Jazz Odyssey

An interesting and essential read…

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Interesting editorial in Wired today speculating that Apple will develop a new line of inexpensive iPod shuffles pre-loaded with new albums, and/or artist catalogs and other artist-specific content. The article goes on to suggest that these iPods could become the new CD Sampler, with labels paying iTunes to include tracks from their developing artists.
This [...]

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Slashdot reports on a new article reinforcing the effiiciency of P2P as a content distribution mechansim…
“So how could additional P2P traffic actually be a good thing for the Internet? Carnegie Mellon’s Zhang points out that because peer-to-peer networks exploit both the downlink and uplink capacities of users’ Internet connections, they distribute content more efficiently than [...]

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Jon Pareles offers his take on user generated content in today’s New York Times:

It’s on Web sites like YouTube, MySpace, Dailymotion, PureVolume, GarageBand and Metacafe. It’s homemade art independently distributed and inventively promoted. It’s borrowed art that has been warped, wrecked, mocked and sometimes improved. It’s blogs and open-source software and collaborative wikis and personal [...]

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As a recording that has sold modestly, but in an array of forms, Akon’s music illustrates the new definition of a hit in pop music — instead of racking up sales of half a million CD’s or more in the first week, it arrives with solid if less impressive sales, but with several revenue streams.
Squeezing [...]

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According to Reuters, Microsoft will pay Universal for every Zune player sold. This is an interesting precedent….what will it mean for future label negotiations with Apple, as well as other music based hardware manufacturers (like cell phones for instance)? Read the full article here.

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So lets see…a site of enormous popularity with a credible brand, offering music for sale a la carte in unprotected MP3 format, catering largely to indy/unsigned artists and setting news sites ablaze as smoke rises from the metaphorical ears of the major labels? Ripping Rights Management Batman! It sounds just like MP3.com circa [...]

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CNET and others are reporting that YouTube and major labels are having conversations regarding the posting and archiving of music videos on the YouTube site. The business model would allow consumers to view videos for free while paying the labels a share of advertising revenue–the opportunity for YouTube, labels and advertisers is enormous if [...]

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Back in May of this year I posted a link to an article comparing various music recommendation engines, with Last.fm and Pandora coming out on top of the heap. Now, Steve Krause shares his thoughts on the differences between the different approaches taken by Pandora vs Last.fm and which works best. Steve [...]

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Music itself hasn’t gone out of favor – just the opposite. There has never been a better time to be an artist or a fan, and there has never been more music made or listened to. But the traditional model of marketing and selling music no longer works. The big players in the distribution system [...]

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ExtremeTech has published a roundup of 8 music recommendation sites/services, including:
* MusicStrands
* Liveplasma
* UpTo11.net
* Audiri
* Pandora
* Mercora
* Yahoo LAUNCHcast Radio
* Last.fm
They [...]

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The AP reports this morning that Warner Bros. will use BitTorrent as a distribution mechanism for movies and TV shows that can be purchased online. While they’re still not jumping in with both feet as the downloads aren’t playable on standard DVD players, it is an important step forward in thought process. Essentially, [...]

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Don’t miss Austan Goolsbee’s article in today’s New York Times about the recent approval of a bill that would require Apple to reveal software code that would allow music purchased at the iTunes music store to work on other digital music players–not solely on iPods.
The article has a distinct pro-Apple sensibility–Goolsbee argues:
If the French gave [...]

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Bridge Ratings & Research has been tracking radio listening behavior for years, and their most recent study shows that terrestrial radio’s audience is on the decline in a big way, with podcasting and MP3 players having an impact on radio listening time, particularly among younger listeners. According toBridge Ratings head honcho Dave Van [...]

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Starting in the late 90s, many of the annual digital music conventions such as Webnoize or Plug-in were filled with chatter about making the experience of consuming digital music “feel free” (an expression is generally credited to long-time digital music advocate Jim Griffin). This was an acknowledgement that music can’t actually BE free, but [...]

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It seems like video sharing websites like YouTube have mushroomed overnight, consuming bandwidth and productivity in offices and college campuses across the country. With a vast array of choices in this seemingly endless online marketing landscape and a giant vault of unrecouped music videos getting larger by the minute, what’s a music marketer to [...]

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In a very tentative step towards more widespread digital distribution of films, 6 of the major film studios announced that they will begin selling titles digitally through Movielink. Additionally, Sony and Lionsgate will make titles available through the CinemaNow service.
Hollywood has had a bit of time to watch the music industry struggle with the [...]

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There’s a good article in today’s San Mateo Daily Journal that offers a good summary of where things are between Steve Jobs and the major labels regarding the 99 cent price point for digital songs. The labels continue to make their case for variable pricing, with new and superstar music positioned at a higher [...]

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Apple has published a very cool guide to managing podcasts that covers a lot of cool features most podcast fans probably don’t even know about. Do you know how to subscribe to a podcast that isn’t located in the iTunes music store? How about how to export a list of all your iPod [...]

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CNNMoney.com has published the latest in a series of articles speculating that iTunes’ enormous marketshare in the digital music space is under siege due to:
1) Competing services forthcoming from Amazon and the MTV/Microsoft Urge partnership
2) All-in-one devices like cellphone/MP3 players that work with other music services
3) Apple’s refusal to embrace the subscription service model
Between all [...]

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