Media consumer, tech enthusiast, and gamer
Today’s big announcement comes from Rhapsody, the online music service previously known for its subscription-based streaming music for a monthly fee. Well, turns out people are more interested in owning their music rather than renting. So now we have another major competitor for iTunes and Amazon MP3.
Read More “Rhapsody’s New DRM-Free MP3 Store with Full Song Previews” »
It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Amazon MP3, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. And I’m glad the Amazon MP3 team doesn’t think so either. Here’s a copy of an email I received from them asking me to fill out a survey. Check out some of the more interesting questions asked followed by commentary (after text of the email below):
Read More “Amazon MP3 Survey Asks Interesting Questions on Music Buying” »
Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke decided to open up a little on the band’s “pay what you want” experiment from last year:
“I think it was a one-off response to a particular situation… It was one of those things where we were in the position of everyone asking us what we were going to do. I don’t think it would have the same significance now anyway, if we chose to give something away again. It was a moment in time.”
Translation: “We didn’t make as much as we are hoping, and it would only be less if we used that model again.”
Read More “Radiohead Gives Up On Free But Cold Play Gives It a Try” »
I may be alone on this one, but I just noticed a small pattern in my CD shopping habits. Here’s an example:
Over the past couple years, I’ve come to love music from the band Muse. British rockers with some serious talent, they have a great sound that is a mix of britpop, rock, alternative, and electronica.
Read More “How To: Get Consumers to Buy CDs Instead of MP3s” »
Market research firm NPD Group issued a report today explaining that Amazon MP3 is growing but not taking away customers from Apple’s iTunes. It seems that only 10% of Amazon MP3 shoppers in February were iTunes shoppers previously.
Read More “Amazon MP3 Customers Don’t Come from iTunes, But I Did” »
Ars Technica has the scoop on a “new” study which shows how Apple’s iTunes is “widening its lead in the digital music market at the expense of other top brands.” The name of the article, in fact, is Competition unable to take a big bite out of Apple’s iTunes. The article could be interesting, what with its data, charts, and supposed analysis. But it has one major problem that invalidates most everything said:
Read More “New Study on Digital Music is Outdated Before Released” »
Amazon today has announced plans to take its DRM-free MP3 music store to countries beyond the United States. In the U.S., at least, Amazon MP3 is already the online music store of choice.
It’s hard to compete with the largest library (3.3 million songs from 270,000 artists) of restriction free music, much of which is priced lower than the going rate of $0.99/track. And it integrates seamlessly with iTunes (or other desktop music applications) plus works with pretty much any digital music player available.
Read More “Amazon MP3 Expanding Internationally, More DRM-Free in 2008” »
Just a few days after our coverage of DRM-free music options for 2008 comes news of Sony BMG now offering its music on Amazon restriction-free. Sony BMG represents artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters, Santana, and Justin Timberlake. And this makes Amazon the first online music store to offer DRM-free songs from all four major labels: Sony BMG, Warner, EMI, and Universal Music.