Here’s an article from Slate about a proposed plan by Warner Music Group to fight piracy and in essence give the people what they want - freedom to download whatever they want, DRM free and share it all they want for a flat rate fee every month.
I actually like the idea to a point. I’ve been a Rhapsody subscriber for years and find great value in the subscription model. The underlying question I have in the Warner plan is if the music is freely shared all around the net, how do they account and pay to the artists who work so hard to produce the music in the first place.
Let me know what you think.
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The Music Industry’s Extortion Scheme by Reihan Salam
The record labels want you to pay a tax on music. It’s not as horrible as it sounds.
What would you do if a bully—let’s call him “Joey Giggles”—kept snatching your ice-cream cone? OK, now what if Joey Giggles then told you, “If you pay me five bucks a month, I’ll stop snatching your ice cream.” Depending on how much you hate getting beaten up, and how much you love ice-cream cones, you might decide that caving in is the way to go. This is what’s called a protection racket. It’s also potentially the new model for how we’ll buy and listen to music.
Let’s back up for a second. Four companies (Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony BMG, and EMI) control a staggering 90 percent of all record sales in the United States, and they’re hopping mad. CD sales are in free fall, and the recording industry’s revenues have shrunk from $15 billion to $10 billion in less than a decade. Instead of blaming themselves for failing to embrace the Internet soon enough, Big Music has pointed the finger at piracy, shaking down scofflaw MP3 downloaders with capricious, multimillion-dollar lawsuits. This has not strengthened the record companies’ position—at this point, they’re losing money and everybody hates them.
Now Big Music is mulling the Joey Giggles approach. Warner Music Group is trying to rally the rest of the industry behind a plan to charge Internet service providers $5 per customer per month, an amount that would be added to your Internet bill. In exchange, music lovers would get all the online tunes they want, meaning that anyone who spends more than $60 a year on music will come out way ahead. Download whatever you want and pay nothing! No more DRM! Swap files to your heart’s content—we promise, we won’t sue you (or snatch your ice-cream cone)! More
Four European Union (EU) nations have the best broadband deployment rates in the world. The Single Telecoms Market Progress Report has shown that Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden saw penetration rates in excess of 30 per cent at the end of last year. Along with the UK, Belgium, Luxembourg and France, these countries saw higher rates than the US in 2007, with some 19 million EU broadband lines added last year.
The vision of the digital living room has been around a long time. This is where the living room and Internet collide centered around a screen (namely the TV) and information, video, audio, games, and communications all converge. Over the years, attempts have been made to bring this vision to reality mostly with lukewarm results. Anyone remember WebTV?
At a recent gathering just outside of San Francisco, this vision was discussed. The talks centered around three main topics: 1) What will the interfaces to this digital living room look like? 2) When will this vision become a reality? And 3) How will the various parties, from cable operators and content providers to ad agencies, hardware manufacturers and even consumers make money in this new world? (more…)
Busta Rhymes posted a YouTube video giving his thoughts on the impact of digital music and the internet on his career, and he’s not best pleased. “We was able to go into these labels and secure $4 million album checks. That’’s not happening no more. The computer caused that.” He also gives his views on YouTube and ringtones during the vid.
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Surfing the net has become an obsession for many Americans with the majority of U.S. adults feeling they cannot go for a week without going online and one in three giving up friends and sex for the Web.
A survey asked 1,011 American adults how long they would feel OK without going on the Web, to which 15 percent said a just a day or less, 21 percent said a couple of days and another 19 percent said a few days.
Only a fifth of those who took part in an online survey conducted by advertising agency JWT between Sept 7 and 11 said they could go for a week.
“People told us how anxious, isolated and bored they felt when they are forced off line,” said Ann Mack, director of trend spotting at JWT, which conducted the survey to see how technology was changing people’s behavior.
“They felt disconnected from the world, from their friends and family,” she told Reuters.
The poll, released on Wednesday, found the use of cell phones and the Internet were becoming more and more an essential part of life with 48 percent of respondents agreeing they felt something important was missing without Internet access.
More than a quarter of respondents — or 28 percent — admitted spending less time socializing face-to-face with peers because of the amount of time they spend online.
It also found that 20 percent said they spend less time having sex because they are online.
Blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media. The term “blog” is a portmanteau of the words web and log (Web log). “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. In May 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 71 million blogs.
There are many blog popularity-ranking services on the web, but unfortunately, they all rely on only one piece of data for their rankings. Either link popularity, RSS feeds or some sort of traffic-ranking service. To get a more accurate measurement picture all data from multiple sources need to combine. The top 25 Most Popular Blogs are ranked by a combination of RSS Subscribers from FeedBurner, Inbound Links from Yahoo Site Explore (entire site not including internal pages), Alexa Rank, and Compete and Quantcast U.S. Unique Monthly visitor data. Blogs that are only a part of a non-Blog site are not included (i.e. Google Blogs).
According to Netpop I Play, a new report from Media-Screen, broadband users spend an hour and 40 minutes (48% of their spare time) online in a typical weekday, and more than half of that is spent accessing activities related to entertainment and communication.
Josh Crandall, managing director of Media-Screen, says “Many broadband consumers go online for entertainment, and to talk about entertainment with other fans. Marketers need to leverage that interest…”
Search engines and social networking sites are gaining in popularity, says the report, influencing an equal number of people as magazines and newspapers. 48% of younger users say they learn about new entertainment through community, review and video sharing sites and blogs. Only 25% say they learn about new entertainment through television.
Crandall goes on to say “Currently, the proportion of advertising resources devoted to the Internet (about seven percent according to ZenithOptimedia) is nominal relative to the value it generates… among fans… consumers, on a typical weekday, spend more than 40% of their time consuming media online…”
Two online media activities - sending email and visiting Web sites for personal reasons - are more popular than watching television, says the report:
Regular Media Related Activities(% of Respondents)
Online Media
Send Emails
90%
Visit Web sites for personal reasons
81
Play online casual games
52
Instant messaging
35
Listen to MP3s
28
Sent text messages
26
Listen to Internet/online radio
25
Offline Media
Watch Television
63%
Read magazines/newspapers
52
Watch videos/DVDs
52
Listen to AM/FM radio
48
Play video games
34
Watch pre-recorded TV
23
Watch video/movies on portable device
14
Source: Media-Screen and Netpop | Play 2006
And, the report find that roadbanders spend 27 percent of their overall time online, or about one hour and forty minutes, on leisure and entertainment
Allocation of Time Spent Online(% of respondents)
Liesure of Entertainment
27%
Communication
27
News or Information
19
Personal Productivity
15
Shopping
12
Source: Media-Screen and Netpop | Play 2006
Other topics covered in the Report include:
Online versus offline sources used to learn about bands, TV shows, movies, games and web sites
Community-based activities such as rate/review a product, publish a personal page, upload a video or audio file
Influence of user-generated sources and content
Fan-related activities
Entertainment content accessed online by psychographic group
Demographics of population and usage among gender, age and income
According to Leichtman Research Group, Inc., the nineteen largest cable and telephone providers in the US, representing about 94% of the market, acquired over 2.9 million net additional high-speed Internet subscribers in the first quarter of 2007. The top broadband providers now account for 56.2 million subscribers, with cable companies having over 30.7 million broadband subscribers, and telephone companies having over 25.4 million subscribers.
Additional broadband findings for the quarter include:
The top telephone companies added 1.49 million subscribers, 51% of the net broadband additions for the quarter
The top cable providers had a record tying quarter with about 1.45 million subscribers added
Telephone companies have added more broadband subscribers than cable providers in each of the last ten quarters, acquiring about 1.86 million more subscribers than cable over that time
The top cable broadband providers have a 55% share of the market, with a 5.3 million subscriber advantage over the telephone companies
Broadband Internet Snapshot(first quarter, 2007)
Broadband Internet
Subscribers at end of 1Q 2007
Net Adds in 1Q 2007
Cable Companies
Comcast
12,050,000
563,000
Time Warner
7,000,000
356,000
Cox
3,495,000
160,000
Charter
2,525,900
123,900
Cablevision
2,118,000
79,000
Insight
656,000
44,800
Mediacom
600,000
22,000
Cable One
308,089
19,079
RCN
280,000
5,000
Other major private cable companies
1,720,000
75,000
Total Top Cable
30,752,989
1,447,779
Telephone Companies
AT&T
12,855,000
690,000
Verizon
7,398,000
416,000
Qwest
2,305,000
167,000
Embarq
1,104,000
87,000
Windstream
710,000
53,868
Citizens
464,055
20,300
CenturyTel
413,000
44,000
Cincinnati Bell
208,000
9,700
Total Top Telephone Companies
25,457,055
1,487,868
Total Broadband
56,210,044
2,935,647
Sources: The Companies and Leichtman Research Group, Inc., May 2007
Other related findings from the first quarter of 2007 include:
The top cable companies added a record 1.1 million telephone subscribers
The top cable companies added over 1.2 million digital cable subscribers, the most net additions since the fourth quarter of 2002
The top cable companies added about 200,000 basic cable subscribers
The three largest telephone companies added over 150,000 wireline video subscribers, and added 335,000 video subscribers in DBS partnerships
Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, Inc. “The top cable companies now have over 30 million broadband subscribers, and about 10 million telephone subscribers, to complement their enhanced TV offerings.”
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China will not allow any more internet cafes to open this year, according to a government order obtained by the state news agency Xinhua. The notice, issued by 14 government authorities, also vows to crack down on gambling through online games. Xinhua said the new restrictions were part of a campaign to combat the rising problem of internet addiction. Internet cafes that have already been given approval must be completed by the end of June, the news agency reports. There are currently about 113,000 internet cafes and bars in China, according to the country’s Ministry of Information Industry. China has already banned minors from such cafes, and levies heavy fines on operators who flout these regulations. The number of people using the internet in China has grown by 30% over the last year, to 132 million, the state Internet Network Information Center announced in December.
With a plethora of consumer gadgets presented at CES, it’s dizzying. But the big question is what type of content will they deliver? Bambi Francisco interviews Daniel Ernst of Hudson Research who expects to hear content announcements at CES.
The iA Trend Map shows all the big players, the current Internet trends and how they’re connected. It’s totally unscientific and almost useless, but definitely fun to look at.
The earthquake off the coast of Taiwan was a reminder of the world’s increasing dependence on communications technology.
BANGKOK, Dec. 27 — It was a natural disaster for the digital age that radiated through much of Asia and beyond after an undersea earthquake late Tuesday off the coast of Taiwan. People awoke Wednesday to find themselves without e-mail or the Internet and, in some cases, without telephone connections, cut off from the rest of the world. MORE
Written By Robin Good in particular for those who like to understand and see new media and communication technologies in a broader perspective, this summary looks at the areas to which he devotes generally most coverage as well as at those that will be most important to those of you, who like him, want to utilize new media technologies to create new small business activities, want to voice their desire for change and want to create viable, passionate and sustainable alternatives to 9-5 traditional jobs.
Here, Robin Good lists for you 14 new media and web-related technology areas and what 2007 has in store for them.
Welcome to MaxxoMedia's Digital Media and Entertainment Trends site where the focus is on showcasing the people, companies, technologies, habits and research in consumer digital media trends - from mobile, VOD and IPTV to broadband, videogames and advertising and more.
China will not allow any more internet cafes to open this year, according to a government order obtained by the state news agency Xinhua. The notice, issued by 14 government authorities, also vows to crack down on gambling through online games. Xinhua said the new restrictions were part of a campaign to combat the rising problem of internet addiction. Internet cafes that have already been given approval must be completed by the end of June, the news agency reports. There are currently about 113,000 internet cafes and bars in China, according to the country’s Ministry of Information Industry. China has already banned minors from such cafes, and levies heavy fines on operators who flout these regulations. The number of people using the internet in China has grown by 30% over the last year, to 132 million, the state Internet Network Information Center announced in December.
