Technologizer

Pandora Will Live On, At a Price

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

With the music industry demanding ever-higher royalty rates for online radio, Pandora’s future has been in jeopardy for some time, but now it seems a workable deal has been struck. The station is “finally on safe ground with a long-term agreement for survivable royalty rates,” Pandora CTO Tom Conrad told TechCrunch today. SoundExchange, which collects royalties for [...]

NPD: Twitterers Buy More Music

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

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To all those dismissals of Twitter as a worthless Web site, the music industry might beg to differ. A new study by The NPD Group found that Twitterers purchase 77 percent more digital music downloads than other Web users. Put another way by NPD analyst Russ Crupnik, “Twitter users are simply worth more to record labels [...]

Does Piracy Make Music Better?

Friday, June 12, 2009

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Sometimes roundabout logic does makes sense. A BBC feature article published today is arguing that illegal file sharing has exposed a generation of artists to a infinity of influences that makes today’s bands better, strengthening the music business. Robin Pecknold, who is the lead singer of the band “Fleet Foxes,” told the BBC that file sharing [...]

The Next Online Music Revolution Is … CDs?

Thursday, May 21, 2009

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For $31 per year (Update: see the breakdown below), musicians both unknown and legendary will soon be able to get their CDs printed and sold through Amazon, no questions asked. Following in the footsteps of CDBaby, but with a crucial difference, TuneCore and Amazon will launch an on-demand CD printing service, Wired’s Eliot Van Buskirk reports. [...]

Buying a CD? How About a Side of Carbon Offsets?

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

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If you’re among the steadily shrinking group of consumers that purchases music CDs, you probably don’t think much about the materials used in packaging, but like any piece of plastic or paperboard, there’s a bit of environmental destruction involved in its production. Setting out to tackle this problem with a study of sustainable CD packaging, the [...]

Trent Reznor Dissed, Parental App Guard Needed

Monday, May 4, 2009

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For as little as we know about Apple’s approval process for iPhone apps, I kind of expected the nin:access program — which allows fans of the band Nine Inch Nails to enjoy streaming music and other perks — to pass with flying colors. Apparently I was wrong, as the latest update to the application was [...]

Yahoo Music Gets Friendly With YouTube, iTunes, Others

Monday, April 6, 2009

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Tomorrow, Yahoo will embrace all sorts of third-party widgets at its Yahoo Music pages, allowing visitors to create their own layouts of videos, listening stations and online stores. The relaunched Yahoo Music intends to become a “starting point for music fans,” according to the press release. The logic goes that curiosity or love for a recording [...]

MySpace Music Reinventing Itself After Foul-ups

Friday, April 3, 2009

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Wired has an interesting feature on MySpace Music, which was supposed to be a boon for the music industry when it launched a half year ago. Free streaming music from all four major record labels and support for playlists seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately, the service had some serious usability issues, such as limits on [...]

First Blog From Major Record Label Emerges. Seriously.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

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The music industry is notoriously slow on the Internet uptake. To drive that point home even further, EMI Australia’s new blog, “The In Sound From Way Out,” is apparently the first ever from a major record label. It’s appropriate, then, that the title is borrowed from a 13 year-old Beastie Boys album. Posts began unceremoniously in [...]

Please, World, Like Subscription Music, Won’t You?

Friday, February 6, 2009

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Over at CNet, Greg Sandoval has a good story up on subscription music services such as the one that Microsoft offers for its Zune devices. They were supposed to be a big deal, but the idea never spawned any breakout hits. Yahoo and others exited the business, Rhapsody and Napster are niche successes at best, [...]

Zune’s Swoon–Doom Soon?

Friday, January 23, 2009

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Podcasting News’s Elisabeth Lewin notes an interesting tidbit in Microsoft’s Form 10-Q SEC filing: Microsoft says that its Zune-related revenue “decreased by $100 or 54% reflecting a decrease in device sales.” The 10-Q doesn’t seem to say how many Zunes Microsoft sold, and the company has slashed prices. So it’s a little tough to tell whether [...]

iTunes Goes DRM-Free, Gets More Expensive…and Gets Cheaper?

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

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It might or might be announced this morning at Macworld Expo, but it seems inevitable: CNET is reporting that Apple has hammered out a deal to sell DRM-free music from Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner, joining EMI’s iTunes Plus DRM-less music in the iTunes Store. The agreement would finally give Apple DRM-free music from all [...]

Digital Music Continues to Take Off

Friday, January 2, 2009

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One has to wonder if RIAA’s decision to stop suing file sharers may have anything to do with the fact that digital music is quickly becoming the format of choice among consumers. A survey released by Nielsen indicates that digital music continues to become a larger portion of the overall music pie. A record number of [...]

iPods? How About iFrauds?

Monday, December 22, 2008

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Last week, for reasons too complicated to explain here, I wandered into a “liquidation sale” near my home. I didn’t find what I was looking for. But I encountered a bevy of bizarre music players that tried, with varying levels of energy and success, to look like Apple iPods. I snapped photos, and bought a [...]

iFrauds: The Fakest iPods Ever!

Monday, December 22, 2008

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Last week, I went to a “liquidation sale” in San Francisco. Along with the alarming 64-ounce bottles of perfume, leather jackets made from the skins of unspecified animals, and Shamwows, the show’s dealers offered music players. Ones that shamelessly rip off the iPod. Scads of them. I took crummy pictures with my iPhone–and, I’m ashamed [...]

Wake Up, World! Amazon’s MP3 Store Deserves Better. Doesn’t It?

Monday, December 15, 2008

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Over at All Things Digital, Peter Kafka is saying that Amazon.com’s DRM-free MP3 download store is a “miserable failure” as an iTunes Store rival at the end of its first year of operation. Judged in terms of market share, dollars, and cents, it’s hard to argue that it’s anything else: Kafka says that Amazon appears [...]