Thursday, July 31, 2008

snapshot 7/31/08

Mobile Music Anyone? mSpot Passes Four Million Subs
Mobile music provider mSpot has now reached its four millionth subscriber, according to data shared Wednesday with Digital Music News. The Palo Alto-based company nearly quadrupled its subscriber tally over the past year, thanks to a broadening network of carrier and content partners. That includes all four major labels, various independents, and major media brands like ABC, ClearChannel, Fox Sports, NPR, Paramount Pictures and Disney. In total, mSpot powers services for a eight US-based carriers. The company specializes in the delivery of a number of mobile music assets, including music, custom ringtones, live radio streams and videos. The mSpot product portfolio includes mSpot Radio, mSpot Remix, and mSpot Music Videos.


Amazon: The Avis of digital music
But Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had a much better plan for a digital music offering than his naysayers realized. Ten months after its debut, Amazon has overtaken competitors like Wal-Mart and RealNetworks' Rhapsody to become the second biggest online store after iTunes, according to market research firm NPD. Now two music industry sources tell Fortune that Amazon is talking to MySpace about becoming the social networking giant's download store partner when it rolls out its highly anticipated joint venture with Universal, Warner Music and SonyBMG in September.

Here's another thing that helped. Amazon wouldn't have attracted many customers if it sold songs for 99 cents just like iTunes. So it cut its prices. Today, Amazon offers one-sixth of the 5.9 million tunes in its library - including the 100 most popular tracks - for 89 cents each. It sells some classic albums - like Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" - for as little as $1.98.


Disney announces 5 million movies sold via iTunes
During a conference call for the company's Q3 2008 results, Bob Iger, president of the Walt Disney Corporation, has announced that since agreeing to sell movies through the iTunes Store, the company has sold over five million titles. Iger insists however that the presence of Apple CEO Steve Jobs on the board of directors has not influenced any decisions on content distribution. "Some of our agreements were signed before the purchase of Pixar," says Iger.


You Too Can Listen to U2!
The ENTIRE U2 catalog is now available for purchase in the Rhapsody MP3 store. This is the first time the entire catalog is available in DRM-free MP3 format and Rhapsody MP3 has it because Bono and The Edge and... and...ya, they're cool like that.


Yahoo Music Refunds Can Be Rhapsody Credit
Users affected by the shutdown of Yahoo Music Unlimited will also have the option of receiving credits from Rhapsody, Yahoo! said Wednesday.


Buying Free Music
Nine Inch Nails' "The Slip" has been available as free download from the band's website since early May. But enough eMusic subscribers have downloaded a paid version (released last week) to push it to the #15 spot on the daily download chart. The album is also available as an mp3 download from Amazon.com (and there's a CD version with a bonus DVD), but it ranks considerably lower on the daily album download chart -- it's currently #80.UPDATE -- Coolfer notes that the album was near the top of the Amazon chart when it was priced at $5. The album is also available in the iTunes store for $9.90, though it's currently not among the top-100 albums.


Earnings: RealNetworks’s Q2 Revenues Up, In Losses; Music Revenues Increase Still Slow
…and a 1 percent increase in music revenue to $37.2 million (on music front Q208 is a decline from sequential Q108, where music revenues were $38.1 million). More on music: its total number of subscribers-- including Rhapsody, Rhapsody-to-Go, premium radio, and music-on-demand—are flat from Q108 and Q207, at 2.675 million.

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