snapshot 1/31/08

Amazon to buy Audible for $300 million
Amazon.com Inc said on Thursday that it reached an agreement to buy Audible Inc, a provider of digital audiobooks, for $11.50 a share, in a deal that bolsters the online retailer's offerings of audio downloads. Amazon values the transaction at about $300 million, including Audible's cash and short-term investments.

Audible's over 80,000 programs, including audiobooks from authors such as Stephen King and Jane Austen, may complement Amazon's growing digital music store that offers songs without copy-protection technology known as digital rights management.


Slacker ships Wi-Fi Portable players
Slacker today ended months of delays with news that it began shipping the Slacker Portable. True to the original concept, the company's inaugural player is built around the notion of the device as both an online and offline radio station. Although users can still load their own content, the player is built to automatically download and play preset or user-made content channels over Wi-Fi; while users have less control, it provides an effectively unlimited stream of new, relevant music which is still accessible for hours while offline, Slacker says. Each track is accompanied by extended details about the artist.

The initial model is built around a 4-inch LCD with side-mounted controls and loads a user's personal collection over USB; currently, the device can load MP3 and WMA tracks from Windows PCs and supports both Mac OS X and Windows for synchronizing the radio stations over the wireless link. In their finished versions, the players start at $200 for a model with 2GB of storage that holds 15 stations' worth of music (or 1,500) songs and can hold up to 500MB of personal content. A 4GB version at $250 grows the radio content to 2,500 songs while offering 1.5GB for personal media, and a $300 8GB model supplies 4,000 stations while setting aside 4GB for personal content.


iTunes passes RealPlayer in unique users
According to data from Nielsen Online, iTunes has passed RealPlayer in unique users to become the second most popular streaming media player on the market, trailing only Microsoft’s Windows Media Player. The data shows that iTunes was the only player with a positive growth rate over the last year, growing nearly 27% from Dec. 2006 to Dec. 2007 to an estimated 35.7 million unique users. Windows Media Player grew only slightly over the same time period, to nearly 76 million estimated unique users. Usage of the standalone Quicktime Player fell slightly over the period, while RealPlayer usage fell 17.5%.


Nearly half of U.S. kids use iTunes
A new report from the NPD Group has found that nearly half of U.S. kids download music from iTunes. The group estimates that up to 70% of U.S. kids aged 9-14 download music in a given month, with 49% using iTunes. Another 26% use Limewire, while an estimated 16% download music from MySpace. The NPD Group blames parents who let their children use the web unsupervised for the high percentage of illegal downloads. “The music industry hoped that litigation and education might encourage parents to keep better tabs on their kids’ digital music activities,” said NPD analyst Russ Crupnick in a statement releasing the reports results, “but the truth is many kids continue to share music via P2P.” According to Crupnick, two-thirds of these kids who use the internet do so unsupervised, while another 59% say they download music on their own, without parental supervision. “Findings in this report suggest that the industry can still do more to promote specific ways children can obtain digital music legally, through pre-paid accounts and gift cards,” Crupnick added. “Another potential way to reach kids is through industry-sanctioned, ad-supported Web destinations where kids can obtain digital music safely and legally.”


5 Free Downloads A Month From Rykodisc
Indie label Rykodisc is celebrating its 25th anniversary with 5 free downloads via its website @ rykodisc.com posted on the 25th of each month. The first 5 downloads highlight the label’s rich history with world music. Artists to be featured include Nigeria’s juju master King Sunny Ade, world renowned guitarists Ali Farka Toure & Ry Cooder, the sophisticated instrumental sounds of Toumani Diabate, Baka Beyond from the rainforest of Cameroon, and Taj Mahal & Toumani Diabate.


Independents Tap Off-Deck Upstart Txttunes, Skip Plastic
When it comes to paid downloads, content owners have always found themselves competing with free. But younger fans with limited credit card access have another serious reason not to buy.That is an issue being addressed by New York-based Txttunes (txttunes.com), a company that shifts the billing entirely onto mobile accounts. The company offers paid downloads online, but skips the plastic by directly billing an active phone. Txttunes is not an OTA (over-the-air) proposition, at least not yet, though songs can easily be transferred from PC to phone after purchase.

Just recently, Txttunes broadened its proposition by striking deals with two independent heavyweights. The first involves leading digital distributor The Orchard, which delivered its entire MP3-based catalog to Txttunes. "We look forward to reaching out to fans who don't have access to credit cards and want to connect with their favorite artists by cell phone," explained Txttunes chief executive Matt Coleman. Another deal involving CD Baby is almost a carbon copy. Collectively, the companies offer an immense independent catalog, and a major boost for Txttunes. Both deals also involve artist-specific widgets, as well as mobile-based community features. Txttunes curently offers US-based billing through Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, Boost Mobile, Alltel, and others.


Luddite and paranoid - why the big record labels failed at digital
In the past few years the indies have organised, and successfully fought mega-mergers in the European Courts; they licensed the original Napster, and shunned DRM en masse. More recently, the indies have pioneered a one-stop stop for global digital licensing, Merlin, something beyond the organisational abilities of the RIAA.

So after hearing from IFPI chairman John Kennedy here this week, you'd expect a very different view of the music business from Martin Mills, chairman of British indie the Beggars Group - and you'd be right. Radiohead recently signed a deal with Beggars' label XL to release the In Rainbows CD. [history]. Mills helped create IMPALA, the indies' European trade association, which successfully challenged the Sony BMG merger in 2006, and the proposed Time Warner-EMI merger in 2001. He was awarded an MBE in the New Year's Honours list.


Stanford, iTunes release Lively Arts gift cards
Stanford University is teaming up with iTunes to provide Lively Arts gift cards, a sampler card that offers attendees to the Lively Arts events 10 free downloads of featured artists. The iTunes sampler card will be given out from January 25th until March 15th at the various events, and will also be available to users through various campus services. Students who can't attend the Lively Arts events can pick up a complimentary card at the Stanford Bookstoor, Tresidder Express, Track House Sport Shop, The Stanford Shop, and The Bookshop at the Cantor Art Center.