blog – media business technology

A Digital News reader shared the story of his car getting robbed in the New York City area  - for change in the cup holder.

On the way out of the car, the thief dumped 200 CDs into the passenger seat.

“When a drug addict sees no value in a CD, how do you expect to sell it to someone who has access to the net?” the reader posed.  ”Time for a new model.”

News around Google’s music service continues to evolve, with Google now pitching record labels on a service that would include:

• a la carte downloads, plus
• a subscription service boasting a cloud-based locker, enabling consumers to access their song libraries via any connected device.

The music magazine Billboard reports the Google Music Store will operate much like rivals including iTunes and Amazon MP3, offering customers their choice between individual tracks and complete digital albums.
What is different is the locker option, at $25/year, allowing users to automatically transfer purchased content to a cloud-based account for streaming or downloads to authorized devices. Social media features like playlist sharing would also be included.

Google is planning to launch both a web-based music player and a mobile application. As well, Google is asking the music labels to give users the flexibility to check out a free full-length stream of any song on first listen, then a 30-second thereafter. The concept is similar to that of Lala.com, acquired by Apple late last year.

Sources indicate Google is negotiating an initial three-year licensing agreement across those territories where Google Music will launch. The proposal includes a 50/50 subscription revenue split with master rights holders, with music publishers receiving a 10.5 percent share – still to clarified is whether the publisher share comes off the top before sharing the remaining revenue.

1) Year over year americans have increased their time on social networking sites by 43 percent,  with use of email declining by 28 percent according to Nielsen. Some 40 percent of American’s on-line time is spent on:

• social networks (23%)
• online games (10%)
• e-mail (8%).

These categories increased from 37% a year earlier.

2) Internet users over 65 are adopting Facebook at a rate faster than any other age group – 6.5 million joined in May, three times higher than same period last year.
3) There will be an estimated ten million e-readers out there by the end of the year (up from four million a year ago).

4) Streaming music subscription services continue to be rolled out even though no one service has caught fire (the labels insist on doing subscriptions their way, not a consumer-friendly way)

5) Android is now the number two smart phone behind iPhone, with Blackberry slipping to third place.