlier this year, posted Q1 sales of $185 million. That's down 24% y/y, while Apple saw iPod revenues increase 4%, and unit sales increase 17% in its last quarter. About the best you can for Creative is that it still has a larger market share (something in the single digits, according to NPD data) than Microsoft's Zune."


Indie rock struggling to make money in digital era
Box stores largely ignored indie records during the last 10 years because it didn't make sense to stock a product that wouldn't move a significant amount of units. That obviously isn't a concern in the virtual marketplace.

Is $7 an album enough to keep an indie label in the black? Not according to Rian Murphy, sales manager at Drag City Records. Murphy's label decided to pull its catalog from digital subscription service eMusic because it had to sell three times the amount of songs to make the slim profit iTunes already provided. The service provides plans that can whittle the price of a song down to 27 cents — appetizing to consumers but nauseating for artists.


Passalong Beefs MP3 Offering, Grabs ADA Catalog
Nashville-based Passalong Networks recently expanded its MP3-based catalog, thanks to a deal involving the Alternative Distribution Alliance (ADA). The catalog of roughly 30,000 tracks comes from high-profile labels Sub Pop, Epitaph, Saddle Creek, Downtown Records, and others, a group eager to embrace DRM-free formats. Passalong, a white label service, is offering the protection-free content to its clientele. That includes the download store for retailer f.y.e., owned by Trans World Entertainment.


MTV Reports One Million Britney Streams, Posts Record
MTV Networks has now streamed one million previews of the upcoming Britney Spears album, a positive indicator for the troubled artist. Just last week, MTV positioned the album, Blackout, as a streaming exclusive across its numerous online properties. The latest tally, shared with Digital Music News by network executives on Tuesday, represents a record for the company and its program, "The Leak." It also indicates a considerable level of demand for the album, which just hit retail outlets.


Free Music Now! Lala.com's Plan to Give Songs Away Could Upend the Industry
Starting in November, according to Nguyen, Lala will offer unlimited on-demand streams of music from two of the four major labels (the company's still negotiating with the other two). That music doesn't come free to Lala — the company expects to pay more than $160 million in licensing fees to the labels over the first two years. Rhapsody has a similar arrangement, but it charges users a subscription fee of about $15 per month. Lala won't charge users a penny. Instead, the company intends to recoup those costs through music sales. It hopes to pull in $120 million in the first two years, which works out to roughly $5 of revenue per user per month, Nguyen says. In addition to brokering trades among members, Lala will deal downloads, sell physical CDs, even hock vinyl — and he says more revenue streams are on the way.


Happy Halloween!