snapshot 10/10/07

All I want for Christmas is my HDTV... and an Apple
A national survey of 1,200 consumers conducted by Solutions Research Group found that 3 out of 4 surveyed Americans wanted a new gadget this holiday season. The rankings went a little something like this:

1. HDTV (35%)
2. Windows-based notebook (20%)
3. Digital camera (17%)
4. Windows-based desktop computer
5. GPS car navigation
6. Cellphone
7. Digital video camera
8. Nintendo Wii
9. Sony PS3
10. HD DVD or Blu-ray player
    
    No iPod,iPhone or MP3 players?
    
    

Google & YouTube Turn On Money Stream For Music Videos
Google is extending it's AdSense platform to video and giving content creators and the web sites that carry them a piece of the action. The new platform runs small targeted ads on the player which for the first time enables labels, bands and video producers to monetize their creations via "channels" offered to web sites and blogs. Sites are encouraged to post the channels because they also receive a portion of the Google sold ad revenue.

MTV style videos, live clips, interviews and more can be produced for almost nothing for use as viral promotional tools. Now these videos can be easily monetized; which in turn will only encourage content creation.


AIM Tunes: Beta Clunkiness, Fewer Illegalities
Against that background, AOL has tossed an interesting sharing feature into its latest AIM 6.5 upgrade. The beta AIM Tunes allows users to stream the collections of friends by diving into faraway music folders. AIM Tunes definitely functions like a beta release, but most of the framework is bolted together properly. Early users will have to endure some timeouts and other snafus, though beta testers are usually understanding.

And many features are well-executed. The application quickly finds the music folder of a friend, and presents the contents in a clear manner. From there, users can pick-and-choose tracks and stream selections. Songs can be sampled one-by-one, or assembled into a playlist. Currently, threading a continuous playlist together within the AIM Tunes application remains a challenge, though a playlist file can easily be saved and accessed within Winamp, iTunes, or another media jukebox.


MySpace Platform To Launch Next Week
MySpace is gearing up to launch MySpace Platform, according to a number of third party developers who’ve been contacted for input on the product. While this has been rumored since June, this is the first indication that the service is preparing to actually launch. And we also have information that suggests that it will be announced next week at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco.

The new developer platform, like Facebook Platform which was announced in May, will essentially be a set of APIs and a new markup language that will allow third party developers to create applications that run within MySpace. Developers will be able to include Flash applets, iFrame elements and Javascript snippets in their applications, and access most of the core MySpace resources (profile information, friend list, activity history, etc.). Applications will need to be hosted on MySpace servers.


KDDI Boasts 150M LISMO Download Sales
KDDI, Japan's second-largest mobile operator, said that a total of 150 million songs had been downloaded via its LISMO Music Store download service as of Oct. 2. LISMO Music Store, which launched in November 2004 as a mobile-based download service under the brand name EZ Chaku-uta Full, features some 700,000 songs -- mostly Japanese pop -- and is available through 118 Web sites. In May 2006 KDDI became the first Japanese telecom to launch a Web site featuring full-length tracks and master ringtones that can be downloaded onto personal computers. Users can then transfer tracks to the mobile phones, saving on airtime charges.


Music industry finds new beat in online recommendations
Several websites have latched onto the concept of recommendations as a way to sell new music, with one — iLike — attracting more than 10 million users in just a few months. Clearly, radio is losing its influence," says Phil Leigh, an analyst at Inside Digital Media. "This is replacing it as a way to discover new music, because we tend to appreciate what our friends appreciate. If a friend recommends something, we'll pay more attention."


MP3tunes Pimps New Version Of LockerSync With TuneWatch
MP3tunes has announced TuneWatch, a new feature incorporated into their music storage and optimization software, LockerSync. TuneWatch automatically detects the addition of all new DRM-free music, whether purchased from Amazon, iTunes, Walmart or directly from an artist’s website like Radiohead, and adds it to the user’s online Music Locker. TuneWatch also instantly sees the new content from personally ripped CDs, immediately backing it up in the Music Locker for secure storage, but more importantly access from any computer connected to the Internet. After creating a Music Locker and launching LockerSync the first time, the consumer’s Locker will remain in sync with that user’s digital music additions.


Warner intros DVD with bundled portable video
Warner Home Video today used the DVD Forum conference in California to announce the the first DVD to explicitly provide multiple formatted versions of the same video on a single disc. The release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on December 11th will include both the full-size DVD video as well as separate copies for playback on computers and on portable media players. Doing so will let viewers officially transfer copies to their computers without having to discover and use a DVD ripper or else buy a separate copy at an online store. It should also future-proof the release for users who abandon dedicated DVD players, said Warner senior VP Jim Wuthrich.

snapshot 10/09/07

TiVo, Realnetworks in Rhapsody music deal
TiVo and RealNetworks are set to announce an agreement on Tuesday that will allow TiVo subscribers to listen to songs from the Rhapsody digital music service on their televisions, the companies said. F inancial terms were not disclosed. Both services require a monthly subscription fee of around $13 a month, but TiVo subscribers will receive a free one-month trial of Rhapsody.

Consumers using the service will be able to search for music directly on their TV, browse charts of Rhapsody's most popular artist or tunes, or listen to thousands of radio channels.


AT&T's Samsung SGH-a717: More Music, More Confusion
The music offering typifies the issue. A number of music services are offered on the deck, including ringtones, music subscription services, streaming satellite radio stations, and even an over-the-air (OTA) download play involving eMusic. The ringtone download process is fairly straightforward, yet more sophisticated features are a bit cumbersome.

An easy example comes from Napster and Yahoo Music Unlimited - competing subscription services that exist side-by-side on the SGH-a717. That approach might make sense if those services had strong respective positions among music fans. But both are rather niche - and that means that many users are being introduced to the concept for the first time on the AT&T third screen. Meanwhile, subscribers on both services can only bookmark downloads for later access on the PC, a somewhat limited experience.

eMusic, on the other hand, has tossed an interesting, OTA concept into the ring. The company is just toeing the mobile waters, and offering modest download packages. Surfing the mobile-based eMusic selection is also a bit painful, especially for those used to the more sophisticated, big-screen layout. Yet the mobile downloads are delivered nicely, and users can subsequently retrieve a PC-based version. A pack of five, mobile-based downloads can be purchased for $7.49.


First Radiohead...now Nine Inch Nails bids adieu to music label
Less than a month after publicly calling executives at his music label unprintable names, rocker Trent Reznor has signaled that his days of working for a record company are over. The only official member of the band Nine Inch Nails, Reznor announced Monday that the group is now a "free of any recording contract with any label." Representatives from Reznor's music label, Universal Music Group, were unavailable for comment.


Seeking Truly Mobile Music (requires subscription)
There's a flurry of activity around a common theme: making digital music truly mobile, instead of contained in music players that get topped up at desktop PCs. But what will be the effect of this newfound musical mobility? Could it mark a substantive change in the digital-music experience? Or will wireless buying and sharing remain mere offshoots of the familiar PC/MP3 player ecosystem?

"I still think the PC is the place where consumers want to have their digital library -- and it's certainly where they want to store and manage that library," says Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin, who ticks off a list of advantages PCs have over mobile devices: Their user interfaces are more convenient, they're harder to lose, and they're easier to back up.


(People Don't) Share Music With Friends (Album Mix)
-- The Live Disc Swap. Similar to the previous idea, release a full tour's worth of live CDs-- but only sell one disc per region. The people in Boston only get the CD from their show; same for Los Angeles, or Chicago. Then set up a Bit Torrent site where anyone who bought your CD can swap it with fans around the globe. Inevitably record stores will "import" the alternate versions, but that's not the point: $17 still gets you access to all the other discs, as long as you find someone else to share with. Add message boards where people can argue about the best performances of each track, and you've got a community.

-- "Anyone Have an Invite to...?" Speaking of Joost, you remember the last time you heard about some hip new website or gadget, and you had to give it a whirl-- but the only way to gain access was to find somebody else who could give you an invite? It worked for Joost, it worked for Gmail-- why didn't Radiohead try it with the online release of In Rainbows, starting with the folks on their mailing list? Believe me, I don't want to exclude the losers who are always last to get an invite to one of these things (like me).

- Help people play along, together. The remix sites that let people rework and share portions of a record are terrific-- at least, for the fans who have the time and chops to try a remix. But there's another, far more primitive idea: Why don't more singer-songwriter types ship CDs with the sheet music? Yes, it's old-fashioned. But people have been getting stoned by the campfire and strumming bad music for longer than they've been playing Halo. Why not sell them a reason to do it again?


Oasis, Jamiroquai to follow Radiohead
Now Jamiroquai and Oasis, two major names that are not contracted to a record labels, are rumoured to be considering following Radiohead by offering work for free, according to industry sources. Google say that searches for Radiohead have increased tenfold this week as fans log on to the band’s site, with the majority – according to the band’s spokesman – spurning the opportunity to download the album for as little as 45 pence and instead signing up for the £40 box set, which includes vinyl records, CD and artwork The Charlatans are also offering fans their next album completely for free if they visit the site of radio station XFM.

snapshot 10/08/07

Zune plays new tune with social networking
Microsoft's introduction of three new Zune media players, combined with an updated version of the Zune digital music service, suggests that the relatively lackluster response to the initial Zune offering has not fazed the computing giant from advancing its digital music agenda.

The key to what Microsoft is calling "Zune round two" is not so much the features of the new devices -- such as the touch pad and flash memory -- but rather the added social networking elements the company is integrating into the broader service, especially via a development that Microsoft is calling Zune Social.


Why the iPod can be conquered
Apple's hugely popular digital music player isn't as ubiquitous as most people think, which explains why rivals like Microsoft keep trying to dethrone it, writes Fortune's Richard Siklos.

According to Solutions Research Group (SRG), a research firm based in Toronto, Apple is on track to have shipped nearly 120 million iPods worldwide by the end of this year, and nearly half that amount - about 60 million - Americans own at least one of the devices. (Many iPod owners are repeat buyers.) Thus, while the iPod is by far the leading mobile music player, it's penetration of the U.S. population stands at around 20%, and it is lower overseas.

By comparison, according to SRG's Kaan Yigit, Motorola (Charts, Fortune 500) has just under 30 percent of the considerably larger mobile phone market - 230 million handsets - in the United States. And, of course, that's a lot lower penetration than Microsoft's domination of desktop computer operating systems. In short, the iPod's numbers mean that MP3 players have not achieved must-have status for most people.


Yahoo’s Ian Rogers To Music Industry: “Inconvenience Doesn’t Scale”
Yahoo! Music demonstrates this scale discrepancy perfectly…Yahoo! Music is the #1 Music site on the Web, with tens of millions of monthly visitors…But the ENTIRE subscription music market (including Rhapsody, Napster, and Yahoo!) is in the low millions…even after years of marketing by all three companies. When you compare the experiences on Yahoo! Music, the order of magnitude difference in opportunity shouldn’t be a surprise: Want radio? No problem. Click play, get radio. Want video? Awesome. Click play, get video. Want a track on-demand? Oh have we got a deal for you! If you’re on Windows XP or Vista, and you’re in North America, just download this 20MB application, go through these seven install screens, reboot your computer, go through these five setup screens, these six credit card screens, give us $160 dollars and POW! Now you can hear that song you wanted to hear…if you’re still with us. Yahoo! didn’t want to go through all these steps. The licensing dictated it. It’s a slippery slope from “a little control” to consumer unfriendliness and non-Web-scale products and services.



Starbucks’ iTunes Digital Releases and Plus 2 Cards
Even locations that haven’t yet gotten the free Wi-Fi Music Store access (which is to say, most of the chain’s stores) have started to sell iTunes Digital Releases and Starbucks Cards Plus Two, such as the ones shown above. The Digital Releases provide full album downloads—here, Eddie Vedder’s Into the Wild film soundtrack with four bonus tracks and a digital booklet, and KT Tunstall’s Drastic Fantastic—while the Starbucks cards are drink gift cards with two iTunes song downloads of your choice. Full details are in our earlier news story; I thought you might want to see how they actually look.


Terra Firma Chief Presses Digital Agenda, Urges Progressive Steps
Terra Firma chief executive and newfound EMI owner Guy Hands recently pushed a digital agenda to employees, and urged a shift away from traditional distribution and formats. Hands offered the agenda within a leaked memo, one that may have slipped on purpose. "Rather than embracing digitalization and the opportunities it brings for promotion of product and distribution through multiple channels, the industry has stuck its head in the sand," Hands wrote.

Instead, the financier urged a more progressive train of thought. Characterizing the Radiohead choose-your-price approach as a "wake-up call," Hands underscored the need to move away from the once-proud CD, and also suggested a shift towards a venture capital-style thinking. Instead of massive, upfront advances, Hands offered a strategy that involved the financing of specific albums and tours, in exchange for a piece of the profits.


Digital Content Marketplace Zipidee Set to Launch; Gets Funding
Zipidee, a San Francisco-based marketplace for digital content, is set to launch over the coming week, with unspecified venture backing from Individuals’ Venture Fund, Novus Ventures and Khalda Development, reports Red Herring. The site will allow third-parties to set up their own online stores, a la eBay (NSDQ: EBAY), to sell “long tail” digital content like music, videos, ringtones, e-books, and games. Zipidee will facilitate the transactions, while providing its own proprietary DRM system, should the vendor want that. Company founder and CEO Henry Wong is a veteran of AdECN, the online ad marketplace acquired by Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT).

Of course, Zipidee is far form the first company to tackle this market. A host of startups have been doing similar things for a few years now, but getting people to pay for this type of content has obviously proven to be difficult. Early players Digizaar.com and RedPaper have quietly disappeared. It’s not clear how Zipidee will separate itself from the pack.


Facebook and iTunes Teaming Up?
To fight off the evil empire that is MySpace, tiny entities Facebook and iTunes may be teaming up to bring a musical component to Facebook's offerings (while offering Apple another venue to sell their music).

According to the unconfirmed rumblings, Facebook is working on expanding their interface. Musical artists will now have special pages with integrated widgets for promoting band events. The upcoming iTunes widget will allow users to sample and even eventually buy music through Facebook (in support beyond the current iLike software). iPod owners who use Facebook will surely take glee in this new integration, but honestly, many of us avoid MySpace like the plague because it's full of a bunch of losers with crappy bands.

snapshot 10/05/07

Music industry wins song-download case
The recording industry has won a major fight in its effort to stop illegal music downloading with a U.S. jury decision to impose $222,000 damages against a Minnesota woman who used a Web service to share music. Although industry commentators are divided over what impact the case will have on stemming illegal downloads globally, the size of the damages is significant -- nearly 80 times higher than the average European settlement figure in such a case.

The jury in the civil case in the U.S. District Court of Minnesota on Thursday found Jammie Thomas infringed copyrighted song recordings, and awarded damages of $9,250 for each of the 24 recordings cited.


Don't want an iPod? Lots of choices available
The good news is that for those wanting to steer clear of the legion of white headphones, there are several solid alternatives, from names such as SanDisk Corp, Sony Corp, Creative Technology Ltd and Microsoft Corp. What is more, three out of four households still do not own a portable media player, studies show. That is why Apple rivals plan to take a bite out of the company's 70 percent market share


Black Friday ads already popping up online
"The Ace Hardware advertisement marks the earliest Black Friday advertisement ever released, nearly 10 full weeks before Black Friday," BFads wrote on its Web site. (http://www.bfads.net/)


Javien and Digonex Partnership to Enhance E-Commerce Capabilities for Music Industry
Javien Digital Payment Solutions, Inc., an e-commerce platform provider, and Digonex Technologies, a leading provider of price optimization technology for the digital media market, today announced that they have partnered to offer the digital music market and other content providers seamless integration between the two platforms.

Javien Digital Payment Solutions, Inc. delivers to content providers a total commerce solution for powering online and off-deck mobile sales of digital content and physical goods. Flexible, adaptable and scalable, Javien’s hosted platform powers sales for leading companies in entertainment, media and publishing including Ruckus Network, iMesh, Bearshare, SNOCAP, Azureus, Hungama Mobile and Forbes.com.


Sony BMG: “We Are Projecting Up To 40% Of US Sales Coming From Digital in 2008”
“2007 has been a difficult year”, said Thomas Hesse, President, Global Digital Business & U. S. Sales, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, who was the morning keynote. He mentioned that Sony BMG are at 30% digital sales in the US this year and projecting up to 40% next year. “Unfortunately it is less abroad and it is not enough to make up for the overall decline in sales”, he continued.


Softening Ringtone Raises Questions on Mobile Music
Mobile devices are supersaturated in many markets, and most consumers are inseparable from their phones. That has translated into huge wins on the data side, yet questions continue to surround the growth potential of mobile music formats. The sagging ringtone is drawing concern, and the future of concepts like OTA downloads remain uncertain.


Rumor: Facebook to take on iTunes?
AllFacebook blogger Nick O'Neill wrote on Friday that an "extremely reliable anonymous source" had told him that Facebook is working on an in-house rival to Apple's mighty iTunes Store. According to O'Neill, the company is in the process of looking for an executive to head this division--his source allegedly knew about the whole deal because of an acquaintance interviewing for the position--and is already meeting with record labels.


Is Subscription the Answer for Movies?
Leonard Kleinrock, sometimes referred to as “the Inventor of the Internet,” spoke recently at an MPAA workshop called “the Expanding Universe of Internet Entertainment.” In Leonard’s speech, he quoted Rick Rubin from a NY Times article, and Rick’s efforts to revive the music industry by pushing for a subscription music model. Leonard mused about whether subscription is potentially the panacea for digital movies as well. Subscription music does show promise, but it really hasn’t taken off with consumers. After several years, the leading subscription service, Rhapsody, claims to have 2.3 million subscribers (some say that's overstated). The new Napster, with its recent acquisition of AOL Music, reportedly has 830,000 subscribers. That's the bulk of the business, but 3 million subscribers represent a minescule fraction of the people consuming digital music.


The DigiMarket Place
Zipidee is the internet's largest marketplace for buying and selling digital goods online. Zipidee provides tools for sellers to market, distribute, and sell original digital goods: video, music, ebooks, ringtones and wallpapers.

snapshot 10/04/07

Britney Spears tops digital download chart
In the midst of a court fight for custody of her children, pop star Britney Spears topped the digital songs charts on Wednesday as her new single, "Gimme More," posted 179,000 U.S. downloads for its first week in release.

The first track from Spears' forthcoming album stole the top spot away from teen rapper Soulja Boy's megahit "Crank That," which had spent most of the past 12 weeks at No. 1 on Nielsen SoundScan's digital songs chart.


The Inevitable March of Recorded Music Towards Free
The economics of recorded music are fairly simple. Marginal production costs are zero: Like software, it doesn’t cost anything to produce another digital copy that is just as good as the original as soon as the first copy exists, and anyone can create those copies. Unless effective legal (copyright), technical (DRM) or other artificial impediments to production can be created, simple economic theory dictates that the price of music, like its marginal cost, must also fall to zero. The evidence is unmistakable already. In April 2007 the benchmark price for a DRM-free song was $1.29. Today it is $0.89, a drop of 31% in just six months.


Keeping your wallet safe from the digital music shakeout
It's a dirty little secret; Many DRM formats will simply die if their benefactor company stops paying the internet bill.Maybe we should explain; When you cough up a buck for a digital track, you aren't really buying anything, rather you're leasing that music for as long as the store manages to stay open, and to support that particular DRM format. If the store disappears, or your DRM format falls victim to obsolescence, you can say goodbye to all those tunes you paid for. Virgin is encouraging users to do something for which they often chastised customers before, burn those tracks to CD and then rip them back to mp3.


AimeStreet Beta's Fantasy Record Label
"Use your new favorite Amie Street tracks to build a Fantasy Record Label. The better your 5-song Fantasy Record Label performs, the more money you'll earn for mp3 downloads from AmieStreet.com. Try to get the highest score as you compete against your friends, and even see how you stack up against all of Facebook. Every song has a score that rises and falls depending on its popularity..."


Time Warner Cable Debuts MusicNet-based Digital Music Service
Time Warner Cable, the nation's second-largest provider behind Comcast, on Wednesday launched two digital music services for subscribers powered by MediaNet Digital's MusicNet and Synacor. The subscription service and download store Road Runner Music will offer unlimited access to more than 3 million songs, radio stations and music videos from MusicNet for $9.95 per month; for $5 more, the Road Runner Music Portable service allows porting to up to three devices. Synacor will provide billing and other back-end services.


Ad-Supported Experiments Elicit More Negativity
Ad-supported digital music concepts continue to bubble, yet the mood among music industry executives remains downbeat. During recent discussions at the Digital Music Forum in Los Angeles on Wednesday, deep questions continued to dog the emerging space.

A major concern surrounded the logistics of layering advertising into a form of entertainment that encourages multi-tasking. "People generally don't look at their screens when they listen to music, they are doing something else," said Albhy Galuten, vice president of Digital Media Technology Strategy at Sony Corp.


Ted Cohen: “Subscription Is Going To Win Over A La Carte Pricing”
At our recent Millennials NYC Conference, Dan Porter, VP of Corporate Development at Virgin USA, said that the only people buying music from iTunes are 35-45 year olds from Silicon Valley and there are not enough of them to make the music industry prosper again. When DMFW kicked off in Hollywood on Wednesday, the music music industry is gathered to share the latest developments about what is going on, besides iTunes, in the digital music space. “Subscription is going to win over a la carte purchasing”, said Ted Cohen, Managing Director, TAG Strategic in his introductory remarks. “The best defense against piracy is great label (approved) music services”, he continued.


Starbucks Rolls Broadened Music Strategy, Giveaways
Additionally, Starbucks is also positioning album download cards for sale, an easy stocking stuffer. Once purchased, the buyer - or gift recipient - can redeem the download on iTunes. That is part of a growing Apple partnership, one that also includes open WiFi access for iPhone-based iTunes purchases at select locations. The gratis wireless program also enables on-the-spot downloads of music currently playing in the store.


The AudioFile: Understanding MP3 compression
Since its standardization in 1991, MP3 has gone from being a little-known portion of a video file format to the kind of ubiquity that most brands can only dream of having. It's both widespread, with small players flying off the shelves, and controversial, dropping from the lips of politicians and advocates for all sides of the intellectual property debate.

But what is MP3? The usual explanations usually take one of two forms. The long version, available in technical papers, is written in jargon and filled with math. The short version, often used by newspapers and nontechnical periodicals, simply states that the process eliminates parts of sound not normally heard by the human ear. But this one-sentence description raises more questions than it answers for any reasonably tech-savvy reader: how does it find those unheard sounds, and how does it get rid of them? What's the difference between the different bit rates and quality levels? If you're anything like me, you've often wanted to know the mechanics of MP3, but not to the point of writing your own encoder.


As for Music, Gates’s Taste May Not Be Adventurous but His Strategies Are
In an interview here this week, Mr. Gates hinted at his strategies for taking potential customers from Apple and expressed bewilderment that the recording industry had failed to turn digital music into a big moneymaker. Mr. Gates said Microsoft’s music strategy focuses on selling songs without copy-restriction software — roughly a third of its overall library will not have the software, known as digital rights management, that limits music copying or sharing.


Apple Fairy: high-def AppleTV content coming soon
According to the Apple Fairy, close relative of the Fat Nano Fairy, there’s gonna be a pretty substantial update to iTunes sometime this month that’ll help to bring AppleTV back from the teetering edge of extinction. Apple has apparently placed a gargantuan order for more AppleTV units in anticipation for the upcoming “iTunes HD” or whatever it’ll be called.

The name aside, you’ll soon be able to purchase a selection of high-definition movies and television shows that’ll work on AppleTV.

Microsoft rolls out new Zunes
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071003/tc_nm/microsoft_zune_dc_2
http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/03/zune-vs-ipod-specification-smackdown/
Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) introduced on Tuesday three new models of its Zune digital media player that wirelessly and automatically update their music, photos and videos when placed near a user's computer. The new Zunes will come in 4-gigabyte, 8-gigabyte and 80-gigabyte models. All will come with a feature that allows a user to automatically sync media via a WiFi network from a PC to the Zune when its battery is charging.

The new devices, set to go on sale in mid-November, are equipped with a circular navigational pad that allows a user to both "flick" through options like on a touch screen or "click" through choices. The 4-GB model will go on sale at $149, the 8-GB Zune will cost $199 and the 80-GB model will sell for $249. Those prices are the same as similar-sized iPods.

Microsoft said it would add more than 1 million MP3 songs free of digital rights management onto Marketplace, declining to identify music labels it planned to work with on that.
The company completely redesigned software that runs on the Zune and linked PC to make it easier to navigate and search for new music. It also brought the player's design in-house, using contract manufacturer Flextronics International Ltd (FLEX.O) instead of Toshiba Corp (6502.T), which made the first Zune.

Crunchgear notes:

• The new Zune dock supports the following video out capabilities:
  -- Zune 80: Video out (component)
  -- Zune 30: Video out (composite)
  -- Zune 4 / 8: no video out from Zune dock.
• Wi-Fi is the same as the old models, 802.11 b/g.
• Battery life is still being tested and they’ll get back to us.
• Flash Zune has the same resolution as the big boy.
• Wireless syncing is automatically triggered when you’re within range of your network after a minute of activity as long as it’s connected to a power source. You also have the option to manually sync wirelessly without power.
• Syncing is wonderful, but it interrupts music playback.
• Screens are now glass instead of plastic.
• Zune Social will launch in beta.
• You can send songs through Zune Social, but only 30-second clips.
• Zune and software now support Windows Media lossless.

Download Squad notes:

• Podcasts and music videos are being added to the Zune Marketplace
• You no longer have to listen to shared music within three days. But you can still only listen to a shared track three times before it self-destructs.
• You can share videos and photos with other users, not just music
• Support for additional codecs including h.264 and MPEG-4
• Automatically import recorded TV shows from Windows MEdia Center
• Microsoft is launching a social network called Zune Social
• Microsoft is launching web widgets called Zune Cards that let other users see your music selections
• You can share music that someone else shared with you

Judge allows class action against Target Web site
A federal judge in California certified a class action lawsuit against Target Corp brought by plaintiffs claiming the discount retailer's Web site is inaccessible to the blind, according to court documents. Judge Marilyn Patel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California also rejected Target's motion for summary judgment in the case, according to the ruling filed October 2.


AOL Updates AIM, Adds Streaming Music
AOL pushed a significant interim update to its instant messaging client on Wednesday, adding several new features and giving people the option to stream music to one another.


Consumers bop to rhythm of online music videos; Sites providing instant access grow in popularity
Viewership of music videos moved from TV to the Web at such a fast pace that few saw it coming. Yahoo, the Web's top music destination, streams 240 million music videos monthly. MTV, which defined the young music video medium but now devotes nearly all of its airtime to non-music video fare, attracted 1 million viewers in prime-time viewing in August.

Videos used to be given to networks such as MTV to sell CDs. Now, labels charge for video usage. "It was clear that all of our content needed to be paid for," says Thomas Hesse, president of Sony BMG Music Entertainment's global digital business unit. "The times when we could make our content available for free so someone would buy the CD are over. We drive usage to the Internet sites, so we should be paid."

With 23.4 million visitors in August, Yahoo is the most-visited music site, followed by ArtistDirect, MySpace's music channel, AOL Music and MTV's music channels, including MTV.com, VH1.com and CMT, according to ComScore.

This summer, Yahoo began offering an application to post many of its videos onto pages of the wildly popular social-network site Facebook. It has since expanded this concept, via a test site, to post videos from Universal and Sony BMG onto personal websites or blogs.


Kindle Edition e-books appear on Amazon -- reader launch imminent
Here you go, the first honest to goodness proof that Amazon is prepped to launch their Kindle e-book reader. You know, that EV-DO packing device we extracted from the beige soiled bowels of the FCC filing last year. But seriously Amazon, $54 for an electronic book... are you kidding us? Anyway, the launch rumored for October 15th certainly looks imminent.


Wall Street turns deaf ear to Warner Music
As poorly as shares of major media conglomerates have fared this year, they’re all winners when compared to Warner Music Group (WMG). Shares of Warner Music Group, one of the four major record labels and the only one that is a pure-play, publicly traded music company, have plunged more than 53 percent so far in 2007.

The stock is now trading 37 percent lower than the $17 per share price at which the company went public in 2005. And with a market value of $1.6 billion, Warner Music is valued at nearly 40 percent below the $2.6 billion price tag that Edgar Bronfman, Jr. and a group of investors, including buyout firms Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners, paid to Time Warner (TWX) for the company in 2004. Time Warner also owns CNNMoney.com.


Zune DRM Free MP3's Will Not Contain Customer Info
Everyone seems to be buzzing about Microsoft adding 1 million DRM free MP3 to their upcoming revamped Zune software. What differs here from competitors is it is a 100% clean MP3; it does not contain any customer info like Apple has embedded in their DRM free AAC files.


Can eMusic Survive The New Amazon Store?
The major labels will never embrace eMusic. But if Amazon's payments, variable pricing and powerful brand are enough to entice the two remaining major labels to experiment with mp3's, an eMusic subscription becomes even less attractive. eMusic is stuck between raising prices and driving away subscribers or loosing key labels unhappy with a lower payouts. Amazon has changed the game and there is no clear way forward for eMusic.


Wanna know how long your white little MP3 player's life expectancy is based on model and usage? The iPod Death Clock will take an educated guess for you.

snapshot 10/02/07

Amazon Makes You Lie to Log Off
Are e-commerce websites making it harder and harder for users to log off? That's certainly a trend one reader has seen evidence of, including confirmation from Amazon that the best way to sign out from your account is to lie to them about who you are.


Sony launches next-gen eBook reader
Sony today launched its first major update to its Reader eBook handheld. The new device is the first to reflect Sony's newer, more open approach to media playback and now works as a simple USB mass storage device: users can copy books and create folders on the device by using their operating system rather than a custom software program. The Reader can optionally be set up to automatically sync with specified folders. Controls have also been improved for a more natural feel, Sony says; page turn buttons and other parts of the interface more closely resemble what users would expect.


A Split from CD Baby for Snocap
The CD Baby/Snocap agreement, where CD Baby distributed musicians could use the Snocap widget on a MySpace page, is ending.


Hollywood fretting over digital movie downloads and declining DVD prices
Several brick-and-mortar retailers are redefining the term "bargain basement" when it comes to DVD sales, although some question whether it's the wisest move. Both Target and Circuit City have begun advertising certain DVDs, which come from a variety of movie studios, at a new low price of $3.99 apiece—practically the equivalent to renting a movie. The move is meant to boost sales, but not everyone is happy about it, least of all Hollywood.

T he trend is growing, too. VideoBusiness points out that mass retailers are increasingly pricing DVD titles in the $3 to $4 range (0.8 percent of catalog sales were in this range as of 2007, as compared to 0.4 percent in 2005) as well as the even-more-popular $4 to $5 range (a whopping 4.6 percent of catalog sales in 2007, compared to 0.7 in 2005).

The movie studios, on the other hand, are just plain scared to jump headfirst into digital distribution and would rather milk physical sales as long as possible. Only Disney appears to have gone into digital distribution with open arms, which has been a successful venture thus far. But that hasn't stopped others from insisting on strict DRM in an attempt to control the user experience and sell more copies of movies. This strategy has so far failed.


CBS Radio, Clear Channel, Others, Agree To iTunes Tagging Feature On HD Broadcasts
Several major HD radio broadcasters have agreed to allow iTunes tagging, which lets listeners mark a preview of a song they hear on an HD receiver for purchasing. CBS Radio, Clear Channel, Cumulus, Cox, Entercom and Greater Media are currently in the process of installing iTunes Tagging technology on their HD broadcast systems. HD radio developer iBiquity Digital has been working for the past few months to secure the agreements among Apple and the broadcast groups. Last week, it signed a deal with Ford, which has promised to make HD radio available across all of its product lines. There are roughly 1,500 U.S. HD Radio stations are on the air and the system is now being tested in over a dozen countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, France and Hong Kong.


Music download trial starts in Minn.
he nation's largest record companies took their fight against illegal downloads to court for the first time Tuesday, targeting a Minnesota woman they say improperly shared nearly 2,000 songs online. Jennifer Pariser, head of litigation and antipiracy at Sony BMG, portrayed the federal copyright trial as a fight for survival.