CES 2012 Music Bits: MySpace TV, Pandora & Jay Z + Duracell
In some music related announcements from CES 2012 so far… Twitter will be partnering with The Echo Nest, Gracenote and Rovi… MySpace is getting into the web TV business… Pandora announced new partnerships with Acura, Kia, Audiovox and Dish Network… And Jay Z is investing in Duracell and will be a spokesman for the new Duracell Powermat joint-venture.
Digital Round Up: New Music Economy, Steve Jobs Bio Reveals iTunes Dealings & more…
swimming upstream
An article on Rollingstone.com has been getting passed around this week, as magazine contributor and author of music biz treatise, Appetite for Self-Destruction, Steve Knopper, took a stab at outlining the “new economy” of music sales. Streaming-music services in particular are a hot topic recently among artists, record labels, music-tech start ups and those who observe and comment on all of their goings-on. Among the choice quotes from the piece includes one from Jeff Price, founder of TuneCore, who commented on the confusing nature of streaming royalty rates, saying “It is beyond complicated. It took me literally three months to understand this thing,” while MOG founder David Hyman chimed in on the record labels distribution of streaming royalties to artists, “Once they get that wad of money, how do they distribute it internally? I have no idea”… The biography of Steve Jobs and its contents has been another widely discussed subject recently, with various story lines that cross into the music industry sector as well, including the Jobs experiences dealing with major labels. A New York Post item today points to Apple’s iTunes negotiation with former Sony Music boss Andy Lack, as particularly difficult, with Lack asking for royalties on each iPod sold, and Jobs criticizing him for not understanding his own business. Meanwhile, other more obvious iTunes related revelations are made, such as the reason that The Beatles only recently appeared in the digital marketplace was due to ongoing and unresolved contractual issues between the group and EMI… Elsewhere, Twitter has made its first specialized music hiring, in former Disney Music Group marketing manager Tatiana Simonian… AOL SVP of business development Jared Grusd is reportedly heading to Spotify… In a surprising move, Coldplay has opted to not make their new album Mylo Xyloto (pronounced “@&*%^$”) available on streaming services like Spotify, Rdio, MOG, Rhapsody and others, in what could be seen as a stance similar to holdout artists whose material still isn’t available on iTunes and other digital retailers… And more clues about Google’s upcoming launch of a music store comes this week with evidence of an expanded Android mobile landing page for the new Google Music service.
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Indie labels Anti-, Sub Pop, Century Media, Daptone, SideOneDummy & more get behind TheNewRecord.com
Independent record labels have traditionally served as a kind of filter or barometer of new music for fans of the artists on their roster – a trusted source for discovering new music. That relationship is part of what inspired the creation of the TheNewRecord.com, a new digital music service created and launched by SideOneDummy Records co-founder Bill Armstrong along with 30 indie record labels including Anti-, Sub Pop, Kill Rock Stars, Century Media, Daptone Records, SideOneDummy and many others… The site acts as a digital newsstand of sorts, where users are offered a free filtered environment to play and download new songs weeks in advance of release. Membership is free, and users can stream and download unlimited free MP3s, use a built-in widget to embed songs or playlists, create and swap customizable playlists with other users, and share new finds over Facebook, Twitter, email, or other social networks. Using the “Follow” feature, TheNewRecord users will have new music delivered to them directly from the record labels or artists of their choice before release date, and they can also follow each other, filtering new music through their friend’s tastes. For more details and to sign-up go to TheNewRecord.com
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Amid Google Ad Expiration & Executive Exit, News Corp Unites MySpace and FAN
News Corp Integrates FAN with MySpace
As the clock was ticking on News Corp.’s $900 million ad-deal with Google, which was announced in August of 2006 and had MySpace as the primary revenue generator, many were wondering how the struggling social network would replace the significant loss when the deal expired this summer, and who would a new deal be with; Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Yahoo! Inc.? The answer has come this week, with News Corp.’s decision to integrate the team and technology from its own Fox Audience Network (FAN) with MySpace. FAN, already the monetization division for MySpace, IGN and various other News Corp. digital properties, also happened to lose its president Adam Bain this week to Twitter, who has hired the executive to act as the company’s new president of global revenue. The timing of Bain’s departure and the decision to unite FAN with MySpace rather than an outside ad partner, has many wondering what that spells for the social network as it is gearing up for a major relaunch this fall. Adding further curiosity, is that only a few months ago it was reported that FAN was on the block, which further fueled persistent rumors of an impending sale of MySpace…
**UPDATE: Bloomberg reports that MySpace is extending their ad deal with Google by one month. Read full article here
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In Case You Missed It: Reading Recap
Fortune’s Fool: Edgar Bronfman Jr., Warner Music and an Industry in Crisis hit the book shelves this week. Check out the 2-part interview on Wired.com with author Fred Goodman… The new “Facebook movie,” officially titled The Social Network, released a new trailer for the upcoming film that features an eerie background supplied by a choral rendition of Radiohead’s “Creep” – you won’t find the film being promoted on Facebook, but it is part of Twitter’s newly launched Promoted Tweets… Fear not, if the lack of news regarding Spotify in the last few weeks has got you worried, CEO says the service is “growing healthily,” and the U.S. launch of the service is still on track for this year… Elsewhere, the NY Times has a profile of Pitchfork and its growth from a small bedroom website to indie music dominance, getting 30-million page views a month… Live Nation Entertainment held a presentation this week for investors and analysts detailing the company’s plans for the future and addressing the highly scrutinized struggle of the concert business this year… And Peter Jenner, former manager of acts such as Pink Floyd and The Clash, shares his thoughts on the economics of digital music and the inevitability of file-sharing…
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Tuesday Bits & Pieces + Prince’s Plan to Save the Newspaper Industry
Prince's 20Ten Boosts Newspaper Sales & Floods File-Sharing Sites
With the free release of his new album 20Ten, bundled with various newspaper’s in the UK including The Daily Mirror and The Daily Record, Prince single-handedly rose sales to 334,000 from previous Saturday’s numbers of the former and boosted sales for the latter by 45,000… Oh, and the internet? Announced as deceased by the Purple One, setting off a flurry of commentary last week, 20Ten is making its rounds via file-sharing networks just fine… Hard L.A. festival scheduled for this weekend at Los Angeles State Historic Park featuring M.I.A., Die Antwoord, Sleigh Bells and others has been canceled due to security restrictions, though recent reports of very sluggish ticket-sales may be a more likely reason at this late date… Elsewhere, Susan Boyle is launching a talent search of her own… And will Twitter jump-the-shark and start allowing users to directly buy followers?
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Wednesday Bits & Pieces… Google Music, MTV Twitter Jockey, Limewire & OK Go
MTV looks for Twitter Jockey
Chatter is starting about a possible Google Music Store launch as early as this fall – if true could Apple be far behind… MTV has launched a campaign to find its own official Twitter Jockey… Reports have surfaced that AOL had sold its music service Bebo, though the media giant was quick to deny any sale… Limewire has a new legal music service in the works, but many wonder if the bridges are already burned… And OK GO has just released a new music video complete with a Facebook fan-contest…
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Meet Me in the Cloud: Rdio Launches
Twelve hours ago at the strike of midnight, the new digital music service from the founders of Kazaa and Skype was launched. Called Rdio, the service has deals with all the major labels and some indies, and is the latest to join an arena occupied by other similar services like MOG and mspot. It looks like they have tried to differentiate the site by creating a Twitter-like environment focused on music, in which users can follow what and who other users are listening to in real-time, along with other unique listening data and rankings. Right now the service is invite-only (ala Gmail), an indication that Rdio is in no hurry and intends to create a strong base built on serious music fans… This new service comes ahead of any announcement from juggernauts Apple or Google who many expect will soon unleash their own cloud music services. Meanwhile Spotify continues to be quiet on any U.S. launch, though there’s been recent speculation about one major label holdout in particular and that there is already a small segment of users in the states…
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In Case You Missed It: Reading Recap
Sold-Out Coachella Weekend Starts Today
Coachella starts today and the sold-out festival has many feeling optimistic about the upcoming summer festival season. In a New York Times piece this week, organizer Paul Tollett addressed the 3-day only passes, a first for the event, as a move to step-up to the level of Europe’s huge festivals, saying “I want to take the training wheels off”… An initial ad-based business model was announced by Twitter this week in the form of Promoted Tweets… UK songwriters association BASCA has cast more doubt publicly on Spotify’s ability to generate income for songwriters; makes call for more transparency from the start-up streaming service… Concord Music Group has acquired the Massachusetts-based Rounder Records, who recently celebrated their 40th anniversary… The most recent Apple patent includes details that are causing some to speculate on a possible future concert ticketing application called Concert Ticket… And questions are arising as to the future of the apparently stagnant Lala. With the acquisition by Apple last year, many expected the service to quickly become a key component in an anticipated cloud-based iTunes service…
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In Case You Missed It: Reading Recap
Twitter Announces Deals with Google & Microsoft
Three Letter Circus > It was reported on Sunday that Citigroup was “lining up” buyers (including WMG) for EMI in an attempt to pressure owner Terra Firma into selling the music company (Guardian)… However the next day a statement to the contrary was released by the bank claiming that they were not seeking buyers, implying they couldn’t do so being a debt holder not an equity owner (Reuters)…
Tweet Deal > Twitter’s seeming indifference to being labeled “profitable” ends with the micro-blogging service’s announcement of two content-search deals with Google and Microsoft (specifically Bing). The deals, worth a combined $25 million, will allow tweets to appear in both service’s search engine results (BW)…
It’s All Good > UK regulators approved the proposed merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, an about-face for the Competition Commission who previously expressed serious concerns over the deal (NYTimes)…
Freedom of Choice > Hulu makes further inroads in the music video arena by adding content from Warner Music Group, who is also the only major music group yet to make a deal with the label-backed video service Vevo. A similar arrangement between Hulu and EMI was announced last month (MediaMemo)…
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