Is SpiralFrog an end run around royalty payments? - The Digital Music Weblog

Link: Is SpiralFrog an end run around royalty payments? - The Digital Music Weblog.

Nice debate!

I join the jury for the 2006 FT Communications Awards

I was just invited to join the jury for the 2006 Financial Times Communications Awards, to be held in London on the 21st and 22nd of November 2006.  More details are here. This should be a very interesting event from what I can tell.  If your company is interested in being considered for the award here is the application form 

 

The Financial Times is pleased to announce the FT World Communications Awards - a prestigious awards ceremony that focuses specifically on individual and organisation achievements within the communications market place.

 

The results will be presented on Tuesday 21 November 2006 during a Gala Reception and Dinner to be held at the Dorchester in London.

 

Award Categories



Techcrunch � Blog Archive � Universal to try ad driven music downloads through SpiralFrog - still with DRM

Link: Techcrunch � Blog Archive � Universal to try ad driven music downloads through SpiralFrog - still with DRM.

Online developments - a photoset on Flickr

Link: Online developments - a photoset on Flickr.

Great set of illustrations and comments on Internet and Media

Press Release: Ambient/Electronica Artist Now Streaming and Selling Music via Sonific - Music/Movie/Concert | NewswireToday

Link: Press Release: Ambient/Electronica Artist Now Streaming and Selling Music via Sonific - Music/Movie/Concert | NewswireToday.

Ambient and Electronica artist and podcaster Mark Rushton was selected to be a Sonific beta-tester because his CDs are currently available through CDBaby and pay-downloads can be purchased via iTunes.

Visitors to the 'Sonified' sites like music.markrushton.com and markrushton.blogspot.com are able to listen to, but not download, music from Rushton's album releases that are available through CDBaby and iTunes through an attractive and stylish player that's embedded in a web page.

Once a listener clicks through the picture of the album cover or the section called "Find Out More About This Song", they are presented with a "Sonific Gateway" that gives information about the album and the ability to buy it or find out more information at CDBaby or iTunes.

"All I have to do is send along a few lines of code to get my music embedded on somebody else's website or blog," says Rushton. "It's an excellent marketing tool for independent musicians."

A good friend and amazing fingerstyle guitar player: Ulli Boegershausen

Check him out

jkOnTheRun: Gmail adds .mp3 playback. GoogleMusic... soon?

Link: jkOnTheRun: Gmail adds .mp3 playback.

ehem.... google >> Music >> streaming >> downloading. Soon IMHO.

Wired 14.09: No Suit Required Nettwork Records Feature

Wired 14.09: No Suit Required.

Go Terry go!!

Interview: Gerd Leonard of Sonific - The Digital Music Weblog

Link: Interview: Gerd Leonard of Sonific - The Digital Music Weblog.

Marketing Pop Culture: PODCAST: Gerd Leonhard on why attention--not content--is king

Link: Marketing Pop Culture: PODCAST: Gerd Leonhard on why attention--not content--is king.

PODCAST: Gerd Leonhard on why attention--not content--is king

Gerd Leonhard is a noted media futurist and co-author with Dave Kusek of “The Future of Music”. Gerdleonhard300dpilores_1 With all of the ongoing news about it, it’s clear that the music business will require a fundamental paradigm shift in order to better sync with the realities of the digital age. “The Future of Music,” written in 2005, suggests a possible path to take and, we now see, one that the industry and intellectual property laws have started to explore. Listen as Gerd talks about why he believes that the path to profitability for the industry lies in thinking of music as a service, rather than individual pieces of content.

Marketing Pop Culture: PODCAST: Gerd Leonhard on why attention--not content--is king

Link: Marketing Pop Culture: PODCAST: Gerd Leonhard on why attention--not content--is king.

Sonific’s Music Player For MySpace and Blogs - Mashable*

Link: Sonific’s Music Player For MySpace and Blogs - Mashable*.

About my new company, www.sonific.com

Fred Destin: Sonific: the future of music according to the futurist himself

the latest on SONIFIC, my new company -- well said, Fred ;)

Fred Destin: Sonific: the future of music according to the futurist himself.

Sonific: the future of music according to the futurist himself

Well the Sonific Beta is just out courtesy of the well known music specialist Gerd Leonhard.  Concept is that you go to Sonific and choose fully cleared (legally speaking) songs that you can then embed nicely into your blog or your photostream so you can sonify the web.  No more silent pages with amazon wish lists , you can express your musical personality and tastes with long song samples.

Today this is very much beta so there is still work to do on the player etc. but it gives a good indication of what this could achieve over time.  The promise is to add interesting music to the web experience with inherent social filtering at the source (Digg style) and call to action on the e-commerce front.  I find this a very interesting complementary twist on the Pandora / Last.fm debate.   Here is an example of a "songspot":

I loo forward to seeing how this develops and adds to the online music equation.  I like the fact that it should be music industry friendly and a great way for content owners to market their content virally with conversion at the end through the e-commerce partners.  Being a VC I also have to ask the question of how this makes money ?  Without revealing too much the FAQ says the following:

    So how does Sonific make money?

    Among other things, Sonific will make money by offering targeted andstrictly contextual advertising (i.e. by offering ads that are relatedto the music that is being presented), and by collecting commissionsfrom e-commerce transactions that happen after people click on theSongSpots™ and buy the song, CD, concert ticket, music player orsubscription service.

..."

Sonific.com - Soundtracks for your Digital Life - Private Beta now live!

Finally: Nokia enters the music business - Finally!

Big news today: a) Nokia buys Loudeye, which is big news but not as big as b) Nokia announced they will get... into selling music!  Yes - finally. Let's hope they stay away from the digital annoyance of DRM - in which case maybe all of us should buy some Nokia stocks asap. 

Here are some news quotes and my comments:

Tech Digest: "Nokia sold more than 15 million music-enabled devices worldwide in the 2nd quarter this year, which it claims makes it the world's largest manufacturer of digital music players...." My take: IF Nokia sticks with making MP3 the default format on their phones and just-says-no to the labels DRM wet dreams, (aka having the cake and eating it) and IF they can get the licenses from all or most content providers to sell music in MP3 format, they could very easily wipe out iTunes market stronghold within 9-12 months. Or maybe they ought to just buy Emusic?  Tell me.  After all, everyone has a phone already, everyone has MP3s, everyone knows that MP3s work everywhere, and most importantly, most content providers - including the major labels, soon! - are finally getting going to get with the program and sell 'unprotected' (whatever that means) online; just like they've been doing offline (aka CDs). Nokia has certainly picked the right time for this! Well done. But be warned (audio comment from my buddy Dirty Harry).

Forbes: Nokia is planning to compete head to head with Apple Computer for control of the global market for music downloads, said Anssi Vanjoki, executive vice-president of Nokia Multimedia.... 'We want to be a global leader in mobile music experiences, and if that means operating in areas where Apple is, then so be it,' he told the newspaper."

Hear hear. That's the spirit and now's the time. Finally we have some real action here - and hopefully Nokia will tell Hollywood et al what the users out there REALLY want: anytime anywhere anything anyway music.

One thing is for sure: it's a declaration of war for Apple.

BusinessWeek:  "A struggle between them would certainly be an interesting match-up. Apple sold 22.5 million iPod players in its fiscal year 2005 and could approach 50 million units by the end of 2006. But Nokia moved 265 million units in its most recent fiscal year, 40 million of which were capable of playing music. "Nokia already sells as many music phones as Apple sells iPods," says Albert Lin, an analyst with American Technology Research. "And the market for music phones will be larger than the market for stand-alone music players. The bulk of music-playing devices sold is likely to be the cell phones...."

I will write more on this later!