EMI and Universal Lead the DRM-free revolution
August 29, 2007
There’s alot of new action going on in the digital music sphere. News lately that Wall Mart will begin selling DRM-free music online and MTV will join up with Real Networks to crate a new service. MTV’s Urge has been a Microsoft partnership up until now and Real has had Rhapsody. It probably makes sense as Microsoft is likely more committed to it’s Zune Marketplace at this point and Real could use the young hip audience MTV can bring.
All of this is being spurred on by EMI and Universal. EMI already sells DRM-free tracks through iTunes and is now expanding to other services. Universal, on the other hand, is beginning to experiment with DRM-free music but has spurned iTunes. The major problem these new services will face, however, is that none of them will work as seamlessly with the iPod as iTunes will. That pure ease of use should give Apple the overall advantage, so long as the iPod remains the dominant digital music player.
Technorati Tags: mtv, WallMart, scoble, urge
Scoble University
August 27, 2007
I’m not sure if the venerable Robert Scoble has gone over the deep end in his love for Facebook, Mahalo, and TechMeme, but his three videos outlining “SEO resistant” search and it’s implications for Google is amazing watching. Lots of interesting points and ideas to chew on. I’d stay away from the …”kick Googles butt” comments though. Google’s still a pretty smart company and It’s a little too early to write them off just yet.
Technorati Tags: facebook, mahalo, scoble, techmeme
Led Zeppelin Digital Downloads
August 27, 2007
Call it a little to little a little too late. Led Zeppelin will release a new greatest hits album in November and the big news is that the tracks will be available for digital download. This marks the first time the legendary band has made it stuff available online. No word on if iTunes will be included.
It’s fine and all, but do we really need another greatest hits album? And why not the entire catalog? Zeppelin, along with some other prominent classic rock bands, have been mysteriously absent from the new digital music world. It makes no sense to me as the classic acts have to be finding it harder and harder to get relevant radio play these days. Sure, there are some classic rock stations still around, but 90% of that audience has already purchased everything they’re likely to buy already. These bands need to introduce their music to a whole new generation, a generation that lives online. The number one traditional music seller in the US is now Wall Mart. How many Led Zeppelin albums do you think you’ll find at Wall Mart today? The best chance classic bands have to sell new music in online. So where are they?
Another classic band also not found online is AC/DC. They recently announced something equally as puzzling, an exclusive deal with Verizon to sell their music digitally. In bypassing iTunes, they reject the number three overall music seller in the country. Verizon isn’t even the number one cell phone provider. I’m sure they signed a better deal with Verizon than they would have gotten from iTunes, but only because Verizon is desperate to show some flash in the face of the iPhone. Is anyone really going to sign up for Verizon so they can buy some AC/DC?
I hate to see legendary bands cut themselves off at the feet and miss the chance to pass on a great tradition of classic music onto another generation. If they screw around too much and wait to long, however, no one may care by the time they figure it out.
Technorati Tags: ledzeppelin
The First Web 2.0 Burger Joint and 30 Menu Suggestions
August 22, 2007
Courtesy of Center Networks, this is just plain funny.
Zoho Enables Offline Use
August 22, 2007
Zoho has been a quiet but very interesting web 2.0 company. They have created quite the stable of web-based apps already including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program, wiki and more. They were one of the first to iPhone enable their apps and now they are one of the first to offline enable their word processor. The rest of their apps will be offline enabled later in the year. Even more ironic is that they have used Google Gears to achieve offline capability, something Google has not even done yet with its own web 2.0 word processor. Kudos to Zoho for being an aggressive, smart company.
PodTech Meltdown
August 16, 2007
Maybe a new CEO can stop the apparent meltdown of PodTech. First Geek Entertainment TV and now 1938 Media. I’m not sure getting rid of your your best talent is the way to save the network. Who knows where PodTech would be without Scoble. PodTech does have some nice content, some of which I listen to/watch myself, but it’s all so inside the echo chamber, I can see where they are having trouble getting traction. A network like PodShow, while it has problems of it’s own, at least has a pretty broad range of shows and some of the best podcast producers around.
PageMaker - Old School DTP
August 16, 2007
I was going through some old starred items in Google Reader and came across a scripting.com article that had a link to a history of Aldus PageMaker. That made me very nostalgic. I so remember PageMaker, one of the first desktop publishing applications. When I first started working at the school newspaper at Gonzaga University, we were doing old school manual pastup to layout and print the paper. It was fun to see the way things had always been done in publishing. But come Junior year, the Macs arrived and we started using PageMaker to produce the paper. PageMaker was taught as part of the standard journalism class as well and laying out the newspaper with it was amazing. PageMaker was so wonderfully simple and quaint next to todays high powered inDesign from Adobe. I feel the same way about PageMaker as I do about the original Apple II. Classics of their day, so fun to use, and old school as they are now, I miss them a little.
Update: As long as were felling nostalgic, also just saw that AppleWorks has officially reached “end of life”. Another great old program that worked so well for what it did. When I was a freshman at Gonzaga, I still had my Apple II and I wrote quite a few papers in AppleWorks.
Google, Yahoo Both Working On Next Generation Social Networks
August 2, 2007
There has been lots of talk lately about social media burnout and people reaching their breaking point with Facebook. In the midst of all this angst, its funny to read reports of Yahoo working on a new social network. The barrier to entry is higher than ever because even those who have not burned out are starting to say, enough already. Unless the Yahoo service is mind blowing fantastic, I don’t think they have a chance to make a real impact.
Much smarter is what Google is working on and sponsoring via Carnegie Mellon univeristy. Socialstream aggregates social network and hopefully social media into one cohesive place. Depending on when they can release it for use, Socialstream could be the perfect solution at the perfect time. Once again Google wins. Will anything stop these guys?
Technorati Tags: google, socialstream, Socialnetworks, yahoo
Elton John’s Internet Freak Out
August 1, 2007
Elton John went on a rant against the Internet. He says people aren’t going outside and meeting others because they are staying inside and blogging. He also complains about the quality of art and music being created. Somehow the Internet is to blame for it all. Elton wonders what would happen if we shut down the Internet for five years, thinking an explosion of better art and creativity will erupt. The fact that the entire Elton John catalog is coming out on iTunes soon, well I guess nobody’s perfect.
The fact is the Internet is actually a fantastic enabler of contact with a whole new range of people you might never have known before. There is a group of Orange County podcasters I meetup with every month, in person, that I would have never known without technology and the Internet. Every year, I see hundreds more at the Podcast Expo. Hundreds of bloggers, those guys who never go outside, get together at PodCamp many times a year all over the country. This is just in the technical sphere which I reside in. Via meetup.com, thousands of other groups have formed and meet online and in person for a wide range of reasons. Elton John has now become, the Madman Across the Water.