snapshot 3/11/08

Hulu makes public debut, adds Warner Bros shows
Hulu, the online video joint venture of News Corp and General Electric's NBC Universal, will make its public debut on Wednesday with programming from Time Warner Inc's Warner Bros Television Group, Lionsgate and from sports leagues.

At launch, Hulu will offer full-length episodes of more than 250 TV series from current hits such as "The Simpsons" as well as older shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." It also will offer 100 movies including "The Big Lebowski" and "Mulholland Drive."


Puretracks Announces New DRM-Free Mobile Music Store for the BlackBerry Platform
-Toronto-based Puretracks, a leading North American digital music provider that partners with Universal, Sony BMG, Warner, EMI, and independent labels worldwide, has developed a new DRM-free mobile music store and service for BlackBerry® smartphones from Research In Motion.

The Puretracks Mobile Edition music store for BlackBerry, built in conjunction with handset development partner Magnet Mobile Media, will work with all BlackBerry® Pearl™, BlackBerry® Curve™ and BlackBerry® 8800 series smartphones. It is a next-evolution digital music service developed exclusively for wireless handsets using compressed DRM-free AAC/AAC+ file formats. This high-quality digital format is only half the size of MP3 files, significantly reducing the download time and storage capacity required while maintaining CD quality sound. The DRM-free service will make it easy for users to download and play songs on their BlackBerry smartphones.


Publishers Phase Out Piracy Protection on Audio Books
Some of the largest book publishers in the world are stripping away the anticopying software on digital downloads of audio books. The trend will allow consumers who download audio books to freely transfer these digital files between devices like their computers, iPods and cellphones — and conceivably share them with others. Dropping copying restrictions could also allow a variety of online retailers to start to sell audio book downloads.

Publishers, like the music labels and movie studios, stuck to D.R.M. out of fear that pirated copies would diminish revenue. Random House tested the justification for this fear when it introduced the D.R.M.-less concept with eMusic last fall. It encoded those audio books with a digital watermark and monitored online file sharing networks, only to find that pirated copies of its audio books had been made from physical CDs or D.R.M.-encoded digital downloads whose anticopying protections were overridden.


Korean music-making site MusicShake expanding to U.S.
MusicShake is a South Korean company that was a crowd favorite at the TechCrunch 40 awards last year. I checked in recently with the company and found that it has been doing fairly well, picking up over 100,000 users and achieving some success with a music sales model that I was skeptical of. MusicShake users create songs by combining pre-created instrumental tracks (from a list of thousands). The creation software, which currently still requires a download but will be moving fully online sometime this year, makes it relatively easy to create a catchy song. More daring users can also add their own vocals to the tracks they create.

According to co-founder Kihong Bae, users have already sold around 60,000 songs to each other, from which MusicShake takes a small cut. The site itself has proven extremely “sticky” to users — average sessions can be around an hour. However, to really make much money, sales will really need to ramp up for the company.


eMusic Adds Labels
eMusic has announced that its catalog has surpassed 3.5 million tracks with the addition of 43 new record labels and digital aggregators. The eMusic roster now includes German electronic label Kompakt (Michael Mayer, Superpitcher), indie rockers Constellation Records (Do Make Say Think, Silver Mt Zion), and pop/rock/electronic imprint IAMSOUND Records (Cut Off Your Hands) among others.


Pre-Loaded iPod Killer Emerges; 30,000 Songs On Tap
That is the underpinning of a pre-launch startup called PushButtonMusic, a more sophisticated iPod killer. The concept is being started by Hal Oppenheimer and Robert Uhlmann, cofounders of Broadcast Data Systems (BDS). Instead of millions of songs, Oppenheimer asserts that most consumers are actually tuned into a selection of roughly 30,000. The company is assembling that collection by monitoring airplay, file-sharing, purchasing, social networking, and club spins, a cross-section that produces a smaller-than-expected list. "It's a pyramid, not a bell," Oppenheimer explained. "Can you find something we don't have? Yes, but we are addressing 98 percent of the market."

The plan is to pre-load that pyramid onto devices, before it hits consumer hands. The company is scheduling its initial launch in July, at which point consumers can handpick their collections online and have their pre-loaded devices shipped to them. But the idea is not iTunes compatible, and relies on a subscription-based relationship. Oppenheimer tossed a monthly figure of $20 per month, a serious handicap against freebie acquisition methods. The underpinning for the service is MediaNet Digital, which is no stranger to subscription models. Initially, PushButton will launch on a 30GB, Creative Zen, a size that trims the collection to about 7,000 songs. But much bigger players are on the roadmap - potentially by Christmas.