Posted by Mark Levy | Posted in What's New | Posted on 01-02-2007
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By: Steve Myers (steve@thetamusic.com) Steve Myers is president and chief enthusiast of Theta Music Technologies, which specializes in the development of music-related software applications.
Over the past few years, I’ve often been asked if file sharing – especially music file sharing – is as widespread in Japan as in the US and Europe. My answer has generally been something along the lines of ‘it certainly exists here, but the number of people doing it is pretty small compared to most other countries.’ In just the past year, though, we’ve seen a sharp increase in action taken by Japanese record industry and copyright organizations to step up efforts against file sharing.
Posted by Mark Levy | Posted in What's New | Posted on 21-01-2007
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Steven Colbert explains the twists, turns and returns for ATT over the past 35 years.
Posted by Mark Levy | Posted in Statistics, What's New | Posted on 20-01-2007
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IFPI has released a report on the state of Digital Music in 2006. Digital sales now account for around 10% of the music market as record companies experiment and innovate with an array of business models and digital music products, involving hundreds of licensing partners. Get the whole report – 
Download Key Facts
- Digital music sales estimated to double to around US$2 billion in 2006
- Single track downloads estimated up 89% at 795 million
- Available tracks double to four million, via 500 online services in over 40 countries worldwide
- Portable music players help drive digital music consumption
- New revenue streams and business models emerge
- Lawsuits impact illegal file-sharing, but “gatekeeper” ISPs must act to curb digital piracy
Skype Launches IPTV — Calls it Joost
By: Priyanka Pradhan | Jan 17,2007
The much speculated IPTV service by Skype, previously codenamed ‘
The Venice Project ‘ is now officially out of the bag, as ‘
Joost’.
According to a recently published research from Telephia, over 23.5 million mobile subscribers in the U.S own a mobile phone with an integrated music player. Nearly 20 percent of the new mobile phones purchased throughout the third quarter of 2006 were music enabled, and this comes as no surprise, with all the mobile phone manufacturers including an MP3 player in their products, and customers starting to understand how easy and convenient it is to use a mobile phone, that one would normally carry around anyway, in order to listen to music. Although the vast majority of subscribers have reported loading music onto their phones via PC, only a few, a little over 8.5 percent, have actually downloaded music over the air from a wireless carrier music store.
Posted by Mark Levy | Posted in Cool Products, iPod, What's New | Posted on 11-01-2007
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From the cool to the oddball, there are gadgets galore at CES
Posted by Mark Levy | Posted in Cool Products, Mobile, What's New | Posted on 11-01-2007
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Capitalizing on the loophole that lets most mobile users out of unwanted contracts by transferring it to someone else, Cellswapper is a new online service allowing those who want to abandon their current plan by posting it for someone who wants a short-term plan. To facilitate the win-win exchange whereby neither party has to pay a fee for starting or canceling service, Cellswapper uses a Transfer Tracking system to keep users informed about the exchange and helps facilitate the legal transfer. Swappers are encouraged to offer a handset or a small cash incentive, which is one of many searchable criteria, including plan cost and features. For early adopters looking to ditch non-Cingular contracts in the wake of the recently announced iPhone and its multi-year exclusive deal with Cingular, Cellswapper is an expeditious solution.
I always find it interesting in the projections of new media revenue (like the story below) that no one talks about the fact that this isn’t additive revenue – the discretionary entertainment expense pie isn’t growing – the consumer isn’t spending more dollars. As exciting as it is to consider such incredible growth in digital media spending, one has to take into consideration that this will mean a reduction in the purchasing of CDs, less in theatre movie viewing, less premium cable subscriptions – you could also extend this to less spending in other semi-related areas including apparel, dining out and other discretionary expense products and services.
Out in beta – Hyper Comics has taken their Comic Book Creater software online and created a cool new place for aspiring and experienced comic book writers and illustrators to meet and showcase their work. HyperComics, from Planetwide Media is the interactive social network and industry resource where next-generation amateur and professional comic book creators can showcase their original comic books, discuss them with their peers and find an audience.
Answer Tones, Caller Tunes, Ringback Tones – all names for the same mobile content product which allows a consumer to customize the ‘ringing’ sound heard by someone calling them appears to be making strides. Brought to the US a couple of years ago after successful trials by Koran telecom heavyweight SKTelecom, US carriers had high hopes for the product. Requiring a massive in network integration, the systems cost millions of dollars to deploy. Content sales including music and celebrity voices and subscription service fees drive the revenue for the carrier. I expect consumer land-line Ringback deployments to make their way to market in 2007. Most likely ATT and/or Verizon given their consumer land-line and mobile offerings.
