Though plastic sales may be waning, value may remain in ascribing physical characteristics to virtual content. But do “digital album signing” and “second-hand MP3s” add up to real innovation?
iLike was once the most popular music application of Facebook, with close to 10 million active users generating 1.5 billion page views per month. On Tuesday, it finally shut down. Its demise proves once again that online music is a tough business to be in.
Personalized algorithms and social recommendations are great for a lot of things. But when it comes to getting news, these technologies can create an echo chamber, where our existing beliefs are reflected back to us. Uberpaper, a new site from Dmitry Shapiro, wants to combat that.
As Turntable.fm has shown, a new era of social music may be upon us, one that is less about scaling wide, but more about going deep. The third era of social music is about immersion as sites add more immediacy and intimacy to the experience.
MySpace has begun rolling out 30-second audio ads, as the News Corp (NYSE: NWS). site continues its shift from a general social network to a…
It’s taken more than a year since the Septemeber ’08 US launch, but MySpace Music is finally live in the UK and with the same features alrea…
As this is being written, negotiations between MySpace Music and social music startup Imeem are still underway with issues including how muc…
Speculation arose this past week that News Corp.-owned (s NWS) MySpace Music is considering moving to a paid model, as the cost of free streaming is making its current model unsustainable. News Corp. digital chief Jon Miller expressed some interest in such a move in an onstage interview conducted by paidContent’s Rafat Ali in Monaco on Thursday, noting that he believes in the “freemium” music model conceptually, even if a practical and sustainable version hasn’t appeared yet. Read More about Would Anyone Pay for MySpace Music?
Twitter is a remarkably flexible application -– an efficient news service, a way to keep up with friends, a replacement for RSS feeds, a resource for links worth sharing, a broadcast medium and two-way method of social interaction (if not quite a social network). But I’m not sold on Twitter as a music discovery engine, despite a recent proliferation of ways to push music into a Twitter feed. Simply put, Twitter and music discovery happen at two different speeds, and music discovery works better elsewhere. Read More about Does Twitter Work As a Music Discovery Engine, Too?
It’s been a busy September for the digital music business. Steve Jobs reappeared onstage to introduce the iTunes LP format and a series of new iPods. Anticipation grew around European streaming music service Spotify, which is due to arrive on U.S. shores in the coming months. And a series of mobile music applications that compete indirectly with the iPod were approved by the very company that makes the device. So it seems like a good time to assess the chances these key music models that have received so much attention and investment have of surviving. Read More about Time for Digital Music to Get a Reality Check
