Music Business Times Tech and Telephony

New Business Model for Magnatune

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:30 GMT

Magnatune relaunched itself today with a new business model. We're now in the no-limits membership business. Why the change? Simply put: membership today accounts for 74% of our revenue. Over the past two years our album download sales have declined while the unlimited downloads memberships have grown. The two graphs below spell out a clear message from our customers: We don't want to buy your downloadable albums one at a time, we want unlimited access. And we're willing to pay. Here is our revenue over the past two years, comparing downloads vs membership:

The 1st Musician to Make Amazing Use of Chat Roulette

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:18 GMT

Have you heard of Chat Roulette? It's the latest web site to create a major buzz in a very short period of time. In a nutshell, Chat Roulette allows anyone with a webcam to log on and randomly be connected live with other people on the site one by one. If you don't like who you're connected to, you click 'Next' and get another random paring. It's been widely covered (and made fun of) in the media. But I, along with a lot of online marketing people, thought it was a flash-in-the-pan novelty site with no possible self-promotion value. How could you possibly make use of such random connections...

eMusic Adds Subscriber Rewards Program

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:12 GMT

At SXSW Wednesday, eMusic debuted a new A+R (Access + Rewards) program that gives U.S. members exclusive offers and discounts. In addition to their eMusic subscription members now get special access to selected clubs and festivals, opportunities to connect with artists, deals on music hardware accessories and discounted entry to music museums like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. New offers will be added on an ongoing basis. A partial list of U.S. launch partners and benefits...

Nasdaq Warns Sirius of Possible Delisting

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:05 GMT

It was inevitable, really. Having given up the gains that pushed its shares past $1 and failed to close over that threshold for 10 straight days by March 15, Sirius XM invited a delisting notice. And Wednesday afternoon, Nasdaq gave it one, warning that the company's shares have fallen out of compliance with its minimum bid requirement of $1 and that Sirius is in danger of being kicked to the Pink Sheets. An ominous threat, but one not likely to be carried out. Sirius said back in February that it would appeal such a delisting notice and seek an extension from Nasdaq, and that’s exactly what the company is doing...

The Orchard Launches Comprehensive Analytics Tool

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:55 GMT

The analytics tool was developed in-house by The Orchard's technology team and is available in English, Spanish and French. It transforms daily and weekly sales data generated by stores into easy to understand sales figures viewable by type of transaction, time period, and location. The tool displays near real-time sales information from album downloads, track downloads, track streams, video streams, video downloads, and ringtones...

Topspin Expands Platform, Opens API

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 01:33 GMT

Fan aquisition and monetization platform Topspin used SXSW 2010 to announce the public availability of a suite of APIs that more seamlessly integrates their e-commerce and promotional tools into major website platforms and social networks. The company also recently upgraded their public web site TopspinMedia.com...

Who killed the music video star?

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 01:24 GMT

The anticipatory press, the fans champing at the bit for a leaked video still and the premiere during E! News would have been considered par for course in the music industry 10 years ago. But lately, that kind of event has been few and far between. There are a few reasons for that shift, but the most crucial one is the reality of the recording industry: a blockbuster, big-budget video no longer means blockbuster record sales...

MP3tunes' Copyright Conundrum

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 01:14 GMT

Most entrepreneurs are best known for the enterprises they have founded. Michael Robertson certainly has been associated with successful companies, enough of them to probably put his net worth in nine figures. His considerable reputation in tech circles, though, isn't based on his companies as much as on the lawsuits launched in their wake. There have been three, the most recent of which is heading to a trial in a few months. Each has raised a fascinating issue that ought to concern everyone who uses a computer, especially if you listen to music...

Mobile Apps Will Outsell CDs by 2012

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 01:06 GMT

The global mobile apps economy is set to be worth $17.5billion by 2012, according to an independent report commissioned by GetJar, the world’s second largest app store. Mobile app downloads across all types of handset are also expected to increase from over 7 billion downloads in 2009 to almost 50 billion in 2012 – a year on year growth rate of 92%. This would mean that the value of apps sold would be greater than the value of CDs sold in 2012 ($13.83bn)...

YouTube Launches Partner Program for Indie Bands

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 01:04 GMT

If you can play the guitar, you can quit your day job! Well, maybe. But independent musicians who are accepted by YouTube's 'Musicians Wanted' section will be able to do just that if their music videos and live musical performances draw enough views through a new feature of Google's YouTube Partner Program...

Private bank launches pop star division

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:18 GMT

Investec Private Bank, the UK wealth manager, has launched a specialist division aimed at wealthy individuals in the music and film industry. The bank is targeting music and entertainment stars, managers and agents, which it believes is an under-serviced market.
Nicky Walden, head of specialist banking at Investec Private Bank said: 'During our discussions with leading individuals in the entertainment industry it became apparent that this is an area that has largely been under serviced by the financial services sector...

34 Music Bloggers Offer Exposure In 34 Countries

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:15 GMT

On the 15th of every month, 34 music bloggers from 34 different countires cross post an identical list of hot bands from their nation along with a description and mp3. This self-titled Music Alliance Pact (MAP) has been coordinated by Scottish music blogger The Pop Cop since 2008 and has thus far thrived completely outside of the for profit music business. But that doesn't mean that some of the artists featured aren't the benificiaries of increased popularity. After being featured by MAP bloggers last year, almost unknown Irish duo Holy Roman Army watched kudos pop up across the net...

Not So Fast? Levi and Korsinsky 'Investigating' Orchard Purchase

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:07 GMT

Is the Orchard buyout kosher? Not according to New York-based firm Levi and Korsinsky, which is now investigating a possible breach of fiduciary responsibility by the Orchard Enterprises, Inc. On behalf of participating shareholders, Levi alleges that a more serious shopping effort should have happened before the Dimensional deal was announced. 'The investigation concerns whether the Orchard Board of Directors breached their fiduciary duties to Orchard stockholders by failing to adequately shop the Company...

Universal Music Releases An iPhone Game To Promote Artists, Sell Tracks

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:04 GMT

Universal Music Group was early to tap into the whole music gaming phenomenon by partnering with Tapulous to make iPhone apps for artists such as Lady Gaga and Souja Boy Tell 'Em. Now it's branching off and working with others to create even more gaming applications. The record label's latest app is called Six-String and is now available for $4.99 from the App Store for the iPhone or iPod touch. The game was developed by Frontier, which makes popular guitar simulators for the iPhone. The app will be used to highlight new releases...

Spotify Consumes More Internet Capacity Than All Of Sweden

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:01 GMT

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek had a big revelation at SXWS: 'On certain days, we're consuming more Internet capacity than Sweden has as a country.' Ek made the statement when asked why Spotify chose to use a P2P model, rather than centrally store all of its music in one place and stream it from there. Ek noted that if they were to stream from one UK datacenter, they'd consume all the bandwidth. So instead, they leverage the power of the Internet to get their users to help them stream to other users...