MaxxoMedia Digital Media and Entertainment Trends

By Mark Levy CEO of MaxxoMedia

18 months ago two friends had a conversation about how technology has been changing the landscape of the music business.They agreed that companies like Pandora, Amazon and iTunes were changing how people experienced artist recordings. But, they were concerned that a very important part of the music business was not being addressed – the live performance. They talked about how no one was really focusing on this aspect of the business. So it was decided they would.

What makes this conversation interesting is that it took place between Danny Socolof, a 25 year veteran of the music industry and Jeff Henshaw, a founding member of Microsoft’s XBOX team.

Socolof is a pioneer in pairing brands and music with The Who, Led Zeppelin and well known brands like Pepsi and Apple’s iTunes. He has been responsible for some of the most memorable live performances in the past quarter century including Woodstock ’98. Henshaw was with Microsoft for 18 years and last lead efforts to bring new entertainment experiences to the XBOX.

By Mark Levy CEO of MaxxoMedia

The web has forever changed the way people experience music. Here are a few sites I found this week that are cleverly combining elements of social networks, games and artificial intelligence, enabling people to discover and share music like never before.

Music Discovery Game

www.thesixtyone.com is a music discovery game that rewards those who help others listen to good new music. The name of the site pays homage to US Highway 61. According to the founders, “Muddy Waters rode the 61. So did Bob Dylan, Ike Turner and B.B. King. Elvis grew up in the housing projects along it. Highway 61 was the road by which people left to find better opportunities. And by leaving, they took their music to the world.”

From DMWMEDIA.COM 

Recording artist Moby this week launched a website that will offer his music for free licensing to independent and student filmmakers to use in their noncommercial works, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The MobyGratis.com site currently features about 70 pieces of music. “I was a philosophy major and I had a minor in film,” Moby told THR. “Ever since then, I’ve had a lot of friends in the world of independent and non-profit film production. Their recurring complaint is that it’s really difficult to license music for movies that have no budgets, so I thought I would start this Web site which very simply provides free music to non-profit indie films.” Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/1var8 (Hollywood Reporter)

http://www.mobygratis.com

Mashable: June 22, 2007 — 04:40 AM PDT — by Livia Iacolare

Internet radio may be facing uncertain times, but many musical social networks continue to thrive. If you’re in a band, these sites are essential for promoting your music: take note, and sign up for as many as possible to maximize your reach. For fans, meanwhile, we’ve included some great places to just listen to music. We won’t mention the obvious one, of course: MySpace remains the hub for music on the web.

by Kelli Richards

PassAlong Networks, offers a very robust platform for independent artists called Speakerheart. PassAlong is all about creating new digital media services that empower the connection between artists and their fans. While the major labels are working to figure out what comes next in their evolution, there’s a massive, thriving independent music market. PassAlong figured out that this burgeoning indie music community needed a highly effective, easy-to-use method of enabling online commerce for artists through a system enabling direct transactions between fans and artists.

Bridging the divide between digital and physical, DiscRevolt provides a tangible solution for selling digital media. Artists upload songs to DiscRevolt’s website and design their own artwork for a plastic download card. The cards are then printed by DiscRevolt with a unique redemption code on the back. Artists sell the cards to fans at live shows, and the fans can then download songs or albums from the artist’s online page.

Many independent artists make most of their revenue at merchandise tables after they play a live show. Audiences connect with a band or song, and are most likely to pay for music during the post-gig buzz. As bands are moving from CDs to digital downloads, they need something to hook potential customers when they can, instead of asking them to download later. Which is a challenge DiscRevolt aims to solve. The start-up describes its download cards as a cross between a gift card, a backstage pass and a baseball trading card. They’re designed to be collectible items, attachable to lanyards or backpacks or rear-view mirrors. The fact that artists design their own artwork, and often make cards in limited runs, adds to the appeal.

Pricing is set at 500 cards for USD 250. Each card gives fans access to 15 credits worth of the artist’s material on discrevolt.com. Artists set their own prices, but DiscRevolt recommends USD 5 per card, which brings the price per song to 33 cents for buyers, and gives artists a 90% profit margin. Since artists buy the cards upfront, profits are received as soon the cards are sold. Which can be useful while bootstrapping a tour. It also provides a user-friendly download avenue for bands that haven’t yet made it to the front page of the iTunes Music Store.

Ever since the first ringtone sites began appearing on NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode menu back in 1999, most mobile music content providers in Japan have pushed to have their services appear on the ‘main menu’ of the wireless carriers. This approach has become known as the ‘official service’ model, and works something like this:

1. Content providers (CPs) first submit an ‘official service’ proposal to a wireless carrier.
2. If accepted, the CP’s service is listed on the carrier’s ‘official’ portal menu.
3. The CP charges customers a monthly subscription fee (typically around US$2.50) to use the service – for example $2.50/month to download 3 mastertones.
4. The carrier takes 9% of the total sales, with the rest going to the CP.

This ‘closed garden’ model has been widely criticized for putting too much power in the hands of the wireless carrier.

However, it has still been attractive to CPs because of the enormous traffic that comes from the carrier’s menu, as well as the convenience of having customer billing handled by the carrier.

For the past seven years, CPs have flooded Japan’s three major wireless carriers with thick, 150-page proposals, in the hopes of getting their ringtone, mastertone, or other content listed on the menu. Despite the high barrier of entry and heavy restrictions, this method has until recently been the preferred way to operate a mobile music service in Japan.

An Open Letter to Steve Jobs and Mitch Bainwol prompted by their recent statements regarding the role of DRM.

Posted by Bennett Lincoff

Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple Inc.) says that Digital Rights Management (DRM) cannot effectively protect recorded music when it is transmitted digitally. He is right. The music industry’s many experiments with DRM have all met with effective technological countermeasures.   Moreover, news of each successful hack quickly found its way to everyone who cared. There is no reason to believe that the results will be different next time, or ever. For his part, Mitch Bainwol (Chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America – RIAA) insists that DRM is essential to the music industry’s survival in the digital age. The problem is that the Internet is fundamentally incompatible with the music industry’s traditional sales-based revenue model. Through the Internet, the market for sale of individual recordings can be saturated in a moment’s time and without payment of any royalties to songwriters, music publishers, recording artists or record labels. Neither law, nor technology, nor moral suasion will change this fact.

Mr. Jobs suggests, and I agree, that DRM should be abandoned as a tool for the protection of recorded music. However, before Mr. Jobs can implement his DRM-free utopia, the music industry must have a viable alternative business model by which it can continue to thrive. Mr. Jobs has not suggested one. Mr. Bainwol denies that one is needed; intending, instead, to continue efforts to preserve the industry’s sales-based revenue model. In any event, in the absence of an alternative business model suited for digital transmissions of recorded music, Mr. Bainwol cannot even begin to discuss the possible elimination of DRM.

Mine is a comprehensive approach to rights licensing and rights management that does not depend on the efficacy of exclusionary DRM technology for its success. A solution that simultaneously protects the integrity of copyright, promotes technological innovation, facilitates the growth of all manner of licensed digital audio services (including P2P), and meets consumer demand. In the aggregate, music industry rights holders would do no less well financially under my proposal than they do now under the system that my proposal would replace.

Cupertino, Calif. – Apple CEO Steve Jobs fired a direct shot at the record industry on Tuesday, in the form of an open letter posted to the company’s website that suggests that labels should abandon digital rights management (DRM) technology and release songs for sale in an unprotected format that can play on any device.

“Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats,” Jobs wrote.

“In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat.”

I’m pleased to announce my addition to the advisory board of UrbanWorld Wireless and excited to work with them as they expand their business from mobile to a full fledged digital media company.

Company Unveils Newly Inducted Advisory Board – A Who’s Who of Entertainment and Technology and New Digital Entertainment StrategyLOS ANGELES, Feb. 6 /PRNewswire/ — UrbanWorld Wireless announces today its transition from the wireless world into the digital arena. Additionally, the company unveils its “Fab Five” Advisory Board team that will work hand in hand with the company in executing the new shift in strategy. The newly appointed advisory board is comprised of:

* Mark Levy, CEO and founder, Maxxomedia, a digital media consultancy and licensing agency — over 20 years experience in the media, entertainment and technology industries.

* Keith Clinkscales, SVP/General Manager of ESPN Publishing — oversees all operations of the award winning magazine both domestically and internationally. Has successfully headed multiple magazines titles.

* LaSean Smith, senior product manager, Motorola — known as a digital music pioneer, credited with helping design and develop one of the first successful digital media distribution platforms.

* Daymond John, CEO and founder, FUBU — built the multimillion dollar international apparel brand from the ground up. His honors include “50 Most Influential Men” and “Top Forty Under Forty” and others.

* Jon Bukosky, Managing Partner, BFD/ventures — over 18 years experience in the mobile/digital media market and has served as a former senior executive of 4 mobile entertainment companies.

SPRINGWISE.COM

Amie Street aims to make it easy and affordable for consumers to discover new independent music. What makes it unique? Every song sold at the ‘fly little music site’ starts off being free, and the price increases to a maximum of USD 0.98 depending on how many people download it. The more popular a song, the faster its price will increase to 98 cents. Besides giving early buyers a better deal, the market price system gives them the added pleasure of seeing they’ve discovered a song or artist before everyone else has.

Members are also rewarded for recommending music. As explained by Amie Street: “We know music is social, and the process of music discovery is stunted by traditional digital music retail sites because they are not social (or fun). Music discovery is best catalyzed by communication between people, so we reward fans for recommending songs to their friends by giving them credit to buy more music.” If a member reviews or otherwise recommends a song, they’re credited with the song’s price increase. So, if you recommend a song while it’s priced at 10 cents, and the price goes up to 90 cents, you earn 80 cents worth of credits. Promotion isn’t left solely to the community, though. Amie Street does its part, from interviewing bands and posting their videos, to organizing showcase concerts in New York.

Digital music sales are jumping.
New reports from two major research sources indicate that worldwide digital music sales are continuing to climb.

Nielsen SoundScan captured more than 675 million digital track sales worldwide in 2006, with nearly 600 million digital track sales in North America alone, up from 359 million in 2005.

The IFPI “Digital Music Report 2007″ estimates that worldwide digital music sales revenues doubled in 2006 to around $2 billion.