Isn't this a fine little Christmas present from our friends at Blockbuster? Maybe the movie rental company figured since it's this close to the holidays, no one would notice a price increase at Blockbuster Online, announced in a letter to subscribers yesterday. The most painful hit will be taken by those with a "three-out unlimited" plan, taking a huge price boost up the butt, from $24.99 to $34.99, an astonishing 40% hike. Those with the two-disc unlimited plan won't be too happy to see their $21.99 rate suddenly increasing to $29.99, a 35.3% increase. It wasn't quite that bad for other members, most of which saw plan prices raised a couple of bucks. Netflix, anyone?
Digital music: Go legal, get screwed
The Big Four record labels want us to think that the sound recording business is a reformed character these days. Recently, we've heard ritualistic self-flagellations from a succession of top executives. There was Ed Bronfman at Warner's, prostrating himself in front of Apple. In a similar vein, Universal's chief Doug Morris admitted UMG had been clueless, and got it all wrong. EMI's new asset-stripping chief Guy Hands issues almost weekly memos telling the company to reform or die. While over at Sony BMG, staff have been told they must, er... blog their way back into music lover's hearts.
For years, the Big Five (now Four) have preferred to litigate rather than license their catalogues, but we were told that was no longer the case. But the paradox remains: if you go legit, you will get punished by the corner of the music business with the most to lose. If you make out like bandits, and blithely publish copyright material, then you'll get your reward right here on Earth. Just contrast YouTube's $1.6bn purchase by Google with Pandora's struggles to maintain viability by paying sound recording royalties.
Non-iPod Music Player Sales Down During The Holiday Season
U.S. sales of portable music players, not including the Apple iPod, declined during the first three weeks of the holiday shopping season, as manufacturers attracted fewer first-time buyers, a market research firm said Wednesday. Dollar sales of MP3 players between Nov. 18 and Dec. 9 were down 16% from the same period last year, while unit sales declined 9%, the NPD Group said in an update on consumer electronics sales.
In the case of MP3 players, manufacturers and their retail partners faced a market in which there were fewer first-time buyers, and most sales were for upgrades and replacements. "The market is in a position where most of the people who want an MP3 player have one," NPD analyst Stephen Baker told InformationWeek. Even sales of the market-leading Apple iPod were probably not what they used to be for the same reason. "The iPod is not exactly a blistering growth segment," Baker said. "It's a good segment, and you'll still make money on it, but it's not growing 75% a year." Revenues from MP3 players were dropping because people were choosing cheaper flash memory versions of the devices, rather than the more expensive hard-disk-drive versions with much larger storage capacities. Most people don't have enough music and video files to justify paying more for a device with 80-plus gigabytes of storage, Baker said.
MySpace, Pennywise Confirm Gratis Album Giveaway
MySpace recently confirmed plans to give away a free Pennywise album, another front-running experiment. The ad-supported concept, which first bubbled in mid-November, also involves off-deck mobile music provider Textango. According to MySpace, fans simply need to add Textango as a friend to receive the free download. "Every stakeholder in the equation gets clear value," MySpace Records executive J. Scabo told Digital Music News on Wednesday.
The action begins on March 25th, 2008, according to MySpace, which has now signed Pennywise to its budding record label. The DRM-free download will only be positioned for two-weeks, though fans can purchase an enhanced CD/DVD combination. A vinyl version, which contains two additional bonus tracks, will also be serviced to retail outlets. Textango is a mobile-based billing and music delivery platform.
Study finds girls eclipse boys in photo posting, other obvious web facts
- AIM: 93% of American teens (ages 12-17) use the web. Many of them use the web to interact with others.
- YouTube: 64% of online teens create online content, up from 57% in 2004.
- MySpace: 27% of online teens keep a personal web page.
- LOLcats?: 26% of online teens "remix" content they find online.
- WoW: 49% of online teens play games online.
- Facebook: Social network communicators are more "intense" communicators.
- Facebook: Girls eclipse boys in photo posting.
The Second Coming of Apple TV
For those of you you've been following the stunted evolution of the device, you've no doubt noticed it's suffered greatly from the company's obvious lack of confidence as well as some uninspired marketing. But if Apple plays its cards right, 2008 could be a very big year for Apple TV. Here's a list what could -- and in some cases, needs to -- happen in 2008 for the Apple TV to assume its rightful place among the company's star devices:
Radiohead: EMI main barrier to online music
One of the key reasons Radiohead has refrained from signing on to digital music is licensing rights, the band's lead singer Thom Yorke says in an interview with Wired. The musician observes that the group's previous, multi-album contract with music label EMI contained virtually no clauses for digital music rights as it was struck years before digital music stores were available. Radiohead's release of In Rainbows in October with flexible pricing was the first real opportunity the group had to earn money on a digital offering.
"In terms of digital income, we've made more money out of this record than out of all the other Radiohead albums put together, forever — in terms of anything on the Net. And that's nuts," Yorke says. "It's partly due to the fact that EMI wasn't giving us any money for digital sales. All the contracts signed in a certain era have none of that stuff." The back catalog is also available through the group's own website and also sells much of its back catalog through Amazon MP3, where the band's historical preference for selling its music only in a whole-album format has remained intact.
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