snapshot 11/26/07

Online merchants happy, so far
Two online retail companies gave positive reports on the first days of the Thanksgiving weekend, saying sales were up significantly in the traditional holiday kickoff period from a year earlier. eBay Inc. said its Shopping.com site saw a 61 percent increase in Black Friday traffic from the 2006 period.

Meanwhile, PriceGrabber.com, a comparison-shopping site run by Britain's Experian Group Ltd., said referrals from its site to participating merchants were up 47 percent on Black Friday from a year ago. According to both merchants, projections for online sales increases this season are in the 20 percent range, to about $33 billion.


Forget MTV - Apple's iPod ads are the new music-star makers
Nick Haley took just 30 minutes to pluck the Brazilian band CSS from obscurity and hurl it into the national spotlight. In September, Haley paired the band's dance-pop song "Music is My Hot, Hot Sex" with his 30-second amateur video, displaying the capabilities of Apple's new iPod Touch.

Since 2001, small, independent bands appearing in iPod commercials have sold thousands of records, been placed on numerous Billboard charts, and drawn the respect and admiration of music fans around the world. Apple's promotional influence has grown so great that music industry insiders now compare it with Oprah Winfrey's ability to create best-sellers through her book club.


Interactive Web videos clicking with bands
Indie rock band Arcade Fire recently unveiled the first video for a song from its sophomore album, Neon Bible. Set to the record's title track, the clip--which launched on the Internet in early October--allows users to control the movement of images by mousing and clicking.


Vudu is still trying to get our attention, this time with Jason Bourne
Beginning November 23, Vudu will give every new buyer copies of both “The Bourne Identity” and “The Bourne Supremacy” pre-loaded on their set-top boxes in HD. They also will have the opportunity to download the third movie in the trilogy, “The Bourne Ultimatum”, to own for $25 when it becomes available in mid December.


Web Research Drives More Real-World Purchases
E-commerce purchases are expected to grow a healthy but unspectacular 17 to 20 percent this holiday season over last year’s. But the Web’s influence over what people buy could be growing even faster. ShopLocal, a Chicago-based firm that helps retailers use their sites to drive in-store sales, says that purchases researched online but made offline, in physical stores, are booming.

In a report last spring, Forrester Research estimated that nearly $400 billion of store sales, or 16 percent of total retail sales, would be directly influenced by Web research this year. The research firm said that number would reach $1 trillion by 2011, or half of all retail purchases.


Why Microsoft’s Zune is Still Failing
Last winter, I detailed why Microsoft’s iPod Killer would fail miserably. This year, Microsoft will fail again, but for a new set of reasons. It is not obvious that the company has figured this out itself. Here’s why the Zune will fail in 2007, and how Microsoft is painting a fraudulent portrait of interest that doesn’t exist.


Trans World Posts Loss For Q3 2007
Entertainment retailer Trans World posted a net loss of $14.3 million in the third quarter of 2007. Revenues dropped 12% to $260.6 million from $297.7 million last year. The company operated 13% fewer stores during the quarter, and same store sales were down 4% year over year.

During the conference call (read transcript), president and COO Jim Litwak revealed that same store music sales had declined by 21% (same as the Q1 decline, see below) and that music had comprised 40% of total revenues for the quarter (versus 48% last year). Video game sales increased 29% on a comp basis while home video increased 8%.


French record industry, ISPs in entente to boot off file-sharers
French president Sarkozy has introduced an Internet policy plan that will cut off the Internet access of repeat offenders. A new government agency is to be created to demand data on suspected offenders from ISPs. The plan, drawn up by a retail executive, includes a few concessions to consumers: Downloads will be available without DRM, and movies will be released on DVD six months after they are shown in theaters.


Don't stand so close to me
Augme is creating clothing containing 2D barcodes that can be scanned via a mobile phone to link to web content. Already big in Asia, these box-shaped codes offer up new potential for band T-shirts as advertising space and music sales. www.augme.com


Holiday Shopping Season Starts Strong in Cyberspace
Shoppers spent US$272 million online Thursday, which was Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., and US$531 million the following day, according to comScore. Those figures represent increases of 29 percent and 22 percent, respectively, over last year.

Internet performance analysis company Keynote said one-third of the 30 major retail sites it monitors for its holiday retail index showed significant slowdowns. The Buy.com and Lowe's Home Improvement sites were among those at which performance dropped to a level that consumers were likely abandoning their purchases, the company said. Good news for consumers is that the day-long site outages of previous years appear to be a thing of the past.


Got Verizon? Get Free Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour is giving away 3 tracks from his new DVD “Remember That Night-Live At The Royal Albert Hall” to Verizon Wireless users. The live versions of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” “WDavid_gilmourish You Were Here,” and “Comfortably Numb” can be downloaded for free from the VCast Music store via either a wireless phone or via the PC for a limited time. Verizon will begin charging for them early next year. Ringtones and ringbacks tone are also available for sale.


Texterity provides digital magazines for iPhone, iPod touch
Texterity, a publisher of digital magazines, has announced Release 1.0 of its digital magazine interface for the iPhone and iPod touch, featuring easier access, improved performance, and the ability to view pages and visit links of advertisers. Additional new features include convenient access to all magazines with a single browser window, full compatibility with the latest Safari browser, and enhanced functionality including full search, linking to websites, table of contents, send to a friend, and an easy way to subscribe to the magazines viewed. “Mobile delivery is one more way we help publishers attract new subscribers and generate results for their advertisers. As a publishing partner, it’s important that we not only lead the charge but push the envelope,” says Cimarron Buser, VP Marketing. “In this new release, we’ve also taken advantage of the power of styling abilities in the Safari browser to enhance performance and make the reader’s experience consistent with the iPhone model.” Texterity currently has 52 digital publications available through the interface, which can be accessed by visiting iphone.texterity.com/magazines/ from an iPhone or iPod touch.


Compare MP3 Players - abi>>compare
Introducing the latest and greatest feature to your favorite MP3 player site… abi>>compare is a side-by-side comparison engine that will help you select your next MP3 player. In addition to being able compare specs it will allow you to search by and filter by specs. For instance if you are looking for a flash player for between $100-$300 with a minimum of 4GB of memory and at lease a QVGA screen, abi>>compare will show you everything available.


Slowing DVD sales could sink holidays
Blockbuster films that once racked up sales of 20 million DVDs now struggle to reach half that number. “This trend is likely due to industry maturation, the economy and new technologies. Home video, the biggest profit center for the studios, is being impacted.”
Industry leader Time Warner has seen its average DVD unit price drop 15% during the first nine months of the year, resulting in a 5% decline in video revenue on a 12% increase in units.
Falling prices and declining unit sales “implies a $19 million, or 29%, reduction in our model film’s average profit.”


John Lennon iTunes Video Album due Dec 4th
Apple's iTunes Store is set to begin offering a new John Lennon Video Album that features 21 of the rock star's music videos beginning December 4th at Starbucks locations nationwide. Priced at $25, the new Video Album accompanies collectible cards distinguished with a silver-toned photo of Lennon. The cards are redeemable from the iTunes Store for a collection of music videos which includes "Imagine," "Woman," "Happy Xmas," "(Just Like) Starting Over," "Nobody Told Me," "Mind Games," two versions of "Working Class Hero" and others.