|
|
Every Movie Ever Made, Anytime, Anywhere Tests using ordinary copper telephone wires and a new technology called VDSL (very-high-data-rate DSL) are providing Internet connection speeds five to 50 times faster than the "broadband" digital subscriber services offered over phone lines according to the Washington Post. Most home broadband connections are at the low end of the 0.3Mbps-1Mbps speed range with the top speed currently being 1.5Mbps. Verizon has run tests in which DSL speeds were increased from 1.5Mbps to seven megabits a second, without fiber. That speed would be more than sufficient for video applications such as streaming movies and would make broadband competitive with cable and satellite TV services. The Post points out that pulling a fiber optic cable to every home is the "Holy Grail" of broadband, a "future-proof" technology that can offer speeds 100 times faster than today's DSL and accommodate uses not even currently contemplated. By pulling fiber lines to within 3,000 or 4,000 feet of the house and then using VDSL technology, the phone companies could deliver speeds of up to 52Mbps at a reasonable price, more than is required for delivering even HDTV-quality pictures. The question on the table is whether the heavily regulated and consequently moribund and bureaucratic phone companies will invest the big bucks needed to make the DSL of the future happen. It is an issue that the Federal Communications Commission is currently wrestling with as it decides whether to continue forcing the local telcos to lease lines to competitors at favorable (the telcos say below cost) rates. The FCC is expected to decide as early next week whether local phone companies Verizon, SBC, Bell South and Qwest will be required to lease their next-generation broadband services at rates favorable to competitors such as Covad, Alltel, Focal Communications, Pac-West Telecom, Allegiance Tele-com, AT&T, Eatel and DSL.net. SBC has said sharing its local network with rivals such as AT&T Corp. and WorldCom Inc. costs it about $2.3 billion a year. The phone companies promise that they will begin spending billions of dollars upgrading the nation's broadband once the requirements to lease their broadband pipes at a discount are lifted. Coming down on the side of the phone companies, although not to the extent that the telcos would like, are the technology companies that are desperate for anything that will increase demand for their products. Peter Pitsch, a lobbyist for Intel and an organizer of a coalition of high-tech firms urging the FCC to make changes, said, "In the longer term, the phone companies are going to want to increase DSL's speed. And they have to do it." Consider the telcos' alternatives: 1.If the telcos do not increase
the Internet speed they offer: 2.If the telcos do increase the Internet speeds they offer: *The phone companies will be able to offer TV programming from around the world, just as today consumers can listen to thousands of live radio stations from around the world such as the BBC's http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/ and its six stations. *Just as individuals and small companies have used the web's low-cost and easy-to-use technology to publish everything from books to specialized news, a large market of consumers able to watch video over the net would attract thousands to develop live and recorded programs. *The phone companies will be able to sell monthly subscriptions and pay-per-view to movies, sports events, how-to's and entertainment shows. High-speed broadband could eventually deliver what the Qwest TV commercial once promised: Any movie ever made, any time, anywhere. DSL vs. Cable Modems Market
Share Cable TV's cable modems 9.4
million Only in the US do the cable TV
companies have a larger share of the broadband Internet access
market than the phone companies. Back
to Headlines
Sony Music Japan Launches "Label Gate CD" DRM The first part of this story is based on a translation of a Japanese language press release written for the Japanese market. Sony Music Entertainment Japan (SMEJ) and its subsidiary record label companies will launch Sony's first copy-controlled CD called a Label Gate CD, using Sony's own digital rights management (DRM) technology called OpenMG. SMEJ has been researching and conducting consumer tests to develop a copy-control method for CDs that would meet consumer needs and preferences in today's digital network era as well as protect copyright owners' rights. The result of its work is the release of the Internet-based copy-control Label Gate CD that music lovers can enjoy in a copyright-protected environment. Sony wants the music community to "join forces in an effort to maintain the healthy cycle of music creation." In other words, it wants people to "pay before you play." All Sony CDs in Japan are now supposed to use the Label Gate CD DRM. Each CD contains two files or "sessions" for each tune, one to be played in conventional CD players such as set-top or portable CD players and a second session for PCs. The second session contains coded and compressed audio data, which can be played and copied to the PC's hard disk only by accessing a unique authentication ID via the Internet. The first session can be played on consumer audio equipment and can be copied in analog to cassette tapes or digitally to media employing the Serial Copy Management System (SCMS) such as Sony MiniDiscs (MD) and Digital Audio tapes (DAT). A Label Gate CD can't play or be copied to MP3/CD players or to CD-ROM players such as car audio players. For the second session, after verifying the unique authentication ID over the web, the audio copied to the hard disk can be played using Sony's MAGICLIP media player. The audio data copied to the hard disk can also be checked in and checked out a pre-designated number of times on media such as Net MD with OpenMG. The unique authentication ID keeps track of the number of times the data is copied, and applicable fees will be charged to the consumer each time. The fee for the initial release of Label Gate CD and its first-time copying is zero. - MAGICLIP is a Sony-developed
Windows audio player ware. This ends the section based on the Japanese translation. The following section is based on reports from various non-Sony sources. Day one of the Label Gate CD
era saw Sony in Japan release seven CD singles, including one
by rhythm and blues singer Crystal Kay, that incorporate its
new DRM. One fact, among many, that attracts Sony and other record labels to CD copy protection is that although all sales figures have yet to be tallied, the Japanese music industry expects that only one music CD sold over a million copies. It's Ayumi Hamasaki's CD single "H" and it was sold in a copy-protected format. In Summary If the PC file on the Label Gate CD is copied to the PC, the PC has to be connected to the Internet before the track can be played. Once connected to the Internet, a user will be asked for a product identifier (PID) that will authenticate the CD and be sent an electronic code that decodes the file so it can be played. And it can only be played with a Windows-only Sony media player called Magiqlip. This prevents people from converting the music tracks ("ripping") into other formats, such as MP3 or WAV, and sharing them over the Internet. Mac and Linux users need not apply - the CD won't play in their computers. Tracks can be copied to portable music players only if the player complies with Sony's proprietary OpenMG DRM. The first download of the electronic code is free but additional downloads assume the user is copying the file to someone else's PC and will cost about $1.60 a song, according to what one source said. But the user will be forced to pay for the CD's entire contents, not just one track. Copying one song or all the songs from a 10-track CD will cost about $16, pretty much as though the user went to the store and bought it. Because the music tracks on the CD that consumer audio devices play are also protected by Sony's DRM and prevented from playing on a PC, Sony will not put the CD industry's "Compact Disc" logo on the Label Gate CDs, according to Kiyono Yasunaga, a SMEJ spokeswoman.
Work Diagram for the Label Gate CD World's Most Important Digital Media Government Official Speaks "My only client is the
public. I don't ever forget that lobbyists only care about
themselves. They want the rules bent in a direction that helps
them.'' - Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael
Powell, the world's most important digital media regulator.
The FCC oversees local and long-distance phone companies,
satellites, wireless phones, cable TV, broadcasters and any
commercial device that uses the nation's airwaves. No
government agency regulates the Internet but the FCC does
regulate the Internet's underlying infrastructure. FCC Chairman Michael Powell has decided to postpone a final vote, originally scheduled for Thursday, February 13 on whether to continue forcing the entrenched local phone companies to lease their "pipes" at special prices to potential competitors for local service. The vote will be put off for a week or more, a move intended to put more pressure on one of the other two Bush appointed commissioners, Kevin J. Martin or one of the Democratic commissioners to change their position. Martin and the two Democrat appointees do not want to weaken the current requirements on the telcos and want to leave to the individual states much of the decisions concerning regulation. Powell is afraid that if the vote were taken now, his proposal would lose 3 to 2. Powell's proposal would force AT&T, WorldCom and other companies to abandon their plans to offer local phone service by leasing lines at favorable rates from local phone companies such as Verizon, SBC, Qwest and BellSouth. Powell's plan would also roll back the ability of start up companies such as Covad and DSL.net to provide high-speed Internet service over the local phone network in competition with the phone companies' own offerings. Martin's plan would require
that local telephone companies provide their rivals with the
ability to deliver Internet service to their customers at
speeds equivalent to 1.5 megabits per second - about 10 times
as fast as a dial-up modem. Most broadband users today connect
to the Internet at a speed in the range of 0.3Mbps to 1.0Mbps.
Back
to Headlines
Matsushita (Panasonic) To Concentrate on DVD Recorders, End VHS Products Matsushita, which is known for its Panasonic and National brands and for being the original developer of the VHS video recording standard, says it's the beginning of the end for its VHS videotape recorder business and the end of the beginning for its DVD recorder era. "We are putting an end to the VHS market that we developed, and today are taking the first step to create a market for DVD recorders," said Fumio Otsubo, managing director of Matsushita Electric Industrial and president of Panasonic AVC Networks Company, on February 5 at a new product exhibition in Tokyo. In a Word Matsushita intends to ramp up its Japanese DVD recorder factory from 80,000 to 150,000 units a month. DVD recorder making for Europe will begin at its German factory in Q2. Matsushita expects retail prices to continue to drop and more functions to be added. A newly designed circuit board will be used that reduces the size requirements to two-thirds of the old ones. Fifteen percent fewer parts will be required.
Matsushita DVD Recorder/Players - DMR-E80H w/ 80G HDD; DMR-E90H w/120G HDD and PCMCIA card slot As an interim product, the company will make a "hybrid" videotape recorder/DVD player product. It will record onto the videotape but play both videotapes and DVDs such as movies. A similar product from Samsung was very successful in the US market this past Christmas season.
Matsushita "Hybrid" Videotape Recorder/Player and DVD Player Matsushita says it fully understands the importance of future products being "networkable" and "Internet connectable." It's demonstrated what it calls a "networkable AVC server" at trade shows but hasn't announced when it will begin production. It will shortly announce a DVD recorder whose recording timer can be set remotely from a cell phone. The company's DVD recorders and players will be sold under the trade name "DIGA." Sony and Matsushita last month
announced that they were jointly developing a digital media
version of the Linux operating system that will be made
available to other CE companies. Back
to Headlines
Verizon Wireless, the largest
US cell phone service provider, has an exclusive deal for its
Get It Now subscribers to download and use ring tones based on
the original score from "The Lord of the Rings: The Two
Towers" movie. The ring tones include music from the
battle at Helm's Deep and the theme song. Get It Now is a
Verizon service that lets consumers download games, photos and
productivity applications directly to a wireless phone.
Back
to Headlines
Park Seung, chairman of the
Bank of Korea (BOK), predicts that the Korean economy,
producer of much the world's digital media gear and home to CE
giant Samsung, will probably grow 5.5% this year "despite
the uncertainties facing the world economy."
Back
to Headlines
Market researcher In-Stat/MDR did some calculations and came up with 12 "Media Mega Companies," who, along with four "key influencers" are driving the worldwide digital media and entertainment markets. The driving force behind these mega-companies appears to be "an enormous economy of scale will improve their ability to compete in a global economy." Not surprisingly, AOL Time Warner tops the list of media-related revenue opportunities, accounting for 22.4% of the group's value. The Walt Disney Company, Viacom and Vivendi Universal are all vying for second place with each pulling around 10%. Next on the list are Sony, News Corp, Cox Enterprises and Bertelsmann, with roughly 5% each. Completing the list are niche players Lagardere SCA, General Electric/NBC, Grupo Televisa SA and Liberty Media, each making up less than 5% of the group's value. According to In-Stat/MDR, these dozen companies have combined annual revenues of $150 billion, expected to grow to approximately $178 billion by 2007. AOL, Disney, Viacom and Vivendi Universal have been on a spree to consolidate assets, making mergers and acquisitions. The researcher found that these mega media companies are gobbling up or making equity investments in local creative content companies around the world. Besides the media giants, In-Stat/MDR believes that four other companies are strongly influencing the media industry - the BBC, NKH in Japan, PBS in the US and Microsoft. The researcher calls Microsoft the "dark horse," with its Windows Media 9 Series possibly creating a new genre of Internet content that consumers will want on their TV sets and cell phones. Other findings: - Each of the 12 media mega companies has opportunities that are defined by their current holdings and operations, and limitations due to holes in their portfolios. As these companies work to improve the financial return on their assets, and jockey for an advantage, a global game of Risk will be played out. - News Corp is very international, holds an early lead in interactive TV and is positioned to lead the pack into the next generation of movies, videos and personalized programming. Liberty Media is not far behind. - Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese
and other non-English language programming represent the key
long-term growth opportunity for all 16 companies.
Back
to Headlines
Internet film and video service iFilms made a small profit last year after a round of cost cutting. iFilms claims to have the world's largest collection of short films and movie clips available for viewing online. It is now one of the top 10 streaming video sites on the web and attracts a monthly audience of nearly seven million. The iFilm network's online distribution partners include Yahoo Movies, Windows Media, RealNetworks, Xolox and Ain't It Cool News. Offline distribution partners include the Independent Film Channel and NBC. CEO Kevin Wendle, the company's
largest shareholder, will step aside and become chairman. Adam
Frank will move up to the CEO slot. Investors include Sony
Pictures Entertainment, Liberty Digital, Rainbow Media, Kodak,
Yahoo, Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures and venture capitalist
Axiom Ventures. Back
to Headlines
Europe's Information Society Services Convention Europe's Information Society Services Convention was established to: - enable cross-border legal questions concerning "Information Society Services" to be addressed. - allow minimum standards and a degree of harmonization to develop by facilitating an exchange of information and expertise. Its aims are to: - set up a mechanism of regular information and co-operation on multi-country cross-border "Information Society Services" initiatives. - anticipate and examine the development of emerging trends in the fields relating to the information society (e.g. e-commerce, the fight against organized crime, the legal protection of service providers, consumers and minors protection) including the implications at the cross-border level, in particular for human rights, of national regulations. - draft, where appropriate, future legal instruments in this area. In summary, the ISS Convention
wants to break down barriers to consumer access to information
and entertainment with a single set of regulations for every
EU member country, which will result in an e-Europe.
Back
to Headlines
Digital TVs and 3G Cell Phones Will Be Alternates to PCs At a public hearing, Sandra Keegan, head of sector at the European Commission's Directorate General Information Society, said that Digital TV and 3G cell phones would be real alternatives to PCs for accessing information and entertainment. The subject of the hearing was the "barriers to the development of the information society." Keegan cited the fact that only 40% of EU households have a PC, so Digital TVs and 3G cell phones equipped with the proper software would let almost all EU homes participate in the Information Society. She wants the barriers that might prevent that from happening to be knocked down. Keegan also foresees that the increased use of broadband will increase the use of the Internet to view TV programs just as many today use the net to listen to radio stations regardless of their location. The EC is expected to make the
results of its hearings public in March or April.
Back
to Headlines
Two of the three largest digital media markets, Japan and the European Union, are experiencing very troublesome economic times, as opposed to just the troublesome times of the US. Germany, the EU's largest economic member, is viewed as being the continent's biggest laggard. 1.Mark Hoge, banking analyst
with Banc of America Securities in London, enunciated what
many others think, "Germany is still the weakest economy
in Europe." The Economist sums up Germany's
outlook: "The German economy is in trouble. The radical
overhaul it needs will not happen. Prime Minister Gerhard
Schroeder is not the man to deliver change. Eastern Europe in
particular needs a vibrant Germany. It is getting a vibrant
Russia instead." Back
to Headlines
Music, Film Industries Face Same Forces The Internet in the form of Napster and Kazaa and digital media technology in the form of the MP3 file format are forcing the record companies to change their business models. The digital duo has inflicted severe wounds on the labels' revenues and profits. Music isn't the only industry that the Internet and digital technology have impacted. The photographic film business has been around longer than the music industry. In its case, the Internet's e-mail and digital media's digital cameras have struck at its roots in the same way that the music industry has been affected. The parallels are striking. By substituting a few words such as CD for film, MP3 player for digital camera and RIAA for Kodak, an interview with Benjamin Reitzes of UBS Warburg in the January 26 issue of the New York Times about Kodak and its decline due to the decreasing use of film becomes: "CD (film) demand peaked in early 1999 and has been on a slowing growth and declining trajectory every since. As consumer confidence began to wane in 2000 and MP3 player (digital camera) sales became more meaningful, CD (film) demand began to slow really markedly. "The RIAA (Kodak) has thrown out numbers that last year digital music (digital cameras) cannibalized CD (film) growth by 3%. I think that number is even higher, because MP3 player (digital camera) sales have been even stronger than expected and sales of CD burners (digital printers) have been stronger than expected." The music companies aren't the
only ones being forced to change their business models the
hard way. Kodak terminated 7,000 jobs last year and says it'll
fire another 2,200 this year. Back
to Headlines
Emerging Digital Media Manufacturing Triumvirate China. Taiwan. South Korea. It only takes a week or two of reading press releases about new digital media consumer products to realize that the trend is clearly that China, Taiwan and South Korea are where most digital media products are going to be manufactured. Here's a "big picture" comparison of the three emerging digital media giants and the US as a comparison:
China South Korea Taiwan US
Look What's Booming. E-Commerce on the Web There's been a lot of talk the last couple of years about the dot.com swoon and the web's failures. Perhaps it's time to look at some facts: 1.Mail order prescriptions grew to about $5.6 billion of the drug industry's $28 billion mail order business according to the National Association of Chain Drug Stores. Forrester Research predicts that Internet sales of prescription and over-the-counter products will hit $10 billion this year and double that number next year. Medco Health sold $1 billion worth of drugs on its website www.medcohealth .com in the first 10 months of 2002. 2.Eighty-four of the 208 publicly traded web companies made a profit last quarter according to stock researcher Pegasus Research International. It expects the number of profitable websters will exceed 100 by year-end. 3.The share price of the 20
dot.comers on Business Week's Internet Index outperformed the
Standard & Poor 500 stock index by 18% since last August.
Back
to Headlines
So Who Made your Dell (or IBM or HP) Notebook? Taiwan-based Quanta made more notebooks last year than any other PC maker in the world, supplying units to such as Dell, HP and Sharp. More and more brand name PC companies are using contract manufacturers in Taiwan and China to make products for them. Quanta made 5.4 million notebooks last year, up 22.8% year-over-year, according to research firm iSuppli. Almost all of Quanta's production left its factory bearing someone else's name like Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Sharp. The second largest notebook maker is Compal, also based in Taiwan. It made 4.1 million notebooks last year, up 72.7% for many of the same vendors. Even China's leading PC vendor
Legend has many of its products made in Taiwan. Taiwanese-made
laptops accounted for 60% of the world's supply last year, up
from 58% in 2001. The third major Taiwanese notebook supplier
is Wistron. Back
to Headlines
Universal Music Group Reports Increased Revenue Bucking the trend set by the other four major record labels, Universal Music Group (UMG) reported revenues up 4% in the fourth quarter based on constant currency, including a remarkable 15% increase in the US. On a currency-adjusted basis, revenues were down 2% worldwide to 2 billion euros. For the year, on a constant currency basis, UMG revenues declined 1%. On a adjusted currency basis, they were down 4% to 6.3 billion euros. The cause of the difference was primarily the US dollar weakening against the euro. Patting itself on the back, UMG parent Vivendi Universal pointed out that: - One out of every three CDs sold in the US came from UMG, according to researcher SoundScan. - Last year UMG increased its worldwide market share and increased it in every major geography. - UMG's CD market share rose 2.5 points to 28.9% in the states even though the total US market declined 10.8%. - Five of UMG's albums sold more than five million units last year compared to only one in 2001. - Eminem's CD sales exceeded 21 million copies. The Vivendi Universal Games operation, which Microsoft has denied it's trying to acquire, had 2002 revenues of 794 million euros, up 21%. Wall Street house Bear Stearns thinks Vivendi Universal's outlook is good. It says it "continues to believe in the long-term fundamental value of the group, and retains its "outperform" recommendation on the stock with a price target of 22 euros." Bottom Line Phone and Cable TV Companies Vie for Triple Play As technology rolls along, the local phone and cable TV companies increasingly find themselves competing with each other in three areas: Three other potential revenue streams are up for grabs: - Long distance calls - Pay-per-view movies, sports events and entertainment specials - eCommerce income from the sales of goods and services - a cut of consumers' purchases of books, movies, music and airline tickets. "Who Shall Live & Who
Shall Die" * It's disruptive. A staid old bureaucratic phone company such as SBC is convinced it needs to buy the nation's second-largest TV service company, the satellite service DirectTV, to make it. *The government in the form of the Federal Communications Commission is right in the middle. The amount of lobbying money being spent would sink an aircraft carrier. *Media companies, music, movies, books and magazines, will be impacted, possibly in ways not even thought of. *Technology makers could soon find themselves with another boom market. Blair Levin, a senior analyst at financial house Legg Mason, told the New York Times, "It's not a question of who gets rich and who gets richer. It's a question of who shall live and who shall die." The Triple Play for the Phone and Cable TV Services
Monthly Revenue Per Subscriber Valenti on the Difference between the Music & Movie Industries "It now costs about
$350,000 to produce a CD; it costs $80 million to make and
market a movie. Big difference. The MPAA could live with the
15 million homes that currently have broadband Internet
access. But when 60 million homes have broadband, plus the
people on fast connections in universities, making it so easy
to bring down a movie in minutes..." - MPAA chairman Jack
Valenti in the Harvard Political Review after delivering a
speech called "Persuasion and Leadership" at the
Harvard Institute of Politics. Back
to Headlines
Most consider Europe ahead of
the states in cell phones but the world is convinced that
Americans lead the world in hand guns. Well Europe has taken
the lead in hand guns that look like cell phones. The French
police in Rouen this week seized two mobile phones capable of
shooting four bullets each. The digital touch pad serves as
the trigger. The devices are believed to have been made in
Eastern Europe. Back
to Headlines
PCs Losing Innovation Race to the Fridge, Yes, the Refrigerator Showing just how far behind Microsoft, Intel and the PC crowd have fallen in the last few years in innovating, Forrester Research reports that twice as many Europeans will upgrade their refrigerator this year as their PC. Yes, the fridge. And for the first time since the '80s only 2% of Europeans will buy their first PC even though 40% of them still don't own one. Sweden with 80% has the largest penetration rate. The piece entitled "Where Next For The Home PC?" recommends, as has The Online Reporter for 18 months, that PC makers "get with it" and develop boxes that will be better able to deliver entertainment to home users. Until now, consumers bought PCs primarily for word processing, e-mail or browsing the web, office stuff. The next wave of PC sales, Forrester contends, will be driven by the entertainment potential that broadband provides and the consequent increasing need for a digital hub in the home. Forrester found that PC owners are more likely to own non-PC electronics gear than non-PC owners. It says that with 62% of PC owners already playing games, 44% playing music and 21% playing DVDs, entertainment factors and the consumer urge to use equipment such as digital cameras will be central to the concept and marketing of future PCs. Surprised?
Back
to Headlines
Looks Like a Vinyl LP, Sounds Like a CD Verbatim applauds the success of its new retro-look "Digital Vinyl" CD-R discs. The 80min./700MB discs combine the look of a 45-rpm record from the '50s and '60s with a CD's sound and longevity. Released before the holidays, Verbatim says the vinyl-looking CD-Rs are a hit with baby boomers nostalgic about their vinyl collections who want an eye-catching storage solution for their audio, video and data files. The discs work in all CD recorders. Verbatim claims its family of
DataLifePlus CD-R media, including the new Digital Vinyl CD-R
discs, is the only recordable CD media that includes a
standard double protective layer to enhance protection against
scratching, sunlight, high temperatures, humidity and
handling. It estimates its CDs are good for a hundred years,
but we won't be around to find out. Back
to Headlines
Germans Begin Paying Royalties on DVDs German collecting societies in the Central Organization for Private Copying Rights (ZPÜ) have reached an agreement with the Recording Media Information Group (IM Informationskreis AufnahmeMedien) on the payment of royalties for blank DVDs, including DVD-R/RWs, DVD+R/RWs and DVD-RAM discs. The Germans rate 4.7GB DVDs as having a video recording capacity of 120 minutes for the purpose of computing royalty payments on blank media. The amount specified in the German Copyright Act as equitable remuneration for DVD products in settlement of all royalty claims is 0.087 euro (nine cents) an hour of playing time so the royalty collected for every DVD sold in Germany will be 0.174 euros (19 cents) a DVD. The two German organizations
reached the agreement under the terms of one established in
2000 for CD-Rs/RWs (recordable CD discs). Under the deal, DVD
makers and distributors must report the total quantity of
recordable CDs and DVDs sold or put into circulation in
Germany. Back
to Headlines
FullAudio, whose Internet music service platform competes with the likes of PressPlay and MusicNet, has got itself a new CEO. Scott Kauffman, with 25 years of experience at such media and technology companies as CompuServe, Time Warner and AdKnowledge, has joined a company he believes is "well positioned to emerge as the leading independent source for great digital music." This, Kauffman says, is due to the transformation in the music industry caused by the "rapid consumer adoption of digital media." Current FullAudio CEO Chris Gladwin is moving to the post of COO. "With deep experience in entertainment and marketing, Kauffman will help further establish FullAudio as an emerging leader in digital media," Gladwin says. Charter Communications, Clear
Channel Communications and EarthLink are among the providers
using FullAudio's platform to deliver their digital music
services such as on-demand subscription services, streaming
and music downloads. Back
to Headlines
UMG: "The Digital Distribution Revolution Has Begun" Universal Music Group (UMG) shows why it's the world's largest music company by continuing its attempt to dominate the coming Internet music market just as it does the CD market when it announced a Grammy Digital Download promotion. Music fans will be able to preview and purchase a download of UMG artists nominated for Grammys over the years for 99 cents a track or $9.99 for a complete album. UMG has been the most aggressive and vocal about making its entire library available for sale over the Internet. Rather than sell directly, UMG is partnering with a variety of "clicks" (web only) and "bricks" (stores with web sites) to achieve the widest exposure to potential purchasers. Even though this model means that UMG has to share the proceeds, it keeps its retailers "in the fold" as the industry transitions to Internet music services as a major revenue contributor. Both UMG and the retailers have lower costs by using the net to move music - no CDs to make and inventory, no lost product, no returns, no shipping, no insurance on goods and shipping, no inventory counts, no shipping department, no QC, no over- or under-production - just revenue minus the continuing cost of running a web site. Some of the Grammy-nominated artists featured in UMG's digital download program include Willie Nelson, Ashanti, Mary J Blige, Diana Krall, Elvis Costello, Eminem, India.Arie, Jay-Z, Johnny Cash, Juanes, Lee Ann Womack, Lucinda Williams, Natalie Cole, Nelly, No Doubt, Nickelback, Sheryl Crow, Vanessa Carlton and U2. Always in promotion mode, UMG is awarding prizes such as artist memorabilia and a trip for two, to Universal Studios Florida of course. Print, radio, in-store and online ads will herald the program. Biggest Commitment of any
Record Label, 60,000 and Counting UMG's business attitude, as reflected in its approach to the Internet as an opportunity rather than an obstacle, showed in its 2002 financials released this week. Unique among the major labels, UMG had positive results, as positive as possible at a time of economic malaise and the consequent pressures on consumer spending. Jim Urie, president of
Universal Music and Video Distribution, summed up the
company's business philosophy, "We are constantly looking
for new and innovative ways to drive business and market our
music and the Grammys provide the perfect platform for a
program. The digital distribution revolution has indeed begun,
and we will continue to empower our customers to give the
consumer hit music in any format, physical or digital, they
desire." Back
to Headlines
Internet music service Pressplay, co-owned by Vivendi Universal and Sony, is coming out with its 2.5 release, which will add a customizable Internet radio service and offer Billboard's chart performance data going back nearly 50 years. Pressplay now has about 250,000 tracks on offer and has obtained content licenses from all five major record companies. It is adding a number of
independent labels to its library that'll include artists such
as Nirvana, Frank Zappa and Mudhoney. The non-exclusive pacts
with indies Sub Pop, DreamWorks Records, Rykodisc/Ryko Label
Group, Ubiquity and Palm will allow Pressplay subscribers to
download, stream, burn CDs and copy tracks to portable
players. Back
to Headlines
Valenti Presses Germany, Russia over Copyright Infringement MPAA president Jack Valenti met with German chancellor Gerhard Schroder, Russian president Vladimir Putin and German president Johannes Rau during the Berlin International Film Festival to press the case for beefing up and enforcing copyright infringement laws. He also promised to visit Russian and meet with other government officials about the matter. "The global film community is determined to work together to beat back this menace of thievery," Valenti said. "Piracy is an issue that has united the creative communities, not only in the EU, but all over the world." Valenti told Schroder and
Germany's Justice minister Brigette Zypries that a flood of
Russian-made counterfeit DVDs were costing the US and German
film makers millions. One of the hot topics at the festival
was how to raise money for Germany's film industry so
Valenti's message was aimed at closing the hole in the bottom
of the bucket. He pointed out that as the meeting was taking
place, German police in cooperation with the MPA, the
international version of the MPAA, were involved in 16
separate raids on pirates. He also reminded the German leaders
that two recent German films were pirated and available on
counterfeit DVDs before they made it onto theater screens.
Back
to Headlines
Peerster Pirates Keep on Truckin' P2P networks users on February 9, 2003 according to the webzine Slyck: Network Users The figures above are the actual number of people who were logged on and actively sharing files at 12 Noon EST on February 9. It does not include the many millions more who have downloaded P2P software but were not sharing files at that second. It's a snapshot of a moment, not a total of those who might have downloaded and shared files over the course of, say, a month. Also, Streamcast's Morpheus software uses the Gnutella network but Streamcast says that technical glitches cause its numbers to be significantly understated. - Napster at its peak had about 1.5 million users connected and 70 million downloads going on at any one time. - iMesh users also connect to the FastTrack network. iMesh is based in Israel. - Sharman Networks, which bought the Kazaa client software and Kazaa web site from Netherlands-based KaZaA NV, has changed the name from KaZaA to Kazaa to differentiate its product and web site from KaZaA NV, which own the FastTrack network. -MetaMachine's eDonkey2000
hopes to become the next member of the million-user club,
joining Kazaa, iMesh and now defunct Napster P2P networks.
Because there are many "private" eDonkey networks
that are not counted in the numbers above, it's possible that
eDonkey may, in fact, already have over a million users.
Back
to Headlines
Finnish Techs Fight Internet Regulation A group of Finnish high-tech companies including Nokia, Kone and TeliaSonera Finland have formed an alliance to fight government regulation of the Internet because regulation will purportedly stifle freedom of expression. The alliance delivered a statement to Finland's parliament last week that said, "Excessive domestic regulation of Internet content will create significant uncertainties for business and have a chilling effect on commercial communication." What instigated the techs to take action is the government's plan to censor Internet message boards. Marja-Liisa Virtanen, an employee of one of the alliance's members, TeliaSonera Finland, said, "Illegal and offensive material is already deleted from most message boards - mostly upon the request of visitors, but also, to some extent, on the webmaster's own initiative. In proportion to the mass of messages received, there are very few problems on the message boards." If the law being considered by
the Finnish parliament were passed, it would make web sites
liable for content on their message boards, which are the
equivalent of "letters to the editor" in printed
newspapers and magazines. Back
to Headlines
For a few extra euros a day, patients at The Hague's Leyenburg Hospital can access their e-mail, browse the web and check their voicemail. A new T2 communications system that the hospital installed also permits the medical staff to view or update a patient's medical charts or even display x-rays from a patient's bedside. The system also delivers TV and radio programs to the patient. The hospital says the system is secured against unauthorized access. What's a T2? T1, T2, T3 and Fast Ethernet are protocols for delivering data and are differentiated by their speeds: Protocol
Speed in Megabits per
second (Mbps) Most homes with broadband access the Internet at speeds between 0.3Mbps and 1.0Mbps. Most office networks run at 100Mbps although a few still work at the prior 10Mbps standard. http://www.aeiwireless.com/html/ethernet
10mbps.html for details Back
to Headlines
"The Music and Movie Giants Have Woken Up" Penn State students heard Harvard Law School professor Jonathan Zittrain, who co-founded Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, say that music and movie industry groups are pressing computer and software makers to develop new technology that will restrict rampant illegal file sharing. He expects future digital media devices to impose strong digital rights management. "The giants have woken up. They're not happy. They're smart and rich and powerful," Zittrain said. "They are doing what they can on a technical level, so that it will be harder and harder to use a peer-to-peer network like Morpheus." People's instincts for what is
right or wrong is clashing with lawyers' sometimes-convoluted
attempts to guard against what their clients see as outright
stealing, Zittrain said. Back
to Headlines
Bell Labs Offers 24Mbps Wireless Chip Wired News says a new wireless
chip developed by Bell Labs in Australia yields data speeds of
24 megabits per second - faster than a home broadband
connection. The chip, which could be used in phones on 3G
networks, would allow users to conduct real-time
videoconferences and send and receive multimedia applications
like MP3 files, video clips and PowerPoint presentations.
"We're talking about data rates competitive with the most
advanced broadband wired modems," Chris Nicol, lead
researcher on the "turbo decoder chip," told Wired.
Back
to Headlines
DVD-Quality Porn on the Web, Almost Napster Spain's Private Media Group (PMG), which had its 15 minutes of fame when it was first to bid for the Napster brand and web site, says that it now offers DVD-quality porn, er, adult entertainment, from its web site to broadband users. It's using DivxNetworks' Open Video System to download full-motion, full-screen, DVD-quality titles. Divx' SmartStart software allows users to begin viewing a video before the download is complete, offering almost the same instant-on as streaming media but at a far higher quality. Divx touts its Open Video System as an end-to-end secure solution for high-quality video-on-demand, which has a complete delivery management infrastructure and a proprietary digital rights management (DRM) system. It's MPEG-4-compliant video compression technology reportedly reduces DVD video to 10% of its original size with no quality loss. PMG calls its web site the "world's greatest hardcore broadband site" and expects millions of users. www.privatespeed.com Porn providers are just as concerned about implementing anti-piracy measures as any record label or filmmaker, perhaps more so. Charles Prast, president and CEO of PMG, commented that "We are excited to offer consumers all of Private's substantial and growing catalogue in this cutting-edge format. The introduction of Divx-powered video-on-demand fits perfectly with our vision of always seeking to provide our users the very highest quality experience in every possible option for viewing Private products available - be it downloading, online viewing, purchasing physical products or renting DVDs through our online DVD rental service." PMG says it has 37 years of legal compliance and owns the largest library of quality adult content in the world. PMG uses the Internet, DVDs, videotapes, magazines and broadcast to distribute its content worldwide. It reported sales of $20 million in its most recent quarter ending last June. PMG's web site says that Fortune said it was one of the 20 best small companies in the world in 2002. But Fortune also called Enron one of the best-managed companies in America for five years running. Bottom Line - As consumers get broadband, and it is spreading to homes around the world at a fast rate, millions, perhaps soon a billion, people will be able to receive high-quality videos at home on their sub-$500 PCs. - The equipment and software, or an outside service, needed to transmit high-quality live or recorded video over the net continues to drop in both cost and complexity. - There are at least 10,000 radio stations broadcasting on the net. Suppose that were 1,000 TV stations from around the world. And anyone could watch a cricket match live from India. See BBC dramas this year instead of next year. Enjoy an Australian movie that'll never make it to the local theater. See the Russians launch their space ships live. Keep up-to-date with the hometown news and sports. All in high-fi video. - There are many live cams on
the web now, everything from surfing spots to the bridge over
Dublin's River Liffey. As the technology improves those could
be thousands of live and recorded videos on every topic
conceivable from favorite Parisian brasseries to how to cook a
Peking duck. Not just camcorder stuff, but produced by
thousands of would-be video directors. All delivered in DVD
quality over the web. Back
to Headlines
During this reporter's first week writing about digital media, a leading music company executive explained that for consumers, there is no such thing as too much media - never has been - never would be. He recounted how at every stage of media ramp up "experts" were amazed that people always wanted more access to media - when people started carrying around transistor radios held to their ears, when tape and CD players were put in cars, when people began taking cell phones everywhere. One recent snapshot of a Manhattan sidewalk showed over 15 people talking on cell phones. Boom boxes at the beach, radios by the pool, TVs in every bedroom. So why would anybody be surprised about TVs in the bath? As reported in last week's Online Reporter, people do want access to digital media in their bath, which USA Today picked up on in its story "Television in the bathroom? That's a relief." The reporter was even talking about the Jacuzzi digital media hot tub that we highlighted. "Call it the tub tube - a lithe, flat-panel TV for easy viewing as you soak, lather, shave or floss. "Credit for transforming the TV-viewing landscape goes to flat-panel screens, which have been getting more affordable since hitting the market two years ago. "A small LCD television is
now about $600, half its original price. With a simple
bathroom installation, the price hits $1,000 or more."
Back
to Headlines
Samsung's Goal: World's Best Multinational Korea-based Samsung Electronics has declared its intent to become a world-best multinational corporation according to a report in the Korea Times. Samsung has recently been spewing out a stream of high-quality, well-designed consumer electronics and digital media devices. It seems to be patterning itself on Sony's success purveying premium-looking, premium-priced products. Samsung Electronics vice-chairman Yoon Jong-yong said in a January management strategy meeting that there were six conditions and traits that a multinational should possess: "Samsung Electronics may seem like it has become a top-tier multinational in terms of product portfolio, pricing and financial structure. But to survive in a rapidly changing global management environment, world-best is not enough, we have to become extraordinarily world-best," Yoon was quoted as saying. The presentation was aimed at preventing employees from becoming complacent after the company posted record profits and sales last year. Samsung Electronics is
presently the world's 10th largest company in annual sales.
Yoon said he had studied successful Japanese companies to
learn what Samsung needed to do at the next stage of its
growth. - Innovative products RIAA, IFPI Releases GRid ID System The world's recording industry has launched a new identification system that it claims will substantially reduce piracy and simplify the Internet delivery of music. The Global Release Identifier (GRid) standard has been in development for two years, with the London-based IFPI and DC-based RIAA leading the charge. The new system wasn't intended to stop piracy, but to identify and track legitimate music downloads. Although there are ways to track digital music, there's been no standard way to identify singles, album tracks, groups of tracks and multimedia releases that are distributed electronically. GRid is essentially an electronic version of the traditional UPC barcode designed to work with identification systems that are already out there. Record companies, legitimate online music services, retailers and other third-party distributors can issue a GRid identity tag to the music they distribute. Each track gets distributed with its own GRid number, which gets reported to the appropriate agency to ensure that the musicians and songwriters get compensated. The IFPI will administer the
GRid system on behalf of the worldwide recording industry.
There's an annual fee of 150 pounds for companies that want to
issue GRid codes. Back
to Headlines
Look Ma, No Credit Card Needed Holland-based Scoin is testing with Lycos a new Internet payment that does not require the use of a credit card. The Scoin system is based on consumers pre-paying and keeping a balance in their account from which to pay for purchases. When ready to make a purchase, users enter their e-mail address and a password and the money is transferred from buyer to seller. Scoin competitor Moxmo has
implemented its version of a similar service for use from a
cell phone. Moxmo users can make payments from their mobile
phones and put money into their online account with a pre-paid
telephone card. Back
to Headlines
Burlingame, California start-up MyDTV Inc has brought in a new CEO to add experience as it gears up for commercial release of its software. MyDTV's software, which it sells to cable and satellite TV operators, lets TV viewers set their preferences and get alerts when the requested programs are about to appear. According to Gil Dudkiewicz, founder and president of the three-year-old concern, the company was started with the vision of bringing "programmers and operators a service that would offer their subscribers a more personalized way to watch television." Bow Rodgers, the company's new CEO, joins from BigBand Networks, where he was COO. Before that he was COO and general manager of PowerTV, which he helped grow from 12 to 150 employees and launch its operating system software into millions of cable TV households. According to Dudkiewicz, it was this experience in growing technology distribution with operators that appealed to MyDTV. "MyDTV has commercial growth plans that will leverage [Rodgers'] expertise in the broadband industry to accomplish these goals," Dudkiewicz said. Unlike digital video recorders such as TiVO, MyDTV doesn't require any end-user installation or special equipment, since it works in the digital cable or satellite box the consumer already has. MyDTV also differs from TiVO with its ability to search for the viewer's actual keyword preferences to find the right programming, rather than predict programming it "thinks" the user would like to see. The system gives cable and satellite operators a way to provide subscribers with a "personalization engine." Viewers can search through the ever-growing programming and content on their digital TV systems to find specific programming that interests them. The MyDTV preferences interface offers more than 500 categories. There's a search engine and an onscreen alert to let the viewer know when a program matching his interest is about to air. Navigate the Maze Also unique to MyDTV, Rodgers notes, is that it's the only company able to alert viewers - in real-time - about segments within news and sports broadcasts. "For example" he says, "we are the only technology company who knows in advance who is going to be interviewed on the financials or news networks." MyDTV's offering has three main components - PromoLogic, ContentIQ and TV Agent. The software technology is proprietary and works with any major set-top box. It integrates with programmer and operator information systems and set-top middleware to provide advanced viewing and search options. The ContentIQ personalization system is the piece that provides cable and satellite operators with the technology and tools they need to offer subscribers an interactive and tailored viewing experience. It also gives the operators an opportunity to promote viewer-requested premium channels, pay-per-view events and shopping opportunities relevant to that viewer's particular interests. TV Agent is a content personalization service powered by ContentIQ. This is the consumer app that MyDTV's operator customers offer to subscribers. Viewers with the TV Agent can use their remote control to search for programs within categories of interest. A category search for "golf" can lead to a more granular search for "Tiger Woods," for instance. "When programs matching those preference terms are about to air on a MyDTV partner channel, the viewer will get an alert or promo," Dudkiewicz explains. Using the remote control and on-screen prompts, the user can instantly tune to the requested content or not. PromoLogic is a cross-channel promotional service that delivers the pop-up alerts or promos for viewer-specified content across all channels. Programmers can tailor the alerts or promos to match viewer-defined topics and keywords to programming content. The service gives programmers a way to lure interested audiences to their content offerings. The MyDTV service is in a
"successful" joint trial with "a major cable
operator" that the company declined to name. "Due to
the success and measured results with increasing pay-per-view
and reducing churn during the trial, this operator and others
are considering rolling out the service commercially in
2003," Rodgers said. Over the coming months, he added,
the start-up plans to expand its technology partner roster,
"broaden its relationships with programmers and
strengthen its infrastructure with additional customer
service, technical support, sales and integration teams, while
continuing to focus on deployment."
Back
to Headlines
TiVO Offers Lifetime Upgrade Deal TiVO seems to want its lifetime subscribers to buy its new Series2 digital video recorder systems. The company has a promotion running through March 10 that lets lifetime subscribers with a Series1 system switch their subscription to the Series2 unit and get up to 80 hours of recording time. Series2 is also necessary to use TiVO's upcoming Home Media Option that, for a one-time fee of $99, will let subscribers remotely schedule the recording of shows over the Internet as well as play music and videos and view photographs from TiVO-connected devices. Subscribers have to purchase
the new units directly from TiVO to qualify for the promo
deal. Eligible Series1 recorders are the Philips HDR112,
HDR212, HDR312, HDR612 and Sony SVR2000. DirecTV receivers
with TiVO capabilities are not included in the promotion. The
Series2 recorders are $349.99 after a $50 rebate.
Back
to Headlines
Listen.com, Lycos Music Push Rhapsody In an effort to reward current subscribers and get new ones, Listen.com and Terra Lycos are offering a promotion that lets members download and burn songs from the Rhapsody digital music service for 49 cents a track. The promo price, half the regular 99-cent-per-track cost and supposedly the lowest per-track price available to US customers, applies to Rhapsody's entire library of burnable content, including music from BMG, EMI, Universal, Warner Music and more than 30 indie labels. The promotion is open to current Rhapsody subscribers as well as those who sign up for the service via the Lycos Music and Listen.com sites from now until March 31. To, um, promote the promotion,
the companies are offering a "Free Access Week" from
now until February 21 during which customers can test-drive
the service for free, without providing a credit card.
Customers who subscribe this week will also get 50% off the
first three months of service. Back
to Headlines
Sonic Desktop DVD Software Hits 3m Sonic Solutions, whose professional DVD authoring system is behind most major film releases on DVD, is crowing that sales of its desktop DVD creation apps have passed the three million mark a mere six months after they hit two million. Based on the same technology underlying Sonic's Hollywood DVD production systems, MyDVD and DVDit! are targeted at home users and videographers who want to create DVDs and VCDs of their videos and photos. The desktop solutions let users drag-and-drop video and audio into a project, create interactive menus and record the end result to DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD-RAM or CD-R/RW. MyDVD is a PC app for consumer DVD creation. For video enthusiasts, graphic designers and videographers, DVDit combines a simple, straightforward user interface with Sonic's DVD formatting technology, enabling users to create interactive DVD content on their PCs. Sonic supplies its DVD creation
software PC, peripheral and drive OEMs including Adaptec,
Compaq, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Hitachi, Matrox, Memorex, Nova,
Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer and Sony. Back
to Headlines
Sharman Networks has released a new version of the wildly popular Kazaa Media Desktop (KMD) software with added premium rights-management content. In Version 2.0, Sharman introduces Showcase, with rights-managed content from Altnet. Now, in KMD rev 2.1, there's a greater ratio of rights-managed files, a new interface with sections for audio files, computer games, software video content and Kreate. Kreate is Sharman's offering for its artsy members, providing the tools and framework users need to create and share their own digital content. The new rev also has more pre-loaded playlists of Altnet rights-managed music files from new categories including jazz, folk, punk, trip-hop and world beat. Additionally, installation has been made easier, with a smaller file size and only two promotional partners. Some 186 million copies of the
Kazaa Media Desktop have been downloaded.
Back
to Headlines
Webstreaming.com Buys DualStreamer Webstreaming.com, a UK-based web-streaming hosting service and delivery provider, has acquired the rights and assets of Chyron Corporation's Clarinet DualStreamer business. The acquisition of DualStreamer, the first broadcast-compliant web-streaming encoder, means Webstreaming.com can offer both a corporate solution for live event streaming or a standalone unit for broadcasters and production houses. According to Webstreaming.com director Barry Reading, the company is now able to provide a "complete 'black box' solution that includes radio and TV broadcasting through to corporate briefings." Although Chyron believes
DualStreamer is a solid, innovative product, it sold it
because "in our market segment we are not positioned to
realize the full potential," says Graham Pitman, Chyron
senior VP sales and marketing. Chyron provides broadcast
hardware, software and associated services to the broadcast,
post production, professional and corporate video user.
Back
to Headlines
Peer-to-Peer for Cell Phones Coming, But with DRM Cell phones are getting very PC-like functions such as MP3 players and access to "high-speed" networks. Can a pirate-encouraging peer-to-peer network be far behind? France-based Apeera has announced what it calls a "managed peer-to-peer" network that operates over the cell phone network. Apeera was able to build a digital rights management (DRM) capability into the thing that's supposed to prevent copyright infringement. Unlike PCs, cell phones have a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) - a "chip card" the size of a postage stamp that can be used to implement DRM. Apeera's software, using the SIM, can track copyrighted material across the cell phone network. So the cell phone service provider can control content distribution, unlike an Internet service provider. The device provider can apply copyright charges to the subscriber's account and impose restrictions on users. Unlike PCs, cell phones have no hard disks and limited memory for storing music and games. Apeera's technology benefits cell phone owners by providing virtual storage space for their music, games and pictures. It also allows sending these files, whether music, images or games between handsets but tracks their movement and charges for them as appropriate. Its DRM makes sure that the copyright owners get paid and that unauthorized files aren't swapped. It's sort of the un-pirate
Napster. Back
to Headlines
Sweden's Wireless Networking on the Train Real-time wireless broadband services are now being tested on trains traveling between Copenhagen and Gothenburg. The service will enable passengers and railway staff to access their emails and surf the Internet. Passengers will be able to get train travel, tourist and weather information. The system uses Sweden-based Icomera 's Wi-Fi Mobility Hub within the train communicating with a broadband satellite and GSM connections. Michael Johansson, CEO of
Icomera says, "The system is a total end-to end solution
including all hardware, software and communication channels
using satellite for broadband capacity and multiple GSM links
in parallel for reliability. Passengers using the service
simply connect to the wireless LAN network via their own
laptops. The goal is to allow the customer to experience
continuous Internet connectivity during their journey, making
their travel time more effective. In this way the train will
be more competitive to other travel alternatives."
Back
to Headlines
Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Video Without Boundaries (VWB) has acquired Brokenremote.tv, a portal focusing on news and market analysis about the digital media market. VWB also took a 6% stake in Brokenremote parent CAC Media. According to VWB president Jeffrey Harrell, the acquisition will allow his company to "build its brand recognition within this new emerging market and leverage its existing strategic relationships with various streaming media clients and partners as new advertising clients of Brokenremote.tv." Video Without Boundaries also plans to expand the web site's editorial focus. Brokenremote currently provides information of interest to industry professionals - legal industry issues, market data and the like. The idea for VWB is to expand it to serve consumers as well and help them figure out what to buy - or not - as convergence moves more and more to the forefront of the consumer electronics industry. Plans include buyers guides, product reviews and an "online guide of various interactive entertainment services catered to emerging technologies such as interactive TV, music and video-on-demand," Harrell says. VWB is also working with CAC Media on some new products, the first of which it plans to announce within the next month. The companies weren't forthcoming with much detail, but according to CAC Media founder Ken Nelson, it's a "very unique product with very unique software" that will be available at an "exciting price point." Nelson says, for his company, selling Brokenremote.tv made sense so CAC Media can get more heavily into software development. Aside from the portal, CAC Media was created to develop software and media platforms to address copyright protection and consumer rights. Its platforms get embedded in interactive consumer electronics devices to support convergence. The upcoming product
announcement with VWB is only the first of several expected
this year, Nelson said, adding, "Our introduction into
the convergence space will turn some heads in the
industry." Back
to Headlines
- 4:3 is the width-height ratio
for today's "square" TV. Slices of the left and
right sides of movies aren't shown when played on a 4:3 TV
tube. If, as occasionally happens, a movie is shown full
width, the top and bottom of the TV picture is black. Espial, a provider of embedded
software for delivering interactive programming to TV and
wireless devices, has hired former OpenTV president and COO
Martin Leamy as its new CEO. Ottawa-based Espial's co-founder
Jaison Dolvane was named president and will focus on strategic
initiatives and corporate development.
Back
to Headlines
Record Label Head: Labels Run Risks with DRM, Business Model Outdated "In five years, record labels will be software companies and I don't think they know that yet. The music business will be saved by someone from the software business who can impose a new business model on music assets," according to John Snyder, president of Artist House Records and board member of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), who in an paper submitted to NARAS suggests that if record labels don't start trying to be part of the future they will be bought up and converted to it by someone who is. He claims, "Music
companies are more egregious in their abuse of consumers than
the movie companies. Consumers don't hate movie companies, but
they do hate record companies. The question is, why is this
happening and what is going to be done about it? Digital copy
protection (digital rights management or DRM) will only add
fuel to this fire, so expect a very big blaze in 2003. In the
end, it will be the music companies that run the risk of being
consumed by it. Music companies have the opportunity to adjust
to the new realities of digital distribution but instead they
cling to their existing business models where they control as
much of the distribution channel as possible. It is doubtful
that this behavior will be rewarded with increased
sales." Back
to Headlines
"It is one thing to be
unsuccessful, it's one thing to argue a bad position, but it's
quite another to be silly and laughed at, and that's where the
RIAA has ended up. They appear to be totally irrelevant except
as bagmen. It's more than just bad PR, it's bad science. The
RIAA reached its conclusions, then looked for supporting
arguments, all the while ignoring reality, opportunity and
fact. They overstate their position, misinterpret their own
data, and make dubious claims for artists' rights when the
biggest abusers of artists' rights are their benefactors, the
record companies themselves." - John Snyder, president of
Artist House Records, a member of the board of the National
Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) and a
32-times Grammy nominee. Back
to Headlines
"EverQuest Online Adventures"for PS2 Sony Online Entertainment said
Wednesday that its "EverQuest Online Adventures"
title is now available for PlayStation 2. The PS2 version of
the company's popular massively multi-player online
role-playing game comes with a free 30-day subscription to the
online network; thereafter the game carries a monthly
subscription fee of $9.99 a person. The PC version of the game
currently claims 430,000 paying subscribers.
Back
to Headlines
Beatnik, a developer of audio
software for mobile devices, says that Sony Ericsson Mobile
Communications is using the Beatnik Audio Engine in its new
Symbian-based P800 mobile phone and in other future products.
San Mateo, California-based Beatnik's technology lets users
download high-fidelity musical ringtones, play games with
realistic sound effects, send audio-enhanced multimedia
messages and assign custom sounds to common phone tasks.
Back
to Headlines
Intervideo, Fujitsu Go Grocery Shopping DVD software developer
InterVideo says that Fujitsu Siemens has agreed to bundle its
WinDVD DVD player on computers sold through Germany's Penny
Markt stores. Penny Markt GmbH is one of the largest grocery
store chains in Europe, with over 2,800 locations throughout
Germany. About 23% of PCs are sold through food channels in
Germany. Guess it depends on what one has an appetite for.
Back
to Headlines
HBO Puts Critic's Initials on Preview Copies HBO, recognizing the ease with
which preview copies of next season's shows can be sold and
swapped, has put the reviewer's initials on the upper right
corner of the preview tapes it sends out. Its goal is to
prevent the content of the preview tapes from making its way
onto eBay or any of the peer-to-peer pirate networks. The
first program to be "branded" like this is the
funeral home soap opera "Six Feet Under."
Back
to Headlines
T-Online To Puts its Internet Content & Services on TV Deutsche Telecom's cell phone
service provider T-Online intends to make its Internet content
and services such as video-on-demand, an electronic TV program
guide, e-mail and instant messenger available on TV in Europe.
It will require a set-top box that the company will make, a
broadband connection and a TV antenna cable. The set-top will
contain a personal video recorder for pausing, recording and
playing back movies and TV programs. T-Online said it will
work with local TV stations to offer interactive TV.
Back
to Headlines
The 45th Annual Grammy Awards
are on Sunday, February 23 at Madison Square Garden in NYC and
broadcast in High Definition TV and 5.1 Surround Sound on the
CBS Television network at 8 pm (EST/PST).
Back
to Headlines
"Can AOL Bridge its Broadband Gap?" Researcher Strategy Analytics says that an exodus of top executives, crushing debt and the biggest annual loss in US business history are only the beginning of the problems facing America Online. In a report titled "Can AOL Bridge its Broadband Gap?" it predicts that the world's leading Internet service provider potentially faces huge revenue losses in the next few years as broadband becomes the predominant form of Internet access in the US. "Broadband subscribers account for only about a quarter of the US online audience today," notes James Penhune, a director of Strategy Analytics' global broadband practice. "But by 2005, we expect that half of all online homes will be using broadband connections, most of them provided by cable and telephone companies. AOL may be able to maintain a commanding share of the dial-up audience, but the overall size of this market will have declined significantly." Strategy Analytics calculates that AOL could lose as much as a billion dollars in revenue as its dial-up user base shrinks. The report says that competition from broadband service providers isn't AOL's only problem. Even if it succeeds in upgrading its current customers to broadband, the result will be hundreds of millions in lost subscription revenue. AOL's new "Bring Your Own Access" plan lets consumers who get broadband access from cable or telephone companies add a high-speed version of AOL for an additional $14.95 a month. But since AOL's standard fee for dial-up is $23.90 a month, each time a customer trades up to broadband it could cost the company nearly $9 a month in revenue. The report speculates that the combination of a shrinking dial-up market and the diminished margins produced by broadband subscriptions could cost the company nearly a billion dollars by 2005. Strategy says that AOL hopes to create new revenues by selling new premium services to its dial-up and high-speed subscribers. But so far few specifics have been revealed, despite the company's access to the print, music and video content owned by the AOL Time Warner media empire. "Broadband may be the future, but AOL first needs to fix its core dial-up business," Penhune suggests. "Management should make the most of the service's huge base of subscribers by rebuilding ad revenues and establishing more premium services. They may also experiment with prices by adding less expensive options for new customers while boosting rates for the flagship service." Strategy Analytics needs to fix its own math before "fixing" America Online. America Online's monthly cost for phone services for its dial up customers is about $8, leaving it with about $15 of gross margin. US Internet Households 2002-2008 (millions)
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
2008 Broadband Score: Time Warner Cable, 2.6 million; AOL, 650,000 Time Warner Cable's Road Runner broadband Internet service has 2.6 million subscribers, four times as many as America Online's 650,000 broadband customers. In fact, Road Runner added a million new subscribers in 2002, more than America Online did in five years. Road Runner's marketing collateral for its $44.95-a-month service says, "It's easy to get, easy to use," and offers "lightning fast connections" and "unique content." In addition to selling its own Road Runner service, Time Warner also offers Microsoft's MSN, Earthlink and other America Online competitors. The two operations, America Online and Road Runner, could have been combined when AOL bought Time Warner - it would certainly have been a formidable force in the Internet connection market, number one in dial-up and number one in broadband. Going forward, however, America Online and Road Runner will have to continue to operate separately because AOL Time Warner plans to sell off some of its shares in Time Warner Cable, probably in an IPO, to pay down some of its $26 billion debt. Ironically some of that debt was incurred because AOL had to buy Bertelsmann's share of AOL Europe. Who's in charge here?
Back
to Headlines
Yahoo will soon join America Online and MSN in offering a "bring your own broadband" (BYOB) service that lets consumers who don't use Yahoo for broadband access use Yahoo's value-added content and services such as enhanced e-mail and personal ads. The monthly fee for BYOB is expected to be $5. Yahoo continues to do what many think America Online should have done: - Improving and aggressively marketing its own search engine. Yahoo just acquired search engine developer Inktomi for $235 million and will soon use it exclusively instead of Google. Yahoo brought in $100 million last year from ad sales on its search results pages. - Launched a full-fledged Internet music service that will compete with the labels-owned Musicnet and Pressplay. - Added a jobs listing and search operation, Hotjobs, whose revenues increased 65% last year. - Co-branded its broadband Internet access with major telco SBC. - Yahoo launched a fee-based online radio service in January called Launchcast Plus for $3.99 a month or $35.99 a year. It's an upscale version of Yahoo's free service that provides ad-free listening, the ability to create custom stations from multiple genres and a chance to form "communities" by sampling or subscribing to stations created by other listeners. Yahoo has integrated Launchcast Plus into its DSL and dial-up services. - Yahoo is expected to launch an Internet video service much like RealNetworks has been doing successfully. It said it would be a streaming video subscription service called "Yahoo Platinum" that would offer clips of news, entertainment and sports programming. Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang showed clips from Fox's "American Idol." He said Platinum would offer outtakes, exclusive interviews and special events from third-party partners. The company is negotiating with Fox, CBS, ABCNews and others to include their content, according to webzine CNET. - It also plans a premium services package to be called "Yahoo Plus," which it said would appeal to broadband users but did not give any details. - Yahoo says it has made a deal to distribute Yahoo Plus on Hewlett-Packard computers. Bottom Line BYOB Rates America Online $14.95 Earthlink, the third-largest US ISP, and EchoStar, the second-largest satellite TV service, will bundle their products together in their customer offerings. EchoStar's Dish Network will offer its subscribers Earthlink's DSL service directly and through its retailers. EchoStar customers who sign up for the DSL (digital subscriber line) service will get credits of up to $10 a month on their satellite TV bills. Earthlink sells its DSL broadband service for $49.95 a month. The deal applies only to new Earthlink subscribers who sign up for a minimum of Dish Network's America's Top 100 programming package, which runs $33.99 a month or more, depending on premium channels. EchoStar customers who can't get Earthlink DSL will get a discount on dial-up. Earthlink, like America Online and MSN, is looking for partners who can help it leverage its way out of the trap created by the declining market for dial-up Internet access and the phone and cable companies' dominance of the broadband market. A Nielsen/NetRatings study shows that dial-up access, which the three ISPs dominate, has declined 10% but broadband, which they have only tiny share of, increased 59% last year. The trap's sharp teeth are the many $9.95-a-month dial-up ISPs that are undercutting the $20+ a month that AOL, MSN and Earthlink charge. Earthlink has already partnered with AOL Time Warner's Time Warner Cable, ordered by the government as part of the agreement to approve AOL's acquisition of Time Warner, and with Comcast, mandated as part of AT&T's sale of its cable business to Comcast. Earthlink has done somewhat better than MSN and AOL and upped its broadband subscribers to 779,000 at year-end, a 65.4% increase over 2001. DirecTV, the states' number-one satellite TV service, got its own DSL broadband count up to 160,000 subscribers last fall, but then announced that it was discontinuing the service starting February 1. It is transitioning its DSL subscribers to Verizon, BellSouth and SBC. DirecTV still offers its Directway satellite Internet access. The Directway Two-Way System requires a special dish and uploads and downloads via the satellite. The Directway One-Way System requires a dial-up modem to connect to the Internet and subscribers download at high speeds off the satellite but upload and send requests by dial-up modem. General Motors' Hughes Electronics owns 30% of DirecTV with the other 70% publicly traded. The Federal Communications
Commission in December voided EchoStar's attempt to buy
DirecTV. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which has been trying to
acquire DirecTV for a number of years, is expected to have
another go at the money-losing operation. SBC, the regional
phone company, said this week that it is also talking to
General Motors about acquiring it.
Back
to Headlines
Laughing All the Way to Broadband BT is luring subscribers to its
broadband service with a laugh by offering free downloads of
British comedy clips for eight weeks. Teaming with the web
site Classic Comedy http://classiccomedy.net, users will be
able to view in RealVideo or Windows Media format, comedy
classics including some Monty Python sketches and shorts from
"Are You Being Served" and "Benny Hill."
Back
to Headlines
Broadband users love movies according to a report from research house Forrester Research. Or, could it be that movie lovers have broadband? Forrester says that 10% of broadband users have rented a movie from an Internet movie service such as Netflix and another 25% are interested in doing so. Only 2% of dial-up users have tried a web flick. About 34% of broadband users
stream video off the web and 31% download it. Broadband users
are movie fans, with a typical subscriber owning 55 videotape
movies and 16 DVD movies. But, Forrester cautions, half of
those consumers who have tried online rentals have said they
will not do so again. Details of the report will cost $75 at http://www.forrester.com/ER/Research/DataSnapshot/Excerpt/0,1317,16289,FF.html.
Back
to Headlines
Researcher Strategy Analytics
estimates that another 1.3 million British homes will get a
broadband connection this year, bringing the total at the end
of 2003 to three million. Britain is second to Germany but
ahead of France in the number of broadband households it has
domestically. DSL and cable share the market equally now but
DSL is expected to ultimately end up with 65% to cable's 31%.
The company reckons that 1.5 million - a third of British
homes - will have broadband by 2008.
Back
to Headlines
Researcher Strategy Analytics
estimates that 7.5% of European households have a broadband
Internet connection after 2002 saw a record 6.3 million new
subscribers, a 55% increase. Most chose DSL, increasing its
market share from 72.3% to 76.1% in 2002. Cable's share fell
from 26.0% to 22.6%. The research house forecasts another 7.2
million new subscribers this year, bringing the total to 19.1
million, which is 11.9% of total households.
Back
to Headlines
The use of DSL is continuing to grow strongly around the world, according to DSL analysis site Point Topic. Point Topic estimates the number of installed DSL lines at the end of 2002 at 36.3 million, nearly double the 18.8 million a year earlier. The numbers are based on initial figures from operators accounting for more than 75% of the world's DSL lines. Western Europe is seeing the fastest growth, with an average of 28.5% in Q4 and France Telecom and Swisscom increasing their installed base by more than 50% then. Overall, growth in Asia-Pacific is slowing, despite DSL deployment in Japan growing 33.7% to more than 5.6 million lines. Growth in Korea has slackened off, with the basic market approaching saturation. The Americas represented the slowest growth, averaging just 11%. Tim Johnson, publisher of Point Topic, blames the "regulatory regime" in the US for failing to promote "strong broadband rollout by the telcos." According to Johnson, many thought Point Topic's summer forecast of 35 million DSL lines by the end of 2003 "was optimistic after the weak second quarter. But in fact the operators have done a little bit better than we expected, despite the continuing difficulties of the telecoms industry," he said. Johnson expects the number of
DSL lines added each quarter this year to keep increasing,
reaching about 60 million by year-end.
Back
to Headlines
Internet Access Market Forking The Internet access market has begun forking into two segments as predicted in The Online Reporter (See TOR334-40 Panic Buttons Hit at MSN, America Online, The Forking Theory). The lower path is low-cost sub-$10 dial-up access for infrequent web users who check e-mail a couple of times a week and make an infrequent purchase such as an airline ticket or a gift. The higher path is the $35+ power user who wants to be always-on, using e-mail, looking up information and news, downloading and streaming music and movies plus spending $1,200 or more a year on net purchases. Earthlink, the nation's number three ISP, is offering new subscribers for the next three months a $10.95 a month, half its regular $21.95 price. Earthlink offers a free 45-day or 1,000-hour free trial. The company will also beef up its anti-spam functions. It says that spam has increased six-fold over the last 18 months. It also began offering new
users six months at half the usual price of $21.95 a month
through a campaign that began in December and has a direct
mail campaign that lets new users try the service free for 45
days or 1,000 hours. Back
to Headlines
BT, AOL, Others Promote "Always On," "Fast Downloads" For the record, British Telecom promotes, as does every other broadband provider that has ever sent us a press release, including media giant AOL Time Warner, that "always on" and "fast download" are the main benefits its broadband service offers. To consumers, "always on" means always on, not just "on until you reach your download quota." "Downloads" clearly means the ability to download music, movies and software, whether purchased or non-purchased. Broadband ISPs shouldn't start, after all this time, naively acting that they weren't aware that by downloading, they didn't know that their subscribers were swapping movie and music files. There is no doubt that downloading content is one of the main, if not the main, reason that people upgrade from dial up to broadband. None. The actual quote from BT's most recent press release, the one about doing the Yahoo deal, says: AOL Time Warner, the world's
largest media company with major music, movie, books and
magazine operations, is also the world's largest ISP. It says
the same about its two broadband services, America Online and
Road Runner - "always on," and "faster
downloads." Yet its actions and words are contradictory.
When it speaks to the public, the government and the courts
through its MPAA and RIAA mouthpieces, AOL TW deplores people
downloading content. When speaking though its America Online
Division, trying to persuade consumers to sign-up for Internet
access, it does so knowing and encouraging people to download.
Wink, wink, nod, nod. Back
to Headlines
BA Offers In-flight Wireless Internet Access British Airways business and
first-class passengers are able to surf the net in-flight on
selected flight under a scheme developed by Intel and Boeing.
BA aims for economy ticket holders to be able to use the
service starting February 18. BA says that 75% of its business
travelers carry laptops on to the plane. Net access is made
via satellite to servers on the ground.
Back
to Headlines
Britain-based broadband provider NTL has imposed download limits on its broadband service. It now restricts customers to one gigabyte of downloaded data a day, what it calls "normal use." Its offer to customers, however, was "unlimited surfing." Several subscribers told the BBC that the ceiling amounts to as little as two-and-a-half hours of use a day for a service that says it's 24/7. NTL is the first broadband provider to impose such restrictions. It said the move was necessary to help all its subscribers get consistent service. From day one the theme song of broadband providers has been "always on" and download speed. NTL is now saying that all that was a come-on, at least in its case. It says its one-gigabyte limit is equivalent to "200 music tracks, 650 short videos, 10,000 pictures or around 100 large software programs downloaded per day." Following a barrage of protests from its customers, NTL began backtracking on its position, saying the curfew was only meant for those who went over 1GB a lot. "Our objective is only to
limit very frequent or persistent heavy network use that can
impact other customers. Therefore we will only contact
customers who exceed the daily data limit for three or more
days in any consecutive 14-day period," NTL's managing
director Aizad Hussain said by way of explanation.
Back
to Headlines
Yahoo Nabs BT for British Broadband Partner Yahoo added to MSN and America Online's European competition by doing a deal with British Telecom to co-market Yahoo as a broadband Internet value-added service similar to the successful deal Yahoo did in the states with regional phone service SBC. To be called Yahoo! UK Plus, it will entice consumers with multiple e-mail accounts, digital photo storage, anti-virus software and firewall security. Expected to launch in the next 45 days, the monthly fee was not announced but is expected to be more than the 28 pounds ($45) monthly fee that BT gets for its own service. A jointly funded multimillion-pound marketing campaign will promote the service. The Online Reporter reported last month that Yahoo intended to add European broadband and additional US broadband partners as it continues its turnaround. Mark Opzoomer, managing director of money-losing Yahoo Europe, told Reuters, "There's discussions in the pipeline ongoing in the US and internationally with leading teleco firms on similar deals." He expects to announce similar deals in other European markets, though he declined to say when. BT signed a similar deal with Yahoo rival MSN in November. MSN touts its MSN 8 portal as having faster downloads, better parental controls and spam filters. BT is now in the position that Microsoft likes to maneuver its way into - it wins either way, whether the consumer uses Yahoo, MSN or even BT's own "no frills" program to connect to the Internet. AOL Europe now finds itself opposing its main UK competitors, with MSN, Yahoo and BT all pulling together, more or less, to do it harm in the marketplace. Yahoo seems to be ahead of
America Online in its efforts to reduce its dependence on the
declining Internet display advertising market. It believes it
can cobble together enough value-added products and services
such as personal ads, anti-virus programs and help wanted ads
to attract consumers willing to spend a few quid more for the
extras. Back
to Headlines
So Who Said, "We Got Broadband Wrong and Had To Start Again? Who said of their broadband
strategy? "As you know, we started completely wrong. It
was all wrong and we had to change. We had to start
again." Nope. Wasn't anyone from AOL Time Warner,
although it could have been. It was Pierre Danon, the CEO of
British Telecom Retail. At least he was candid enough to say
it. Back
to Headlines
France Telecom To Serve Up Wi-Fi Big Time France Telecom has unveiled several new initiatives to promote Wi-Fi wireless networking. France Telecom is France's largest local phone company and its Orange operation is one of Europe's largest cell phone service providers. It promises that its Wi-Fi offerings will meet the same standards as its other services in terms of security, ease-of-use and quality of service. It wants to make Wi-Fi widely available to businesses, consumers and so-called wireless communities. France Telecom chairman Thierry Breton said, "Wi-Fi is a wireless extension of the Internet just as domestic cordless phones were for voice during the Eighties. One thus should not seek to compare Wi-Fi with cell phones. Wi-Fi is the continuance of DSL. It is not a question of a network. It is a new method of accessing the web." Each division of France Telecom has been assigned a Wi-Fi responsibility: - Wi-Fi at home solutions from Wanadoo, which is the company's ISP service; - Wi-Fi solutions for businesses from its Oleane, Transpac and Equant operations; - Wi-Fi mobility solutions that
complement mobile phone services with a network of Orange
hotspots developed with landlords of office and residential
buildings. Back
to Headlines
Single Billing for Wi-Fi- Cell Phone Access Luxembourg-based Excilan has
developed an authentication and payment system that permits
cell phone users to access any Wi-Fi hot spot without the need
for two SIM cards, user IDs, passwords or PIN codes. Excilan's
system allows the cell phone service provider to make
"per-use" charges to the user's account.
Back
to Headlines
Sony US May Merge its Three Boards Tokyo-based Sony is considering merging the three different boards that rule its US operations, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment and Sony Electronics, into one to improve corporate governance. Sony's American "umbrella" company is New York-based Sony Corporation of America, whose power would increase under the proposed reorg. Sony Corporation of America reported over $18.5 billion in sales for the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2002. Sony as a whole had worldwide sales of $56.9 billion that same year. Sony's operations employ 168,000 people worldwide. Entity 3/31/02 Fiscal Year
Revenues Sony Corp of America accounts for 32.5% of Sony's total sales. Sony also plans to add more outside directors to its boards. Sony didn't say when it expected to make a final decision. So-called regional, wholly owned Sony operations in London, Shanghai and Tokyo may also be reorganized. Sony chairman and CEO Nobuyuki Idei told the Financial Times that the company was finalizing a "regional empowerment" drive to create three new hubs for managing its operations. "In future we don't need one legal music board or one movie board but maybe one board for American management," Idei said. Separate hubs will be created in Europe, with joint headquarters in London and Berlin, and in Asia in Tokyo and Shanghai. Sony wants to streamline decision-making, extract synergy savings from its electronics manufacturing and entertainment content and make room for younger managers who've seen their promotions blocked by Japan's lifetime employment practices. "In each hub we should attract the most talented local people," Idei said. "I call this localized globalization, where the regional management becomes more important." Sony: Supplier of Broadband
Services and Networks In January Idei implemented a shake-up of group management at Tokyo headquarters. He strengthened Sony's corporate governance by bringing outside directors onto what had become an insider board. During its early years Sony's board was dominated by outsiders, people who were investors or could provide independent advice. Over the years, however, it became populated with Sony employees. Sony began its business by repairing radios in Tokyo in October 1945 but was not formally incorporated until May 7, 1946. Co-founder Masaru Ibuku did not, however, become board chairman until June 1971 because outside investors and advisers made up the majority of the board of directors in Sony's early days. Idei called the changes part of a strategy to "improve the corporate architecture and prepare for succession." Details will be announced by mid-year, the company said. Sony spent several years studying management practices at internationalists like Nestlé, IBM, General Electric and Coca-Cola. Company executives and investors hope the management overhaul will boost Sony's share price, which has lost a third of its value to $39 over the last year. What of the Playstation
Platoon? The first PlayStation was launched in the states in September 1995. It was an immediate hit: Time Period Units Sold Kazuo Hirai is president and the operation's two executive VPs are Jack Tretton and Andrew House. An examination of the competitive landscape makes it possible to see why Sony might be reluctant to tamper with the PlayStation team. It's been on a phenomenal winning streak but it's now engaged in its most formidable battle ever against cash-rich Microsoft and its Xbox. The Redmond Xboxers are determined to end PlayStation's dominance, even to the point of losing $100 or so on every Xbox sold and buying up games developers to control what everyone know is the industry's air supply - the games themselves. Sony Computer Entertainment also faces a monumental technology challenge in developing the so-called Cell digital media microprocessor in a joint venture with IBM and Toshiba. Sony is determined to use the Cell chip in its next-generation PlayStation 3 to give it a major technology advantage. Depending on such a radically new microprocessor for fighting off Microsoft is high risk. If the chip is delayed or fails, Microsoft could find itself with a clear path to the winning goal. Sony's head honchos may not
want to distract Sony Computer Entertainment with management
reshuffling while the PlayStation platoon is immersed in such
a fight. Back
to Headlines
Stockholm-based Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications' executive VP Jan Waereby promised that the joint venture would become profitable this year. He said that a market share of 7%-10% would be needed to get in the black. Sony and Ericsson last week agreed together to put another $163 million into the cell phone maker, which has lost $448 million since October 2001 when the two put their failing mobile operations together. The company is counting on the "cheap and cheerful" T200 and its upcoming digital media-enabled P800 camera-phone-PDA combo to carry it to success. One long shot that might help the company would be for it to get some measurable share of China's cellular market, the world's largest. To that end, Sony Ericsson has targeted a variation on its least expensive T100 phone, a model T102 for the Chinese market. Sony Ericsson forecasts that
about 435 million cell phones will be sold worldwide this
year, up 10% from an estimated 395 million in 2002.
Lawyers for St Clair Intellectual Property Consultants told a Wilmington, Delaware jury that Sony violated four patents it holds for digital camera technology that displays pictures in various formats on both IBM and Apple PCs. St Clair bought the rights to the patents under a deal to split any award the federal trial makes with the widgetry's three inventors. It wants $171.4 million based on Sony's sales of $3 billion worth of the cameras since 1998. The patents date from 1992; the suit from August 2001. Sony's lawyers deny the charge
and say that Sony's cameras operate entirely differently from
what the patents describe but they figure that if Sony is
found guilty, the award shouldn't exceed $5.73 million.
Back
to Headlines
Sony Brews Up Another Cell Phone Deal Sony Pictures Digital (SPD) has increased its commitment to the cell phone business by announcing its intention to develop games and other entertainment applications such as wallpaper and screensavers for Qualcomm's BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) technology platform, Qualcomm's answer to Sun's Java. Sony intends to put arcade classics such as "Q*bert" and games and applications from films such as "XXX" and "Stuart Little 2" and TV shows such as the ever-popular "Wheel of Fortune," "Jeopardy" and "Pyramid." The key word in all these announcements about putting content from movies, games and TV shows on cell phones is "monetize." Sony thinks it can convince cell phone service providers such as Verizon, Alltel, Korea's KTF and Japan's KDDI, all of whom use BREW-based services, to sign up for its content. In January, SPD monetized this same content when it made a deal with Sprint to create Java-based, as opposed to BREW-based, games and applications for Sprint's PCS Vision customers. Rio Caraeff, VP of SPD's wireless services, says, "With the addition of BREW support to our game roadmap, we can deliver a rich experience to mobile consumers while helping us achieve our business goal of becoming a major mobile entertainment publisher." In a word that translates to monetize. Qualcomm senior VP of marketing
and product management Gina Lombardi returned the compliment,
"We are excited that Sony Pictures Digital recognizes the
BREW platform as the complete cutting-edge solution for
developing wireless content." Back
to Headlines
Sony as Broadband Service Provider Sony aims to become the leading provider of broadband service to consumers in Japan. It sees its broadband initiative as necessary to its digital media ambitions as a means to deliver software and content. Called Sony Communication Network (SCN), a recent ad and promotion campaign for its ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) service offered a free optical communications service. Tokyo subscribers won't have to pay a network installation fee of 29,000 yen ($240) or any monthly fees of 7,800 yen ($65) until the end of July. SCN expects to lose 300 million yen ($2.5 million) this fiscal year. Masayuki Nozoe, a senior manager at Sony, strongly supports the move of growing its broadband subscriber base. Nozoe heads a new Sony initiative called the Network Application and Content Service Sector (NACSS) that was established in April 2002 and supervises Sony's communications-related operations. Nozoe headed negotiations for Sony's acquisition of part of Japan's leading ISP, Nifty Corporation, in which it shares ownership with Fujitsu. Previously, he was an adviser to the president of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Connect the Dots a)Sony seems to be further
along in its broadband initiative because of aggressive
marketing. Sharp Intros Web-accessible Home Media Server Sharp's new home digital media
server, set to ship in Japan on February 15 as model HG-01S
for about $850, seems to be a complete package. The
Linux-based unit allows consumers to store video and digital
pictures plus play, pause, record and playback programs and
movies shown on a TV.
A Networkable Web Server
Sharp HG-01S: Wireless Network at Home; Accessible by Laptop via Internet or by Cell Phone It has a 120GB hard disk and records in MPEG-2 at 720-pixels by 480-pixels resolution at 8Mbps, 4Mbps or 2Mbps. That means the unit will hold 30 hours of high-quality, 60 hours of medium-quality or 115 hours of low-quality media. It can also convert an MPEG-2 video into MPEG-4, a newer compression scheme that makes video files smaller without losing quality. - Connected to a TV, an onscreen graphical menu offers quick access to recorded programs and the unit's functions. - Connected to the Internet via broadband, the unit's 802.11b wireless adapter serves up recorded videos and pictures to other PCs on the local home network. - Away from home, users can use a browser to access the unit over the net and view recorded programs and pictures. Sharp's Media Palette software has to be installed for remote access. Access is routed through Sharp's Space Town Internet portal. -MPEG-2 files are large per-minute content so transmitting an MPEG-2 file would likely cause jittery and intermittent video. The MPEG-2-to-MPEG-4 conversion utility comes in handy because the MPEG-4-formatted file is so much smaller. Some PDAs can also display MPEG-4 and so can a whole generation of pocket-sized (large pockets, in most cases) battery-operated portable video players that will hit store shelves this year. Paris-based Archos is already shipping one in the US and Europe. - The unit includes software for organizing a family album of digital pictures, even allowing the user to make selected pictures available on the web for viewing from PCs or digital cameras.
Sharp HG-01S Menu as Displayed on the TV - The Japanese unit uses the Adams EPG/TV-Ashai Internet-based TV program guide to select programs to be watched and recorded. The guide contains links to the TV programs' home pages for additional information. Sharp, as is the Japanese electronics makers' wont, did not say when or even if it would be available in the states or the EU. An educated guess is that barring unforeseen bugs, it'll be in a store near you by the holidays. Video Capacity Depends on Recording Resolution Megabits per second Capacity in
Hours (120GB HD) Ever been traveling and wished you had easy access to your CD collection? Or want to listen to some new music that a friend recommended but you couldn't find? Want to find new music on the Internet but avoid the sites that are always being accused of encouraging piracy? Woodstock Systems this month released its Woodstock PDS software that lets you do those things. James Hoffman came up with the idea for the company two years ago when he found himself missing his music collection. Hoffman was in the process of selling his previous company and "wanted to do something [he] was passionate about." The idea for the new company seemed like just the right thing. To get started, Hoffman hooked up with some "like-minded folks" to further develop the idea and spent six months talking to lawyers and building prototypes. In September 2001, Woodstock Systems was born. The company claims the Woodstock PDS (Personal Digital Server) is the first software to combine a full-featured media player with peer-to-peer lending functionality. Woodstock PDS lets users play digital music, convert their CDs into MP3s, listen to thousands of Internet radio stations and lend their music files to friends or family. Listen, Don't Copy Woodstock promotes the concept of P2P networks among groups of friends, family and co-workers lending files rather than copying them. It "lends" a user access to a file, and restricts others from accessing the same file at the same time. Think of it like lending a CD to a friend - the friend can only listen to it during the time it's borrowed and you can't listen to it until he gives it back. The patent-pending lending system doesn't require or even permit copying the file. The original file never leaves the possession or control of the user serving the content. A Windows PC running the Woodstock software becomes a "personal digital server," enabling the user to access the files on his PC from a different machine. This remote accessibility can also be shared with friends. A closed P2P network differs from the open P2P networks because not everyone has access to a user's PC - only the people the user has invited. With the Woodstock system, when someone "borrows" a music track, the song is streamed in real-time to his PC from the "lending" machine. It never creates a full copy of the song, but streams small, temporary "chunks" as needed. These chunks aren't ever assembled into a complete song on the borrower's machine and are never stored on his hard drive. While a track is "borrowed," the destination machine is the only one that can play the track, all others with access - including the PC on which it resides - are restricted from listening. The core of the Woodstock PDS, Hoffman says, is the secure sharable remote access to a user's music collection. The company decided, however, that for the software to be really useful, it should include a full-featured media player that was easy to use. The player brought the possibility of listening to Internet radio, accessing greater detail about a particular artist or song and even buying a CD. Woodstock is also in talks with record companies and artists to make their music available through the Woodstock player as well. An Obsession with Music So, how does this thing work?
Screen shot of the Woodstock PDS The free version of Woodstock PDS lets you store and organize digital music, listen to some 4,000 Internet radio stations and program favorites, lend and borrow music, create playlists and listen to random songs. There's also a $29.95 version that adds CD ripping to convert songs to the MP3 format, CD burning and the ability to share photos, videos and other documents. The free version comes with a 30-day trial of the CD ripping and photo/video-sharing functionality. Besides making money from the commercial version of Woodstock PDS, the company offers direct marketing, such as promoting music-related services and letting users click to buy a CD through Amazon.com. If the six-month beta trial is
any sign, Woodstock should build up a respectable user
community in no time. Hoffman had to cut off new access to the
beta program when he realized there were some 20,000 users -
he was figuring on 500 or 1,000.
Back
to Headlines
Windows Media CD Burning - Full Speed Ahead Ahead Software, which makes the
Nero all-in-one CD/DVD recording software, has come out with a
plug-in for Windows Media Player 9. The plug-in, compatible
with Windows flavors from 98 on up, provides full-speed
recording and "Nero-reliability" from within the
Media Player. Ahead Software promises the Nero Fast Burning
Plug-in makes CD burning from Windows Media Player up to 26
times faster than before. It also gives users the option of
eliminating that two-second gap between audio tracks. The free
plug-in is available for download at www.wmplugins.com.
Back
to Headlines
Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics
Europe's Mobile Entertainment & Games Market To Hit E3.2b Denmark-based research house Strand Consult predicts that by 2005 the European market for cell phone games and entertainment will hit 3.2 billion euros. It expects that the next generation of digital media-enabled color phones with higher access speeds, called 2.5G and 3G, will stimulate demand for games and entertainment. The new mobile phones will offer improved sound, pictures, animation and video. Users will, it forecasts, be
able to rent games and entertainment such as music and video
clips by the day, week or month plus be able to buy them for
unlimited use. Micropayment systems will become important for
cellular service providers as well as Internet music and
gaming services. Back
to Headlines
Record sales in the UK dropped in 2002, after five years of outperforming the worldwide market, according to new numbers from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). The decline of 3.7% in sales can largely be blamed on price pressure, which caused the value of album sales to fall by 3% although the number of albums sold remained relatively stable. The number of singles sold, as opposed to full albums, declined 12%. The top reason for the decline in volume is, not surprisingly, piracy. Other factors include intense competition from computer games and DVDs and continued economic uncertainty, which hit the holiday shopping season particularly hard. One technology to watch for
potential future growth, according to the BPI, is the
fledgling music DVD market. Back
to Headlines
Europe's Wireless Hotspots Grow 327% Researcher IDC says that the European Wi-Fi wireless hotspots grew 327% in 2002 from 269 locations to 1,150. Wi-Fi hotspots enable PC users who have a Wi-Fi adapter in their laptop to access the Internet as they move about. The problem is that each Wi-Fi hotspot service provider requires different settings on the PC so that as a user moves from one hotspot to another, all the settings have to be changed. If the user is only going to the local coffee shop, that's not a big problem. For a salesperson traveling from one city to another, it becomes a major headache. It would be comparable to every town requiring a different cell phone setup. In the US, Deutsche Telecom's T-Mobile is attempting to establish a big footprint by getting its hotspot service up and running in every major airport. It's also partnered with HP to put Wi-Fi hotspots in every Starbucks coffee shop. A major boost to the Wi-Fi market will come as cell phone service providers and local phone companies integrate Wi-Fi into their offerings. IDC notes that the growth of
Wi-Fi was slowed in Europe by government regulations. As each
country has removed those regulations, Wi-Fi use has
accelerated. Back
to Headlines
RIAA Fires Salvo Back at Verizon During a February 7 press conference the RIAA criticized Verizon for taking the battle over the name of the Verizon customer believed to be trading in pirated music track to the press. The RIAA said that Verizon was saying one thing in public about protecting the privacy of its subscribers and another in private negotiations with the record labels' lobbying and trade group. RIAA senior VP for business and legal affairs Matthew Oppenheim said Verizon is "concerned about the issue of burden; they don't want to be subjected to the expense of responding to subpoenas." Federal Judge John Bates had ordered Verizon to obey the RIAA's subpoenas and turn the customer data over to the RIAA. Verizon, who's appealing, filed for a stay on January 30. The RIAA is concerned that if the stay is granted, any future requests for other subpoenas calling for the names of suspected copyright infringers to be divulged could be delayed for up to a year while the appeal is decided. Judge John Bates heard oral arguments on Verizon's request for a stay on February 13. Oppenheim called Verizon's efforts a "classic bait-and-switch." During the drafting of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which authorized such subpoenas, he said, "Verizon and other telecom companies asked that copyright owners go after the individual infringers rather than the networks that provide them with online access. Now, they're making it difficult for labels to obtain the information they need to deal with infringers. They're seeking to get the benefit of certain measures in the DMCA without having to deal with the burdens." "There is no right to anonymously commit crimes. No one, including Verizon, disputes that its users are downloading and disseminating copyrighted works in violation of the law. Individuals who infringe music on P2P networks are not engaged in private conduct; they are agreeing to freely share files on their hard drives with millions of other users on a public network," Oppenheim said after the group filed briefs opposing Verizon's request for a stay. Verizon did not immediately
respond to the RIAA's criticism. Back
to Headlines
TheStreet.com Weighs In on RIAA-Verizon Case "The RIAA vs. Verizon
case, by all accounts, is a crucial legal clash as far as
Internet cases go. It pits privacy rights on a collision
course with the protection of intellectual property rights in
the digital age. It's seen as a key courtroom battle in the
music industry's attempt to smash online piracy - a case that
may have as much impact as the one that knocked Napster on its
rear." - TheStreet .com writer George Mannes
Back
to Headlines
The arbitration that went on
between Microsoft and Nvidia over the price of the graphics
chips that Nvidia sells Microsoft for the Xbox is over
although the settlement terms haven't been disclosed. Nvidia
called the resolution a "win-win" for both, which
also means it's a lose-lose - sort of like the half-empty vs.
half-full glass. Microsoft reportedly loses about $100 on each
Xbox it sells and the settlement likely increases the loss a
bit. Back
to Headlines
Music, Movie Industries Publish Anti-Piracy Policy Guidebook for Corporates The music and movie trade groups have published a guide for companies on preventing copyright infringement in the workplace, which they intend to send to large corporations. Called "A Corporate Policy Guide to Copyright Use and Security on the Internet," it is published by the RIAA and the MPAA. It asks companies and government agencies to advise employees against copyright misuse on computer systems in the office, specifically copying and uploading copyright material to the Internet without permission from the rights owner. It also spells out the penalties for piracy, including "possible injunctions, damages, costs and possible criminal sanctions against the companies and their directors where corporate systems are used for copyright theft." "We want to advise
companies and governments about the problem of copyright theft
in the workplace and how to implement policies to minimize the
risk of this happening over their computer systems," said
Jay Berman, chairman and CEO of the London-based International
Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
Back
to Headlines
The nine founding developer members of the Blu-ray standard for next-generation DVDs start licensing the technology on February 17. Hitachi, LG Electronics, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Pioneer, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp, Sony and Thomson will license the rewritable format of Blu-ray Disc, the large capacity optical disc that uses a blue-violet laser. Blu-ray Disc products, the first optical disc format capable of recording high-definition broadcasts, will enable greater picture quality at home. DVDs hold 4.75GB. Blu-ray Discs
hold 27GB. Blu-ray discs can store up to 13 hours of standard
video data compared to the 133 minutes you get today with
single-sided DVDs. They're called Blu-ray because they use the
blue-violet laser ray instead of the red laser ray that DVDs
use. Their main application is initially expected to be for
storing large video files. Recording an HDTV movie takes about
four DVD disks; it'll only take one of the Blu-ray discs.
Back
to Headlines
Alcatel Acquires Broadband TV Outfit iMagicTV On February 7 Canadian-based iMagicTV announced that it had entered into an agreement with France-based Alcatel under which Alcatel will acquire iMagicTV in a transaction valued at approximately $30 million. Alcatel currently owns approximately 16% of iMagicTV. iMagicTV provides software products that allow phone companies and other service providers to deliver multi-channel television and interactive media services over high-speed broadband networks, specifically over DSL. Alcatel, which makes gear for phone companies, wants to sell them products that will enhance their broadband offerings and are capable of delivering live video, as in movies and TV programs, over the phone companies' DSL lines. The phone companies find themselves in a battle with the cable TV services for the consumer broadband market that they are losing just when the cable TV providers are beginning to offer local and long distance phone service in competition with the telcos. iMagicTV's Media Manager middleware platform is the foundation of the start-up's offerings for telcos and other service providers wanting to compete with local cable and satellite TV firms. Built on J2EE and BEA's WebLogic application server, Media Manager provides customers with the tools, applications and subscriber features necessary to create and manage such services as digital TV, video-on-demand and personal video recording. Current applications that run on top of Media Manager are DTV Manager, which provides the client- and server-side tools to create, deliver and manage broadband TV services; Movie Manager for previewing, buying and playing on-demand content; and DVR Manager, which allows for time-shifted viewing of broadcast programs. The company wants its products
to be used by local phone companies and broadcasters to
deliver high-quality movies, TV programs and other videos to
consumer PCs over DSL telephone lines. They want the telcos to
be able to compete with cable TV companies in the battle for
the consumers' entertainment dollars and euros.
Back
to Headlines
Handheld Electronic Devices To Get Better, Smaller Samsung Electronics has
developed a new "system in a package" (SIP) that
combines a CPU, flash memory and SDRAM in a single chip. For
PDAs and other handheld consumer electronics, it will increase
their functionality while reducing their size 10%-15%. Samsung
says that production will begin in this half.
Back
to Headlines
Philips, Digimarc Broaden Licensing Deal Royal Philips Electronics and Digimarc Corporation have extended the agreement that has Philips licensing Digimarc's digital watermarking patents. The two first inked a pact in April 2001 in support of Philips' WaterCast digital watermarking system. In September 2001 they extended it so Philips could license additional applications and expanded development and co-marketing activities. Now the two are broadening the non-exclusive agreement to cover video and audio applications in the professional, governmental and consumer markets. Since Philips first licensed Digimarc's patents for digital watermarking components and technologies, joint development has included video copyright communication, forensic tracking, asset management and remote triggering applications. "It is increasingly important to be able to accurately identify content through the use of digital watermarking," says Ronald Maandonks, business manager of content identification at Philips. "The expansion of the licensing agreement with Digimarc confirms our respective leading positions in digital watermarking technology. Philips was the first company to offer digital watermarking applications in both video and audio, and we are sure that we and Digimarc can look forward to expanding our activities together in these markets." Elsewhere on the Digimarc
front, the company reported total 2002 revenues of $86.6
million, up an astounding 482% from $14.9 million in 2001. Net
loss per share was 50 cents, narrowing from the loss-per-share
of $1.15 in the prior year. In the fourth quarter, Digimarc
had revenues of $20.8 million, with a net loss per share of a
penny, compared with a net loss of 41 cents per share on
revenues of $3.9 million in 4Q01. Back
to Headlines
**************************** - Broadband Internet connections in the home. Requires lower cost than the current $45-$55 monthly rate. At $29.95, most dial-up, narrowband subscribers would switch to broadband, via either the cable TV or local phone companies. - Compression technology for delivering high audio and video fidelity in a small file sizes. - Low-cost compatible media servers for storing, retrieving and playing movies, music, photos and videos. - Digital media-enabled PC software and hardware to create, receive, transmit, store, index/catalog, retrieve and back up media files. - Internet music and movie services offering (nearly) every movie and every tune ever made, 24 hours a day at a reasonable per-play or monthly subscription price. - Digital Rights Management software that's unobtrusive and lets users play purchased media files on all their digital media devices yet gives copyright owners a reasonable level of anti-piracy protection. - Wireless networking is the basis for the digital media-enabled home. Wireless-enabled PCs, media servers and other digital media devices are required, preferably built-in at the factory for lowest cost and ease of implementation. The Online Reporter tracks and
reports the developments in each **************************** Microsoft Breaks Own Download Record Microsoft says that 14 million downloads of Windows Media Player 9 Series were recorded worldwide in just 30 days - a rate of over five downloads a second. This shatters the old record for downloads of digital music jukebox software held by Windows Media Player 7 - nearly doubling the number of downloads in the first 30 days. Windows Movie Maker 2 for
Windows XP hit over three million downloads last month
worldwide. Back
to Headlines
Germany To Allow Online Drug Sales. Finally. The German government has
decided to allow drug sales over the Internet, citing
increased quality and reduced costs for patients as the
reason. Germany's rigid business rules also restrict the
ownership of pharmacies (chemists) to trained druggists, who
are only allowed to own one shop. The government says it wants
to change that restriction with legislation it will put before
the German parliament (Bundestag) in April. Yes, it is 2003.
Back
to Headlines
Victor Siegel has taken over as
CEO at Hello Networks. Back
to Headlines
Vivendi Selling Off Bronfman Art Collection Before succumbing to the siren
song of Jean-Marie Messier and selling the Bronfman family's
company Seagram's to Vivendi, the family used a lot of company
money acquiring valuable art. Feeling the pinch of the
financial debt that Messier left the combined Vivendi
Universal company, CEO Jean-Rene Fourtou is selling off the
Bronfman art collection. Christie's has been retained to move
the stuff, estimated to have a value of about $15 million, in
both public and private auctions. Back
to Headlines
Internet Boom Continues in Europe Visa Europe says its
cardholders did more than twice as much business through the
Internet at the end of 2002 than the year before. During the
December quarter, 2.57 billion euros ($2.76 billion) were
spent online using Visa cards, a gain of 136% over 2001.
Back
to Headlines
Vivendi Universal Experiencing Rumbling in the Ranks Trade publication Daily Variety
reports that employees at Vivendi Universal's Internet unit
are restless with the company's lack of leadership. Staffers
from Vivendi Net waved banners and chanted slogans in front of
company headquarters before being let inside to meet
management reps. VU chairman "Jean-Rene Fourtou's so busy
dismantling the group that he doesn't care about us," a
union rep told Daily Variety. "Management doesn't even
take the trouble to speak to us." Back
to Headlines
Michael Powell a Real Digital Media Man Michael Powell, Federal Communications Commission chairman and son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, is a real digital media man, owning: three cell phones, three PDAs, five PCs, six TVs, a wireless Wi-Fi network and a Tivo that he called "God's machine" at CES. Can You Top This Digital Media Scorecard? Device
Powell Our Editor "Technology Giants Place Their Bets on the Wireless Home" "The concept of the
wireless home was the dominant theme at the 2003 Consumer
Electronics Show. Driven by the rapid adoption of broadband
access and Wi-Fi technology, wireless home networking is
likely to prove one of the major broadband growth
opportunities of this decade. While home networking once meant
connecting PCs and peripherals, consumer electronics vendors
now realize that nearly all of their products can benefit from
being wirelessly linked to a broadband home gateway. With the
number of global broadband households projected to reach 216
million by 2008, leading players such as Sony and Microsoft
are already pursuing this market, but no technology firm can
afford to be left behind..." - research shop Strategy
Analytics Back
to Headlines
Wow! Now That's Fast Inflation "The inflation theory
hypothesizes that the universe underwent an enormous growth
spurt during the first trillionth of a trillionth of a second
of time under the influence of a brief but powerful
anti-gravitational field that permeated space. Such behavior
is allowed by the laws of physics, and it has formed the core
of Big Bang theorizing." - Dennis Overbye in a New York
Times article, "New Map Unveiled of Universe at Start of
Time, " that is based on a recent picture of the new-born
universe 13.7 billion years ago when it was a mere babe, only
200 million-years-old. Vaseline Sponsors "Smooth Moves" Dance Competition Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion
and Albert Torres Productions will sponsor a special dance
competition called "Smooth Moves" during the Fifth
Annual West Coast Salsa Congress. The contest will be held at
the Hollywood Park Casino in LA over the Memorial Day weekend
and will be open to all attendees registered by May 15. Albert
Torres Productions' Annual West Coast Salsa Congress is
dedicated to "Creating Unity through Salsa," and in
the past attracted many LA area celebrities such as Andy
Garcia, Jimmy Smits, Elliot Gould, Nicholas Gonzales and Eva
Longoria. Vaseline will be sampling two of its latest products
- Healthy Body Complexion and Firming & Nourishing
Moisturizing Lotions. Back
to Headlines
Valenti on the Music Industry's Future "The music industry now is
suffering nine, 10, 15% losses in revenue. When you compound
that over the next three or four years, the music industry is
dead. I don't see a future for it. After awhile, who's going
to produce it?" - MPAA chairman Jack Valenti in the
Harvard Political Review after delivering a speech called
"Persuasion and Leadership" at the Harvard Institute
of Politics. Back
to Headlines
"A Tivo in the house is the Napster of the future" - Comcast CEO Brian Roberts
THE online REPORTER provides weekly reports and strategic analysis about digital consumer technology and the e-commerce activities of the movie and music companies.. It reports on all the power struggles that have been unleashed.THE online REPORTER focuses on:
If ever that overused phrase "paradigm shift" was apt, it's now, about the Digital Media industry. There's not a company in the industry that's not worried about where it'll still be standing after the deluge - and that goes for leaders like AOL Time Warner as well as that feared monolith Microsoft. Its format is concise and pointed, its style a touch brash and, with any luck, a bit controversial. Its object is to break the stories that give its readers the real inside track. It is pledged to fact and fair comment. THE online REPORTER - Intelligence for decision makers.
North
American Subscriptions: sales@riderresearch.com;
Tel 225-769-7130; FAX: 225-769-7166 Europe
: Simon
Thompson simon@riderresearch.com Subscribe now. Only $595/£395 per year. Group Discounts available.
|
