snapshot 7/15/08

Widget Enables Radiohead Style Distro
At first glance NoiseTrade is a simple widget that enables Radiohead style pay what you want music distribution. But as two dozen indie acts including Sixpence None The Richer and Sandra McCracken learned, it also can be a powerful viral promo tool which in the two weeks since launched has delivered 20,000 full albums for purchase and fan promotion.

Artists distribute their music via NoiseTrade's embeddable widget where fans can sample then either choose to tell three friends about it or pay any amount in exchange for an album download. Name plus an email and zip code are captured along the way. Fans can also embed the widget into their own blog or social networking profile.


P2P not hurting DVD, Blu-ray sales as revenues up from 2007
Consumers may be tightening their belts, but that reduction apparently hasn't affected DVD sales just yet. In fact, spending on DVDs and Blu-ray discs during the first half of 2008 showed a slight increase over the same period a year ago, according to data collected by Home Media Magazine. Spending on rentals rose even more, indicating that perhaps part of consumers' money-saving efforts involve cozying up to a movie at home for entertainment instead of heading out for a night on the town—or downloading from the Internet.

Home Media found that sales of DVDs and Blu-ray discs rose from $6.8 billion in early 2007 to $6.87 billion in the first half of this year—a modest increase of 1.1 percent. This number appears to coincide with "studio reports" saying that unit sales were also up 1.1 percent to 412.3 million discs in the first half of 2008, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Rentals increased by 2.6 percent, from $3.7 billion to $3.9 billion.


Amazon.com's Amazing MP3 Album Prices
Except for a couple songs, I don't even LIKE the Doors, but I almost bought this album this morning. At $3.99 for 20 songs, it was almost too good to pass up, even though I could simply buy the two songs I actually like for 99 cents each. (The album's now back to its regular price of $8.99.)Amazon.com's daily and weekly mp3 album specials are clearly resulting in a lot of impulse purchases. The top album chart is usually dominated by the previous weekend's $5 specials and most all of the daily special albums make it to the top of the chart. Big-name artists (Madonna, the Police, etc.) almost always make it to the number one spot, and even relatively unknown artists like Liam Finn seem to hit the top five when given the bargain price. (Though the relative chart popularity of the specially-priced albums might just be evidence that total album download sales at Amazon are modest enough that it doesn't take too many purchases in a 24-hour period to make the top album chart...)


Sony's PS3 & PSP Movie Service Launching; Seven Studios Signed On; Adopts Marlin Open DRM
…Sony is announcing some of its own services: it is launching a PlayStation 3 and its portable PSP-based video service, and said has signed on at least seven studios including Sony Pictures, Fox, MGM, Lions Gate, Warner Brothers, Disney. Movies, TV programs and original programs will be available and of course would be watchable on TV. Movies will rent for $2.99 to $5.99 and TV shows for $1.99 an episode. For now, the service only has 300 full length movies and 1,200 TV episodes, the company said.

Disney will only offer movies for rent, while all others will offer for rental as well as downloads/sellthrough...Disney is closely aligned with Apple on its iTunes movies service so its reticence with others is understandable. Meanwhile, Jack Tretton, president and CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment America, says it best: "The collaboration of Sony's film, TV and entertainment business units, coupled with our hardware and content offerings, provide consumers with entertainment experiences unlike any on the market"....not the last part, but the fact that all these units could actually work together to launch something. That is an achievement at Sony… Something even more alien for Sony: it has adopted Marlin DRM technology, an open industry content standard...this won't allows users to take it anywhere, but at least will allow content bought to be shared on PS3 and PSP systems, depending on the type of content purchased by the user. Not clear if it will be expanded to include other non-Sony devices in the future, but I doubt it. More details here.


TuneCore Gets Own Billboard Chart
Billboard is now posting the top 25 revenue-generating albums and songs from discount flat fee digital distributor TuneCore in its Digital & Mobile section. The first chart can be viewed here.