News Archive for 06/04/03

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Google music service?

04/03, 6:45pm

Google nearing music service launch?

Google may be nearing the launch of its own version of the iTunes Music Store. A new research report says that late last week, Google met with a group of music industry executives. While it was described as a private event as merely for "networking," research firm Caris & Company suspects that Google is getting ready to launch an online music service, according to Forbes. "The music industry is broadly unhappy with the fixed pricing and lack of subscription options at the market-leading iTunes Music Store and likely to support alternative services," wrote the analyst in a recent report. Forbes notes that the company has recently told analysts that it has plans to expand revenue opportunities by entering into media downloads and localized ad-search. The research firm also noted that Google has expanded the availability of its experimental local AdWords to all customers in the U.S., Canada and Britain, which will allow targeting ads based on the user’s location when integrated with Google Maps. In addition, the report notes that Verizon has become an AdWords reseller, further enabling Google to expands its revenue base.

iPod users turn mobile

04/03, 4:00pm

iPod users lead cell phone media trend

iPod owners are more likely to listen to music on their mobile phones, according to a new survey. M:Metrics today released data from its February 2006 Benchmark survey that showed that owners of portable music devices -- especially owners of the Apple iPod -- are more than twice as likely than average mobile subscribers to use music and video applications on their mobile phone. In addition, owners of such devices, including Apple's popular iPod, express a willingness to pay for such services in the future. While just under 15 percent of mobile phone users own an iPod, they account for nearly 30 percent of those who reported listening to music on their mobile phones and 30 percent of those who watched video on their phone. Additionally, owners of portable music devices were almost three times more likely than the average mobile subscriber to transfer music from their computer to their mobile phone.

MovieLink VOD deal

04/03, 3:40pm

MovieLink VOD deal leaves Mac users out

Movielink today announced a major expansion of its broadband video-on-demand (VOD) service, enabling most users -- except Mac owners -- to buy movie downloads online in addition to renting them for 24 hours. Leaving Mac users out in the cold, Movielink said it has signed deals with major Hollywood studios to deliver movies from MGM, Paramount, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal and Warner Bros., allowing owners of Windows PCs to create their own permanent digital library of films, which can be viewed on up to three computers, transferred to a DVD (in Windows Media format) for backup, and streamed around the home via home networking. Universal Studios' Academy Award-winning 'Brokeback Mountain' is the first major title to be released on Movielink day-and-date with its DVD launch on April 4, 2006, with Sony Pictures' Fun with Dick and Jane, starring Jim Carrey, to follow a week later as the next day-and-date release. Pricing for purchased movies starts at $8.99.

iTunes vs free video?

04/03, 2:55pm

Free video with ads, iTunes to compete?

March Madness on Demand from CBS, which recently offered live video streams of games from the NCAA college basketball tournament, met with lavish success as users streamed the free content laced with ads onto their systems. The positive outcome is leading industry watchers to question whether consumers prefer free content with ads versus the more traditional pay-for-play strategy, such as the one employed by Apple's iTunes Music Store. iTunes charges $1.99 for music videos and shorts, and has met with unprecedented success in doing so. The CBS event resulted in over 1.3 million people signing up for the free service, who visited the site roughly five million times throughout the first three weeks of the NCAA tournament and viewed over 15 million live streams, according to CNNMoney.com.

iTunes Catalog 2

04/03, 2:25pm

Kavasoft releases iTunes Catalog 2

KavaSoft has released iTunes Catalog 2 for Mac OS X, a software solution that creates interactive web catalogs of your iTunes music library. It allows visitors to your website can browse your music collection, see the artwork for each album, and even play your music online. In addition, iTunes Catalog is also versatile artwork manager that can download artwork from Amazon.com and add it directly to your iTunes music, or even to your iPod. iTunes Catalog 2 creates web catalogs that look and work just like iTunes, but on the web. Your music collection can be browsed by genre, artist and album using the familiar iTunes column browser; it can also create web catalogs that look and work just like an iPod. Visitors can browse your music using the iPod interface, and even play music. Version 2 is a Universal application that requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later. The $25 application is available in English, French, German, Japanese, Italian and Dutch.

\"iPod-style\" player ad

04/03, 10:30am

"iPod-style" player ad in Canadian paper

A major Canadian newspaper has published an advertisement offering a free "iPod-style" player with the purchase of any computer system. MDG of Canada is touting the "iPod style personal audio & video player" with a 1.5-inch color display that can play compressed movies. The iPod clone can display e-books, play music, supports synchronized lyric display, offers an internal microphone recording function, and includes digital FM radio. The device also functions as a standard USB mass storage drive, includes a built-in lithium-ion battery, and powers off automatically. The ad shows a picture of the player, which looks remarkably similar to Apple's own iPod nano, but does not offer a brand name or storage capacity for the gadget. A MacNN reader wrote in to tell us that "I'm used to seeing these things from Korea, etc. but when they're advertised in major Canadian newspapers, I had to [do] a double-take..."

Apple vs. music labels

04/03, 8:30am

Apple, music labels still divided

Apple and the music labels are still divided over digital music pricing, pending upcoming negotiations over iTunes pricing later this year. A new report suggests that the lablels could pull their entire catalog from iTunes, if Apple CEO Steve Jobs takes the hard line on its one-price, $0.99 flat-fee for songs. The major music labels want to raise prices on popular songs and cut prices on less popular ones -- to match the pricing of CDs, although Jobs, who called the labels greedy last September, argues they already make more on sales of digital songs and any price increase could push consumers back toward piracy, although the labels deny such a charge. “After you cross that 99-cent psychological line with consumers, you’re going to hurt sales,” said Wayne Rosso, who headed the now-defunct Grokster file-swapping service and is currently working on a new service licensed by recording labels to sell downloads.