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Philips Launching New Streamium Products, Makes Content Deal with IFILM Philips is in the process of
launching a whole range of Internet-based products under the
Streamium brand name for use in the digital home. To help it
market the products, Philips has done a deal that will make
IFILM's video content available to Streamium users.
Streamium TV - $2,299 - The Streamium MX6000 Wi-Fi
wireless home entertainment unit is a complete sound system
with a DVD player, speakers and components. It connects to a
PC and to the Internet for playing content stored on the PC or
streamed from the Net. If connected to a TV, it can display
photos stored on the PC. The price is $799.
Streamium MX6000 - $799 - The Streamium MC-i250 is a wireless, Internet-connectable Hi-Fi system - a boom box - that plays CDs, music stored on a PC and music directly from the Net.
Streamium MC-i250 - $329 - The Streamium SL400i is a
wireless link that makes an existing TV an
Internet/PC-connected digital media entertainment system. A
remote control is used to access music, video and photos from
a PC or to stream audio, video and photos directly from the
Internet. The price is $449. It's a rack-style component for
integration into an existing home theatre/surround sound
system and operates via local display without turning on the
TV. - The $329 Streamium SL50i is also similar to the SL400i except that it is only for playing audio stored on a PC or streamed from the Net.
Streamium SL50i - $329 - The $349 MCW770 is a wireless PC-link micro Hi-Fi system. It comes with a remote control for playing tracks stored on a PC to which it connects wirelessly. An LCD displays the name of the artist, album, genre and playlist. Its five CD changer will play 50 hours of MP3-CD music.
Streamium MCW770 - $349 Streamiums support content in JPEG, MP3, MP3PRO, MPEG-1, -2 and -4, DivX and XviD formats. The products, except for the
TV, are available from Philips' online store at www.streamium.
com. The TV is expected to ship in late November or early
December. "In just a couple of clicks of the remote control users will be able to see the hottest clips in each of our content categories, at full screen TV resolution, as soon as they're published to our network," said IFILM CEO Blair Harrison. He said that users would get "the immediacy of the Web" for accessing the IFILM library. Philips calls the concept its "Connected Planet." According to Gerhard Faltner, senior marketing manager for Connected Planet at Philips Consumer Electronics, "Connected Planet is the way Philips is giving consumers the freedom to explore their own digital worlds." He said that Streamium users would be able "to wirelessly link a PC to a TV or home entertainment system" in order to access digital entertainment stored on the PC as well as entertainment directly from the Internet - "anywhere and anyplace." The multi-year deal includes an
online and offline marketing program to promote the services
globally to consumers.
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Wall Street Picks Winners & Losers in Digital Media Evolution Morgan Stanley's Internet analyst Mary Meeker issued a report this week highlighting what she considers the three hottest current fads on the Web: 1) The rising usage of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) by content providers as a standard distribution platform for online content; 2) The ramp in creation of blogs and other user-generated content 3) Yahoo's easy-to-use integration of RSS feeds with My Yahoo. Meeker sees the potential for next-generation content and content delivery methods to "positively impact Internet leaders including Yahoo, Google and eBay as they leverage their distribution channels and/or content and services." She also lays out a likely evolution from today's rudimentary delivery of text content to iPods to a future with automated, wireless delivery of audio and video to a variety of media players and storage devices - both portable and fixed - in the home. She says that while Google's search engine and advertising tools set the pace for new ways of searching information, she believes that Yahoo may be setting the pace for new ways of serving information. There's time, but not much, for other content aggregators to get their act together. AOL and Microsoft's MSN are two candidates that come to mind. It's always possible, although unlikely, that the phone companies could stop their high-priced government lobbying activities long enough to see the gold in their own back yard. Meeker predicts that Internet usage will continue to grow at 20%-30% annually for the next few years as broadband usage increases and as content providers begin to "ramp their creativity and increase user engagement." She says that ongoing improvements in the following areas will be important to watch: 1) Search - will go beyond simple text searches to include entertainment items. 2) Personalization - of Web portals such as Yahoo's My Yahoo. 3) User-generated content (including blogs, reviews, images and audio) -both short and long forms of entertainment and information, automatically delivered to the consumer's favorite listening gadget, be it PC or portable media player. 4) Music - the continued and uncontrolled evolution and democratization of the music industry. 5) Short- and long-form video - in great variety from IFILM-type shorts to entire series of such as "The Sopranos" to the complete set of lectures from a college course - all automatically delivered to the consumer's choice of playback device. 6) Accessibility - including mobile devices and the PC desktop - wirelessly enabled for automatic downloading of subscriber-specified content. Think Netflix without the post office. She sees the Internet industry
as moving nicely down a path toward a time when every Internet
user will have, in effect, a personal media server where
content is graded, ranked and sorted to meet his. "If
Yahoo has its way," she says, "My Yahoo will be the
front-end to the server." As an example, Meeker cites the
fact that in just a few weeks, as of October 25, the
DreamWorks animated film "Shark Tale" had,
impressively, over 11,500 Yahoo user reviews and 13 critic
reviews. Users, she points out, have the ability to watch
trailers and clips at will and it's "not uncommon for
parents and children to gather in front of their PCs to
explore these reviews, trailers and clips again and
again." For certain companies, user-generated content has
already created opportunities for increased user engagement,
network effects and revenue streams. "This is still early
days on all fronts, but the trends are exciting," Meeker
says. For video, Meeker sees such services as Yahoo's Launch feeding the downloading of music videos or movie trailers via a subscription service to personal media players or PCs. Copyright and payment issues would have to be resolved, of course, she says. Putting on her futurist hat, Meeker says that, assuming there's a universally accepted DRM, a more likely path of content delivery would go like this: A subscriber, possibly pre-paid, to a music feed on My Yahoo has a broadband, always-on Wi-Fi connection to his portable media player, probably an iPod. When a song that matches the subscriber's profile get posted to a My Yahoo subscription feed, it gets downloaded to the users media player. It's sort of like a TiVo - with its ability to assemble a library of content - for music. If there's a fee for the download, the user is asked before the download occurs, much as TiVo does for downloading movies from DirecTV. Of course, there's no reason that the same scenario couldn't also be applied to videos, whether movies, TV shows, how-to's, sports, news, information or user-created content. Downloads would go to a home media server or to a portable audio player that's got a Wi-Fi, more probably a WiMAX, Internet-connection. Meeker sees that a company such
as Yahoo would be the major beneficiary of such a vision. It
could provide the "aggregation point" for assembling
content coupled with a ratings scheme and a genre separation
technique. She predicts that a company providing such an
aggregation and distribution point could "realize
substantial upside from media feeds and associated smaller
payments" - spell that "m-o-n-e-y.
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TiVo Users Adding Storage at Record Rates Lots of users, perhaps as many as 10%, of folks with TiVo or other DVRs, are upgrading their units' storage capacity according to the Wall Street Journal. As reported previously in The Online Reporter, users who bought a DVR to do what a VCR does - record an occasional TV program or zap through commercials - find that the unit's ease of use makes it handy for recording lots of programs that they might not have with a VCR. A DVR's ability to record an entire season of a TV series or multiple movies - all without ever having to change or rewind tapes - has translated into people using it to create video entertainment libraries. The basic DVR now comes with 40GB of storage, which is good for recording about 40 hours of standard-definition TV programming. Consumers are upgrading to as much as 700GB, or about 700 hours of storage, such as the $790 TiVo unit from WeaKnees.com. There are four ways consumers can increase their DVR's storage size: 1. Buy a later model unit such as a TiVo Series2 that has about 140 hours of storage and retails for $399. 2. Buy a unit already upgraded with a larger drive such as from WeaKnees.com. WeaKnees says it's the only authorized DirecTV reseller offering upgrades and warranties on DirecTV DVRs. All upgraded DirecTV DVRs come with a six-month parts/labor and one-year parts warranty from WeaKnees.com 3. Ship the unit off to a company such as WeaKnees.com or newreleasesvideo.com where they'll replace (the "a" drive") or add a larger hard disk (the "b" drive) and ship it back for somewhere in the $40 to $80 range plus the cost of the drive. 4. Buy an upgrade kit and do the installation themselves. TiVo itself does not officially endorse or discourage these "after-market" upgrades. It cautions that opening the TiVo voids the warranty so unsure or non-techies are probably better off getting someone to do the upgrade or buying an upgraded unit. Demand for more storage
capacity will accelerate as consumers begin buying DVRs with
high-definition (HDTV) capacity. For example, 200 hours of
standard definition recording equals only 30 hours of HD
recording.
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iPodder Software Not Ready for Prime Time "OK, I'm more geeky than the guy in the next cubicle. I am Mr Early Adopter. There are times I could have had my paycheck direct-deposited to Best Buy." So says CBS MarketPlace's Frank Barnako in the prelude to his article proclaiming that iPodding is not ready for prime time. Barnako, who professes to a love of the radio and all gadgets, checked out the iPodder software that's supposed to copy content from various online sources onto an iPod (See TOR 417). The results were not good. "Well, I challenge any 'human' to make the thing work… There's no documentation that Google or I could find. Lots of programs, but not one darn word about how to use the software," he said. His conclusion, "Maybe
it's not so ironic that the logo for the damn thing looks like
a lemon."
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Retail Store Update: Sony, Apple, Samsung, Dell Sony USA opened its 11th and 12th Sony Style retail boutiques in Denver and Las Vegas in October. The 6,000-square-foot Vegas store is in The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. It is Sony's second US showroom featuring the upscale QUALIA products. The company expects to have 30 by April 2006. Sony has two large stores in New York and San Francisco but recently closed down its store on Chicago's Michigan Avenue. Sony sells products in its stores and expects them ultimately to become profitable. Apple has opened 84 stores nationwide since it started in 2002. It takes orders for products and services in the stores. Samsung last month opened a 10,000-square-foot store in Manhattan. It takes no orders and refers potential customers to nearby Samsung retailers. Dell has about 80 kiosks in the US, in shopping centers, that show - but not sell - its products. Visitors can use PCs in the kiosks to go to www.dell.com and make purchases. That sales method eliminates the problems associated with keeping inventory - shortages, damage, obsolescence and warranty. Sony has or plans to open
stores in: San Francisco, San Jose, Palo Alto, San Diego and
Costa Mesa, California; Las Vegas; Denver; Dallas; Houston;
Chicago; St Louis; Troy, Michigan; Paramus, New Jersey;
Orlando, Florida; New York and Boston.
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By Adrian Drury of Blueprint Wi-Fi The past eight weeks have seen a flood of announcements from city and national administrations promising vast areas of Wi-Fi coverage, from Philadelphia to Taipei. But not all of these may see deployment. Municipal hot zones have three value propositions: municipal services support such as E911; paid-for access and free public access. A single network can deliver all these functions, but there is still a barrier to deployment. Who pays? The promise of citywide Wi-Fi makes for good rhetoric, but promises may be forgotten in the cold light of budget day. Wi-Fi hot zones are nothing new. A number of specialist operators and power utilities have experimented with deploying these WLAN mesh networks to create wide areas of contiguous coverage - generally with little commercial success. In the past eight weeks, there has been a flood of announcements from municipal governments looking to deploy citywide hot zone style networks. In San Francisco, the spiritual home of public wireless networking, Mayor Gavin Newson has proposed blanket Wi-Fi coverage of the whole city. "We will not stop until every San Franciscan has access to free wireless Internet service," he declared in his annual state of the city address last week. "No San Franciscan should be without a computer and a broadband connection." This bold declaration was preceded in August by the city administration of Philadelphia, the spiritual home of Rocky. The formation of a committee was announced called Wireless Philadelphia, which is mandated to develop a proposal to cover all the 1.5 million residents living within the 135 square miles of the metro area, on a budget of $10 million. While these two projects have garnered the most media attention, there have been other recent developments. Redmond City Council has voted unanimously to support the provision of ubiquitous, high-speed Internet access. St Louis has a citywide Wi-Fi network feasibility study in progress. In the UK, Bristol City Council is deploying Wi-Fi infrastructure across the metro area mounted on street furniture as part of its Legible City project. And MuniWireless reports that Granbury in Texas is deploying a Wi-Fi network that covers 26 square kilometers of the city. All of these are however dwarfed by the Taiwanese government's plan to rollout blanket Wi-Fi coverage across its major cities, in a $1.1 billion project dubbed M-Taiwan. M-Taiwan aims to mix Wi-Fi and WCDMA into a network service cocktail that it is being branded iB3G, or Internet Beyond 3G. This will be delivered to integrated mobile handsets, and the Taiwanese government has been bold enough to forecast that there will be four million users of the service by 2008, around 16% of the island's mobile subscriber base. M-Taiwan is slated initially to be available in three cities - Taipei, Taichung and Kaoshiung - with a further seven planned to come online by 2008. All these Wi-Fi hot zone projects are linked by just one common denominator. Rather than being deployed by
commercial, for-profit enterprises, they are being deployed by
public city administrations, or in the case of the Taiwanese
project, by a national government. But there the similarities
end. Municipal Wi-Fi networks have a number of ways that they
can be put to use. There are three main value propositions,
although a well-managed network can in theory deliver all
three. This has been the primary
application for the majority of municipally deployed trial
networks, such as those in Bristol and Granbury. It is the
easiest and most secure means to provide immediate traffic on
the network, and effectively the only way to justify the cost
of deployment. Promises of free citywide Wi-Fi networks are easy vote winning rhetoric. It immediately makes city administrations look on top of the technology curve - hip even. We question whether all of the promised municipal Wi-Fi projects will actually see the light of day. Municipal Wi-Fi networks are observably not so expensive to install. For example the town of St Cloud in Florida has deployed a wireless network to cover 30 km/sq with 300 access points and 10 wireless links to the backbone, for less than $1 million. This is not a lot of money for a municipal capital project. However, OPEX for the network is up to a fifth of the initial install cost, and it is here that the budget purse strings begin to pull tight. For networks used for public service communication, or if access is provided on a paid-for basis, some of the cost of backhaul and maintenance can be directly offset. However, free citywide Wi-Fi requires a more generous funding solution. Promises such as those made by the Mayor of San Francisco may be forgotten in the sober light of city budget day. The above article was a special
to The Online Reporter from Rethink Research's Blueprint Wi-Fi,
published weekly and focused on business and technology
developments in the Wi-Fi industry. Contact Charlie Hall at
charles@riderresearch.com for subscription details.
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Company Formed to Handle Rise in Sales of Music Online and to Cell Phones Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and software company Exigen are investing in a new company that will manage the calculations and payments of royalties to artists. The three got together to create the new outfit because of the increased volume of online music sales and ringtone and other music-related downloads to cell phones. Called Royalty Services and using Exigen-developed software, the joint venture will take over the processing of song royalties for both Universal and Warner within two years. The three will invest about $30 million in the new venture. Neither label will be able to
access the other's data. The royalty payments for each will be
handled separately.
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********************************************** On-Demand Digital Entertainment Interactive Sessions Priming the Pump: Managing Content through the Value Chain A New Way of Looking at Media Convergence in the Home On-Demand: Video On-Demand: Gaming On-Demand: Music Meeting the Needs for On-Demand Delivery and Consumption The Rise of the Media Hub: An Ecosystem Focus Leadership Round Table Strengthening Links in the Digital Value Chain The opening session will examine future opportunities, current challenges, and the most significant developments both now and upcoming in the field of on-demand digital entertainment. Key topics will include digital rights management and content protection issues, the evolution of specific platforms to accommodate consumer demand, and service design and deployment. What key opportunities await in the next two-to-five years? What are the industry's most critical issues to be resolved? What are the most exciting developments that will arrive, matching the industry's vision to the reality of consumer demand? Speakers: Brett Butler, General Manager, Broadband Cable Business, Texas Instruments Bob Engel, Director of Marketing, HP Digital Entertainment Mike Fidler, Senior Vice President, Home Products Division, Sony Electronics David Henry, Senior Vice President, & General Manager Control Devices, Logitech Peter Lee, Vice-President, Business Development New Technology, The Walt Disney Company Bill Leszinske, Director, Digital Home Marketing and Planning Desktop Platforms Group, Intel Corporation Bill Loewenthal, Vice President, Business Development, Advanced Center of Technology Vice President, Product Marketing, ReplayTV, D&M Holdings Sean Ryan, Vice President, Music Services, RealNetworks, Inc. Bill Taylor, Senior Vice President, Broadband, Motorola Registration Information Candi Richardson, Director Business Development-Events 817-355-1113 or candi@parksassociates.com ***************************** Competition Brings French 15 Mbps-18 Mbps Broadband France Telecom will launch high-speed 18 Mbps broadband access in Paris on December 1. The company expects to make the service available to all of France by the end of 2005. The service will be based on ADSL2+, the latest DSL technology that France Telecom intends to deploy across its entire network next year to cover 96% of the country. France Telecom recently announced a "Broadband for Everyone" program that would bring broadband to every French home. France Telecom's main competitor, the Iliad-owned Free, said that it's offering ADSL2+ at 15 Mbps to the first 100,000 of its customers in Paris, parts of the Paris suburbs, Lyon, Marseille, Strasbourg and Metz. Free intends to offer no-charge telephony, 60 channels of ad-supported TV, 40 channels of pay TV, and 15 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up at the upgraded exchanges. Alcatel got the orders for the hardware and uses Broadcom chips in its ADSL2+ gear. Free's ADSL offering, covering about half the country, has been 6 Mbps for 29.90 euros ($38) a month, coupled with access to around 100 TV channels and free phone calls to all French landline phones. ADSL2+ can potentially run at 24 Mbps, but expectations are that it will be promoted as being in the 15 Mbps to 18 Mbps range, which is fine for carrying standard video. However, HDTV is just around the corner and when consumers start demanding HDTV they'll need 10 Mbps -13 Mbps per channel using either Windows Media or MPEG4 compression. Some telcos such as BellSouth are hoping that continued advances in compression technology might make 15 Mbps to 18 Mbps sufficient for carrying three channels of HDTV. The US and the rest of Europe use ADSL technology, which tops out in the 1.1 Mbps to 1.5 Mbps range. So far no US phone company has announced specific rollout plans for ADSL2+, although SBC is targeting 2006 and 2007 for most of its ADSL2+ upgrades. Cable & Wireless' Bulldog and NTL are reportedly planning to offer similar speeds in the UK next year. Bell Canada is making plans for
13 Mbps to 15 Mbps.
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What's Wrong with US, UK and German Phone Companies? Phone companies in the US (the four major regionals), UK (BT) and Germany (Deutsche Telekom) continue to under-deliver broadband speeds to their customers and consequently hamper their nations' economies. Outside of Japan and South Korea, it's France that leads the way in broadband speed and the use of it to deliver television content and low-cost phone service. The upstart Free, a subsidiary of the Iliad Group, is showing the Western nations what can be done. It is also forcing the entrenched France Telecom to offer faster speeds at lower cost in order to compete. For 29.99 euros ($38 or 21 pounds) per month, Free's subscribers, in over 1,000 towns with 50% of the French population, get 15 Mbps download speed and 1 Mbps upload. That's because, starting last August, Free customers started getting the benefits of the ADSL2+ gear that Free is installing. Free will expand its ADSL 2+ coverage. Free subscribers in non-ADSL2+ areas get for 29.99 euros per month: 2 Mbps Internet connection as well as toll-free local and national calls to any fixed line in metropolitan France. Free says its ADSL-bundled-with-TV offering is the only full triple-play service in France, with the following features: - 6 Mbps of download speed; - Toll-free local and national calls to any fixed line in metropolitan France; - Over 110 TV channels in digital quality and stereo sound, 42 of which are pay-per-view. US, UK and German consumers are
still waiting to hear from their phone companies. While
they're waiting, US broadband prospects are selecting their
cable TV providers for faster broadband speeds.
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Municipal Broadband Networks Risky for Taxpayers, No Boon to Economic Development Cities that have attempted to build and operate broadband networks often report large losses borne by taxpayers or ratepayers according to a new report from The Heartland Institute. Of some 55,000 towns and municipalities in the US, only about 200, or 0.5%, operate municipal broadband networks. Many communities that have taken the plunge have experienced multimillion-dollar losses that must be paid for by taxpayers or ratepayers. The report, "Municipally Owned Broadband Networks: A Critical Evaluation," updates work the organization did in 2002 when broadband was less available and more expensive. "Threatening to build a
municipal broadband network may have been a good strategy two
years ago, to prompt incumbent cable and telephone companies
to make good on past promises," said Joseph Bast,
president of the Heartland Institute and the study's author.
"Following through with municipalization, however, is not
a good idea." Taxpayers and ratepayers likely will still
find themselves "on the hook" to pay for operating
costs and upgrades to the system. "Cities that have taken
the leap simply illustrate the riskiness of the venture,
costing their taxpayers and ratepayers millions of dollars in
subsidies with no end in sight," Bast said.
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How Sweet It Is! Comcast Broadband Revenue Up 38% Comcast added 549,100
high-speed Internet subscribers during the quarter for a total
of 6.5 million as revenue at that unit soared 38% to $808
million. Yes, 38%. That's a growth number from the days of the
Internet's first boom. This time it's for real because it's a
number that was built one-at-a-time by adding consumers whose
life has been impacted in a big way by high-speed Internet
access. It's something they say they'd have a hard time doing
without. As broadband speeds increase, consumers will come to
be even more dependent on the Net for entertainment, education
and information as well as personal communications and
shopping.
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Korea Plans Combined Broadband, Mobile Phone Network South Korea is planning a
broadband convergence network (BcN) that will enable consumers
to connect from anywhere with a wide variety of "Internet
terminals" - everything from MP3 players to cell phones
to PDAs. The BcN will combine in some unknown way the
capabilities of broadband and mobile phone networks. The South
Korean government wants to attract $58 billion in investment
for the BcN, which it expects to cover over 20 million
households by 2010.
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"From now on, any phone
company doing less than making broadband available everywhere
must be asked why. It's time to stop political posturing,
solve the few remaining problems, and act firmly with any
telco not rapidly moving to 95% or higher." - Dave
Burstein in the DSL Prime newsletter.
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Telcos Underestimating Bandwidth Requirements "Most telcos are
underestimating demand for access bandwidth. Our view is that
they have most likely grossly underestimated the demand for
bandwidth, and that therefore many of them will likely make
unwise near-term investments in DSL when the demand for
household bandwidth will look a lot more like gigabit Ethernet
than 100 Mbps within the next decade. If that happens, the
phone companies may be back at the investment trough five
years from now, replacing DSL with fiber-to-the-home (FTTH)
and gigabit Ethernet to every home." - Anton Wahlman of
the financial company Needham & Company. According to DSL
Prime, Wahlman calculates his own apartment, with HD DVRs, can
easily consume 76 Mbps today, and finds that likely to go up
over the decade.
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SBC Broadband for $19.95 a Month SBC has lowered the monthly charge of its SBC Yahoo broadband service to $19.95 for subscribers who agree to a one-year commitment and sign up for SBC's All Distance local and long distance calling plan. The All Distance phone plan costs $48.95 a month and includes all local and long distance calls, caller ID and voicemail - but not the monthly line charges. The broadband deal includes download speeds of 384 Kbps to 1.5 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 384 Kbps, virtually unlimited e- mail account storage, safety and security features and parental controls. Current cable broadband subscribers who sign up for SBC Yahoo DSL for $26.95 a month with a one-year term commitment receive two months of service free. SBC broadband customers can also sign up for SBC's roaming FreedomLink Wi-Fi service for $1.99 a month, which gets them access to wireless broadband at more than 4,100 locations nationwide. Non-SBC broadband customers pay $19.95 for the FreedomLink service. There are a number of implications of SBC's price drop: 1. It's the lowest monthly DSL broadband charge of any of the four major telcos and probably indicates that the other three, Qwest, Verizon and BellSouth, will also reduce their rates. 2. Breaking the $20 floor means that dial-up's days are fading. Why would anyone in SBC's territory pay AOL or MSN more than $20 a month for dial-up? 3. The cable TV companies may have to rethink their pricing strategies. Cost conscious cable TV subscribers may have second thought about paying $40 and more for DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) cable modem broadband. The under-20 bucks offer will be tempting to those who don't need cable TV broadband's higher download speeds. However, in the days before the SBC $19.95 announcement, Comcast said that it had added some 549,000 broadband subscribers in the quarter ending September 30. Its broadband revenue increased a whopping 38% to $808 million, a rate that will shortly make it a billion-dollar-a-quarter business. It's also a highly profitable business because it uses existing infrastructure, unlike what the phone companies will have to do to offer fiber optic broadband networks. SBC currently has 4.7 million
DSL subscribers out of its 19.8 million phone customers. It
forecasts its broadband count will exceed five million by
year-end.
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Verizon to Use Motorola's Video Technology Verizon will use Motorola technology to deliver video to its fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) customers. Paul Lacouture, president of Verizon's network services group, said that the new network infrastructure would lead to "a true convergence of voice, data and video services on one network. We currently deliver voice and high-speed data over this new network, and the available bandwidth that fiber provides makes the addition of video services the next logical step." Verizon has said its intends to
pass about one million homes and businesses with its new FTTP
network in parts of nine states by year-end. By the end of
2005, Verizon expects to double that and launch its first
video services over the new network.
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DirecTV To Add 2m Subscribers this Year News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch said at the company's annual meeting that satellite broadcaster DirecTV is adding new subscribers at double the expected rate and would break even within a year. He said that DirecTV would have 14 million subscribers by year-end, an increase of two million in 12 months and double what the company had forecast. DirecTV's recent growth has come from, among other things, its $99 offer for TiVo-equipped set-top boxes. DirecTV's growth has leveled the growth of the cable TV and increased the pressure on them to roll out their DVR, video-on-demand and digital TV products. Also helping DirecTV has been the phone companies who, in reaction to the cable TV companies' success at selling broadband bundled with TV and phone service, have begun selling satellite TV service - DirecTV and the Dish Network - bundled with their products. Late last year News Corp acquired a 34% controlling interest in DirecTV. Murdoch said that the subscriber growth had required only a small increase in its marketing spend. An indication of DirecTV's
impact on the cable TV companies is Comcast's quarterly
financials that were released this week. It showed that
Comcast, the largest US cable TV company, had essentially no
change in its number of basic TV subscribers, although it did
see an increase of 341,000 digital TV subscribers and 549,100
broadband subscribers.
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Optus Aiming for Scale, Infrastructure Independence Australia's Optus will offer four months of free broadband to its home phone, mobile and broadband customers and three months to customers with either home phone or post-paid mobile. Optus, which uses competitor Telstra's infrastructure for about 25% of its broadband connections, plans to build its own DSL infrastructure. As a result it needs lots of new subscribers to justify the investment. "Success in the Australian telecommunications market is dependent on achieving scale and owning infrastructure," Scott Lorson, acting managing director of Optus Consumer and Multimedia, said. Optus has 190,000 of its
250,000 broadband subscribers on its own cable network, which
passes by 1.3 million homes. The remaining 60,000 are
connected using ADSL connections on Telstra's infrastructure
for which Optus pays wholesale rates dictated by the
Australian government's regulatory agency.
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LIES, DAMN LIES AND STATISTICS Cooperation a Must for Content Owners, Wireless Carriers More than 163 million folks in the US have mobile phones, creating a potentially enormous audience for wireless entertainment content owners, according to the Yankee Group. Among entertainment applications, games have seen the strongest growth, with some 49 million mobile games downloaded so far this year. Mobile music hasn't fared well so far in the US, but that may soon change, says the researcher, when Motorola releases a mobile phone integrated with Apple iTunes software next year. Several mobile operators such as Sprint PCS and AT&T Wireless offer video over their networks. Although the quality isn't that great, it is expected to improve to 10-15 frames per second by year-end. One thing holding back the mobile content market is that the media and entertainment industries don't yet view mobile networks as a critical distribution channel, Yankee says. As such, they're acting similar to the way the record labels did with the Internet - withholding content and forcing the carriers into distribution agreements the content owners deem acceptable. Yankee believes that this maneuvering limits the growth of mobile entertainment. According to Michael Goodman, a
senior analyst of media and entertainment strategies at
Yankee, media and entertainment companies and wireless
carriers all "wield significant influence over wireless
entertainment. Both must recognize wireless entertainment
cannot grow without their mutual cooperation," he said.
"Media and entertainment companies must work with
wireless carriers to distribute their content to mobile users,
while carriers need high-value, branded content to drive
adoption of wireless entertainment applications."
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Portable Video Player Market to Grow The portable video player market will grow at an 84% compound annual growth rate from 2003 to 2009, according to a prediction from ABI Research - a growth rate that makes chip makers very happy. Most units will have some sort of wireless connectivity such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or WiMAX, for the purpose of copying content from a PC or DVR to the units for viewing "any time, any where." The company says, "Following computing in the 1970s and communications in the '80s and '90s, the latest wave of electronic portability is dedicated to entertainment, currently in the form of portable digital audio and video players." The report "Consumer
Electronics Digital Signal Processors" analyzes which
type of semiconductor architecture and which communications
protocol is likely to dominate. It says that Philips' Nexperia
chipsets are the likely winner. Philips has a long history of
innovation early in an emerging industry sector -
audiocassettes and CDs are two such Philips' technologies. It
has generally not been the one to capitalize on the
innovations in the consumer marketplace by garnering large
market shares - except for collecting royalties on its
patents.
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Convex Group Acquires 48-hour DVD Maker Flexplay The Convex Group, a media and entertainment holding company that includes LidRock and HowStuffWorks, has acquired Flexplay Technologies, a privately held developer of limited-play DVD technology. Flexplay's patented technology, developed in collaboration with GE Advanced Materials, eliminates the need to return rented DVDs by making them unusable 48 hours after they are removed from a specially sealed package. Once the package is opened, the movie can be watched an unlimited number of times within the 48-hour window. The result is no returns, no late fees and perfect-quality playback on any standard DVD player. The unopened package has a one-year shelf life so selling it through alternative distribution methods such as vending machines becomes feasible. Flexplay touts its product as
"buy anywhere, watch anytime." It expects that
studios will release films on Flexplay DVDs at the same time
that they release traditional DVDs. Flexplay's first movie
release will be "NOEL," a holiday drama with Susan
Sarandon, Penelope Cruz and Paul Walker. "NOEL"
makes its debut in what is being called a "trimultaneous"
release that includes a limited nationwide theatrical release,
a one-night-only airing on cable TV's Turner Network
Television and simultaneous online availability of the flick
on Flexplay DVDs exclusively through Amazon.com. The DVD price
will be $4.99 and can be pre-ordered at Amazon.
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The US Chamber of Commerce is using AOL's instant messaging service to deliver streaming video commercials that "tell the truth" about the efforts of trial lawyers to stop legal reform of the American tort laws. It's believed to be the first such commercial use of the method, which AOL calls "Buddy Video." Democracy Data &
Communications of Alexandria, Virginia, which is managing the
campaign, reports that click-through rates to the videos are
three times normal and that most people receiving the video ad
watch all 30 seconds. Trial lawyers such as Democratic vice
presidential nominee John Edwards admit the overly aggressive
lawyers are abusing the current tort laws, motivated by the
fact that they get as much as 50% of settlements from
lawsuits.
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TiVo and the NFL this week made a deal on the use of new TiVo technology that the NFL feared would enable TiVo users to forward or transmit NFL games to fans outside of the playing teams' home markets. It would also have enabled DirecTV subscribers to forward or transmit games to TiVo users who hadn't paid the premium subscription rate. Some background on the deal's significance: 1. The NFL severely restricts football fans' Sunday viewing choices to basically the home team's game plus one or two others. 2. Much of DirecTV's early growth was the competitive edge that it had over the cable TV services because of a DirecTV-NFL deal that permitted DirecTV users to subscribe to a package that offered them access to every Sunday NFL game. 3. TiVo was floundering badly until it signed a deal with DirecTV under which TiVo sales exploded. DirecTV offered, still does in fact, TiVo-based set-top boxes for $99 and, as a result, now accounts for most TiVo sales. The NFL builds demand for its product by restricting access. DirecTV depends on its "unrestricted" NFL deal for its subscriber growth. TiVo depends on DirecTV for its survival. So, when TiVo said it was going to seek FCC approval for its TiVoGuard technology, things got sticky. TiVoGuard, which the FCC approved by a 5-0 vote, would let TiVo users access their content on another TiVo, even one located in another city, essentially transferring the content from one TiVo box to another. The NFL squawked at this, seeing that TiVoGuard would permit a TiVo user to watch an NFL game outside of his home team's viewing territory. That could be especially tempting, for example, when the Jets and Giants are both performing poorly but football fans in New York are stuck watching their games - or no games at all. The only other option is to subscribe to DirecTV and pay almost $200 for the NFL all-games package. With the NFL fretting that TiVoGuard would harm its copyright and lead to users transferring digital games to viewers outside their home market and DirecTV caught in the middle, a solution was found. The juicy details were not announced. The two said they'd work to ensure that TiVo owners couldn't make real-time retransmissions of NFL broadcasts. The NFL said that it agreed that enhancing the ability of individual TiVo subscribers to access their own recorded programming remotely from, say, their vacation homes is in the public interest and a positive advance in technology that should be encouraged. "We are pleased TiVo has agreed to deploy the technology in a way that will not permit the real-time signal piracy that the NFL has always viewed with great concern," said NFL executive VP of media Steve Bornstein. The FCC's 5-0 vote overruled
both the NFL and the MPAA's objections. The NFL seems to have
satisfied its concern that TiVoGuard would permit users to
view games outside of their local television market, using a
SunGard feature that would allow remote access to live or
recorded programming. There's been no further word from the
movie studios
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National Geographic Videos Any Time, Anywhere The National Geographic Film
Library will use GignoSystem America to deliver National
Geographic video clips and images to mobile phone subscribers
worldwide. The content will be available by year-end through
select cell phone services in the US, Canada, Germany, Italy,
Spain and France. Included will be weekly video features,
maps, articles and images on a variety of topics and
geographic locations. Mobile subscribers will also be offered
a weekly adventure series, with new chapters of the adventure
delivered daily to mobile screens.
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New Disney Group To Offer Third-Party Mobile Content The Walt Disney Internet Group has created a mobile content licensing and publishing business that, for the first time, will offer third-party content in addition to non-Disney brands from within the Disney empire. The new Starwave Mobile will start publishing mobile content this fall in various markets. The unit's initial licenses include Trivial Pursuit, Don Bluth's Dragon's Lair, Hudson Entertainment properties including Burger Time and Bomberman and Pucca, a series of characters from Korea that Starwave will distribute in Japan. In addition to the third-party and Disney properties, Starwave Mobile will also offer original games created by the WDIG development team. "We were early and aggressive in building our global wireless infrastructure and strong carrier relationships, and now have great efficiencies and scalability," said WDIG International executive VP and managing director Mark Handler. "With Starwave Mobile, we can tap this existing infrastructure for content outside of Disney." Disney purchased Internet
publishing firm Starwave Internet, which launched the ESPN
Sports Zone Online and ABCNews.com Web sites, in 1998.
Starwave's technology became the foundation for Disney's
Internet Group's platform and infrastructure.
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AG Interactive Helps Fuse Go Mobile Music television network Fuse and AG Interactive, the new media subsidiary of American Greetings Corporation, are working to jointly develop and market what they claim will be the first interactive music service in the US to deliver content over TV, the Internet and mobile phones. The partnership is meant to give US wireless carriers, handset manufacturers and advertisers access to Fuse's audience of tech-savvy young adults, the fastest growing wireless user segment. It also builds on Fuse's philosophy of convergent music programming. "Fuse is a network that has been built from the ground up with convergence as its foundation, not an afterthought," said Fuse senior VP of ad sales Corey Silverman. "This extension creates entire new platforms for our marketing and advertising partners to connect in a meaningful way with Fuse viewers and music fans." According to AG Interactive president and CEO Josef Mandelbaum, the new offering will signal "the creation of the first seamless interactive experience, merging television, wireless and Internet platforms." Mandelbaum noted that musicians and viewers consider Fuse to be the "only true all-music television network, so we will truly be connecting with in-the-know music fans where they live, work and play by giving them multiple channels to receive the hottest new music and product offerings." One example of how Fuse already is taking advantage of a multiple-platform strategy is its "Daily Download" TV show, where viewers are given a special "word of the day" that, if they enter it on the Fuse Web site, hooks them up with free, legal music downloads. The company will soon add mobile ringtones and wallpapers to the prize list. Through its partnership with AG
Interactive, Fuse plans to potential explore wireless
applications for all of its original interactive programs.
Possibilities include music video dedications, photo blogs,
text messaging, voting and polling, video game demos, music
news alerts, local market concert and event updates and
special promotions.
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Chaoticom, Syniverse Team on Mobile Music Service Mobile music services start-up Chaoticom and global communications technology firm Syniverse Technologies are working together to deliver a service that lets mobile subscribers download digital music over-the-air to their cell phones and have the charges added to their mobile bill or deducted from a pre-paid account. The agreement has the companies offering a complete mobile music solution that includes hosting, aggregation, Web presence, editorial content, integrated digital rights management and licensed music content, both full songs and "master ringtunes," which are snippets of a real song by the actual artist rather than monophonic or polyphonic recreations. Chaoticom marketing and product development VP Adam Sexton sees the partnership as a "natural." According to Sexton, "Chaoticom is dedicated to developing the best possible music discovery service in mobile music. The ability to integrate the Chaoticom Mobile Music Solution with Syniverse's settlement solution allows the company to focus on the music discovery experience, content, exposure and promotion of hit music, which is key to our strategy in this market." In addition to offering North
American wireless carriers access to an extensive library of
music from both major and independent labels, the service also
provides them with sophisticated settlement services,
reporting and financial net settlement capabilities and
flexible network connectivity options. Consumers will be able
to browse and download full songs and ringtones and preview
any of them prior to purchase.
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PowerByHand Becomes Motricity, Raises $27m Mobile content distributor PowerByHand has changed its name to Motricity. The new moniker is supposed to better reflect the company's "unified solution for mobile content delivery" and its vision of "empowering any mobile user to transform his device into a highly personalized extension of his life." In addition to the new name, the company is also celebrating $27 million in new venture capital led by Technology Crossover Ventures. Existing investors including New Enterprise Associates, Intel Capital, Massey Burch Capital, Noro-Moseley Partners and Wakefield Group also participated in the round. Motricity says it will use the money to steer it through its next growth phase. The company's Fuel Mobile Content Distribution Platform is a modular system that allows wireless content providers to source, manage and deliver content to mobile devices. The platform supports all major device types, manufacturers and content formats and promises to deliver the right content to the right device. Supported content includes ringtones, graphics, messaging, browsable content and e-books on Java, Palm, Symbian and Windows Mobile devices. In addition to the name change
and funding, Motricity also said that Will Griffith, general
partner at TCV, and Rick White, CEO of TechNet and a former US
Congressman, are joining the company's board. TechNet is a
bipartisan, political network of CEOs and tech leaders that
promotes the growth of technology.
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Gamarama Makes Single-Player Games Multiplayer Reaxion Corporation, which develops and publishes mobile game, entertainment and communication applications, has unveiled the Gamarama hosted multiplayer system. With Gamarama, mobile game developers can add multiplayer and matchmaking functionality to existing single-player games. It also lets developers add ranking functionality and build communities around their games. "Creating communities around a game is the best way to build a loyal following for it and increase revenues," said Reaxion CEO Misha Lyalin. "Using Gamarama makes the addition of multiplayer and community functionality a much simpler process for developers." In addition to turning single-player games into multiplayer ones, the system also provides manual or automatic user authentication and player profiles and delivers game results from a handset to the server Additionally, Reaxion launched Gamarama. com, its proof-of-concept gaming community that runs on the Gamarama platform. Visitors to the site can compete, learn more about Reaxion's games, manage their account, interact with other gamers and participate in polls and other community activities. Reaxion games currently
available on the site include multiplayer versions of Fight
Hard 3D Arena, Yetisports Part 1 - Pingu Throw and Pax
Athletica for BREW-enabled handsets. Additional titles will be
added later this year.
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GoComics Goes Multi-platform with UIEvolution Mobile comics provider GoComics has teamed up with wireless software developer UIEvolution to deliver new comic services for mobile devices. GoComics will offer two services - GoComics Daily and GoComics Wallpapers - powered by UIEvolution's cross-platform software. By switching to the UIEvolution technology from its previous partner, GoComics can build a single application that will work across multiple operating systems, making it easier to expose its products to a wider audience. GoComics Daily delivers daily comic strips featuring Garfield, FoxTrot, The Duplex, Pooch Café, Stone Soup and Red and Rover. These are the same strips as in the newspapers, but in full color. GoComics Daily is available for both Java- and BREW- enabled handsets. It will initially be available from Sprint PCS and Verizon Wireless. GoComics Wallpapers, which will
be available through Verizon Wireless and other BREW carriers,
lets users browse and buy hundreds of mobile wallpapers
featuring popular comic characters.
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Mobile consumer application publisher Vindigo has acquired Waymobile.com, a San Diego-based outfit that develops and publishes advanced mobile content and commerce products. The acquisition speeds Vindigo's entrance into the mobile commerce arena. It also means that Waymobile's services will be available to subscribers of every major US mobile operator through Vindigo's carrier network. Waymobile's offerings include AwayAuction for eBay, which lets eBay users stay on top of the auction giant's listings from anywhere. AwayAuction and the other Waymobile products will be re-branded as part of the Vindigo portfolio. Vindigo will retain Waymobile's San Diego offices, which marks its first expansion outside of its New York headquarters. Terms of the deal were not
disclosed.
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Billboard Charts Ringtone Sales Billboard magazine, the preeminent source of record and CD sales charts, is launching its next big ranking - the Billboard Hot Ringtones Chart. Created in partnership with mobile market analysis firm Consect, the chart tracks the top 20 polyphonic ringtone sales for each week and lists song title, artist, the prior week's position and number of weeks on the chart. The first chart will appear in the November 6 issue of the magazine to coincide with the debut of its new "Digital Entertainment" section. It will also add some additional spice to the inaugural Billboard Digital Entertainment Conference and Awards being held in Los Angeles on November 4-5. According to Consect CEO Mark Frieser, "This chart recognizes the significant impact of the nascent $300 million mobile music market in America and will further its growth as the rest of the industry realizes the relationship between mobile download and new music sales." The data for the ringtone chart
are aggregated from all of the major ringtone distributors and
wireless carriers, representing more than 90% of the market.
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Loudeye Launches Mobile Music Services Loudeye has officially launched MusicStore Mobile, a platform that lets mobile operators, portals, retailers and content owners provide their customers access to a digital music service that combines a mobile music solution with an online music store. The power behind AT&T Wireless' previously announced mMode Music Store, the Loudeye MusicStore Mobile digital music platform lets companies offer their users the ability to search a music catalog of more than 750,000 tracks, discover new music and artists, listen to streaming samples and buy digital downloads on their mobile phones. They can then go online via a PC and download the songs they purchased. Loudeye manages both the mobile and online music services, providing merchandising, content and license clearing services as well as hosting. All purchases can go directly on the user's existing monthly wireless bill. Other payment methods will be offered as well. The service provides full end-user account management so consumers can manage their purchases, digital rights and view their account history. It also sends messaging alerts and e-mail notification of purchases. End-user features in the mobile music service include: - Music ID integration. Hear a song on the radio or TV, point the mobile phone in the direction of the music source, type in a code and receive the song and artist title via text message. The user can then click on a link in the message and purchase the song. - Cover art and metadata are available on the handset and online. - Mobile Wish List. Users can save song titles they like to their phone and view them online later. - Downloaded tracks can be transferred to more than 70 compatible devices for playback, including phones and portable digital music players. - "Send to a Friend" lets users share info about music they experience on the service with other wireless subscribers. - Celebrity play lists. Users can check out music recommendations from their favorite celebrities. - Editorial content including charts, album reviews, artist biographies and more. Loudeye's MusicStore Mobile is
currently available to providers in the US and Europe. It will
be offered to wireless carriers in Asia next year.
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TI Goes Hollywood with TV for Mobiles Texas Instruments is developing a new chip called "Hollywood" that would enable cell phones to receive digital TV signals by 2007. Qualcomm previously said it's developing similar technology that would be available at about the same time. TI's chip will support newly established digital TV broadcast standards for the wireless industry, including Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld (DVB-H) for Europe and the US, plus the Japanese specification Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting - Terrestrial (ISDB-T). Such networks will have high-quality live broadcast TV (24-30 frames per second) and full audio for true TV quality, better than the one-to-15-frames-per-second streaming capability currently on offer. TI expects samples of the Hollywood chip in volume by 2006, ahead of the mass deployment of the mobile TV infrastructure in 2007. "There's no reason why, in three to four years, you won't have 200 channels on your cell phone," said Marc Cetto, general manager of TI's handset division. TI will combine its digital RF processor technology with a tuner, OFDM demodulator and channel decoder processor into a single chip. Three major hurdles for the TV-over-mobile industry will be: - Low-cost, high-quality, full-color displays. - Longer battery life that's required to run the displays. - A proliferation of short-form videos such as those that IFILM is collecting. An abundance of short videos will have to be developed such as news, sports and music plus the usual bag of entertainment goodies. "TI's new Hollywood
digital TV chip will combine the two biggest consumer
electronics inventions of our time - the television and the
cell phone," said Gilles Delfassy, senior VP and general
manager of TI's wireless terminals business unit. "One by
one, the industry's most exciting consumer electronics are
being integrated into wireless handsets, allowing consumers to
get their news and entertainment whenever and wherever they
want. With this new chip on the cell phone, users will enjoy
digital, high-quality TV in real-time."
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Intel Retreats from Digital TV Chip Market Intel retreated from one of its ambitious forays into digital media with the announcement that it's abandoning its plans to develop a digital TV chip. Texas Instruments is the likely beneficiary of the move. Intel has had a series of missteps in its chip business in recent years. PC sales have flattened and the company's only new success has been in the heavily competitive flash memory sector. "What we've decided is that for the investment that's required and the returns we would get and the timeline to get to those returns, that it doesn't make sense for us to pursue this particular technology," said Intel spokesman Bill Calder. It was only nine months ago
that Intel announced its plans for the chips that would go
into consumer digital products such as those large
high-definition TV sets.
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DVD Watermarking Tracks over P2P Networks Philips has launched its "RepliTrack" video watermarking DVD forensic tracking product that can embed a unique watermark into a DVD disc that will play on any DVD player. Any copy made from the disc, be it a VHS tape or a peer-to-peer file, still carries the watermark, allowing the origin of illegal copies to be traced. An earlier version of
RepliTrack was used last year to discover the origin of
illegally copied and distributed versions of major motion
pictures prior to their official release (see http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime
/spragueArrest.htm).
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AOL Adds Free Anti-Virus Service AOL is adding to the free
services it offers its subscribers with the addition of
McAfee's VirusScan Online to the so-called AOL 9.0 Security
Edition. It trumpeted the new service in full-page ads in the
October 29 editions of the Wall Street Journal and USA Today
as well as TV ads. The slogan for the new service will be
"We didn't get millions of Americans online just to watch
them catch a virus." AOL had been selling anti-viruses
services for $3 a month. It released a study from the National
Cyber Security Alliance, which showed that 63% of consumers
had seen their PC hit by a virus infection. One reason might
be that 67% said in the report that they didn't have current
virus protection software.
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'The Power and Reach of the Net' in Down Under Piracy Trial John Nicholas, lead counsel for Universal Music Group and other music labels, charges that "the power and reach of the Internet" made possible the distribution of copyrighted MP3 music tracks "on a massive scale" in their Australian lawsuit against MP3s4free.com, its owner Stephen Cooper, ISP ComCen and ComCen director Liam Bal and employee Chris Takoushis. Nicholas, in the case whose courtroom phase began in Sydney this week, said, "The scale of copyright infringement that occurred via the MP3s4free.com Web site is unprecedented in Australia for an Internet Web site of this kind." He said that Cooper received "hundreds of millions of hits" per year to his allegedly illegal music download site MP3s4free.net as the long-awaited federal court case against the retired policeman kicked off. The case officially began October 17, 2003 when Australia's Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) raided his premises. Prior to that, in December 2002, the MIPI's Internet surveillance group began monitoring the Web site, suspecting that it was in violation of copyright laws. MIPI's surveillance showed that between November 2002 and October 2003 there were more than 191 million hits on the site from seven million unique visitors. MIPI says that 1.97 terabytes of data - about 366,503 typical MP3 music files - were downloaded from the site during that period. Nicholas, who is also the lead attorney in the labels' suit against Sharman Networks and its Kazaa file-swapping site, said that the chares against Cooper arose because he "made it his business to distribute for free commercial sound recordings in MP3 format." He said that the site acted as a store that made it possible for users to make illegal and unauthorized copies of copyrighted music tracks. He said that the site got its income by selling advertising space. "The music files made available at the Web site were the bait used by Mr Cooper to generate traffic that enabled him to make money from paid advertising posted on the Web site, proportionate to the traffic," he said. Cooper's lead counsel, Anthony Morris, said that Cooper could not have infringed any copyright laws because the site merely "pointed" to other sites that had the MP3s available for copying. He said that the site only acted the same as a search engine such as Google or Yahoo. "He has done nothing that Google or Yahoo hasn't," Morris said. "He provided a directory for certain types of content. He only provided a hyperlink." Nicholas countered by saying that the MP3s4free.com site featured a top-50 hits list similar to the one that the labels provide. The difference was that site visitors could click on the links and gain access to other sites where the tracks were available for copying. "Those hyperlinks on his site, when activated, resulted in music files being transmitted to Mr Cooper's customer," Nicholas said. "So far as the user was concerned, the transaction was perfectly seamless." To be continued…
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Spitzer Investigating "Payola" The office of New York's crusading Attorney General Elliot Spitzer has begun an investigation into the "promotion agents" that the record labels use to funnel money to radio stations to get their records played. Since the beginning of September, Spitzer's office has been requesting documents and information from Warner Music Group, EMI, Universal Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, which Sony and Bertelsmann jointly own. A subpoena was served on at least one of them, Warner Music. When the US in the 1960's outlawed payola - payments for airtime that the labels paid to radio stations and disc jockeys - the labels merely inserted middlemen who operated under the guise of paying the stations for a copy of their logs. Annual payments range from $30,000 to $300,000, depending on the station's audience size. Everyone in the industry has known that the payments were, in fact, "third party payola" designed to circumvent the law. In fact, big radio companies such as Clear Channel even formalized the process by limiting promoters' access to their local stations and restricting the number of promoters they would deal with. There are even instances where the large radio companies charged promoters centralized fees for so-called "exclusive" access to their local stations. Even though it was the labels that started the current pay-for-play system, they have been complaining the loudest about the rising fees they were being asked to pay. One side effect to the system is that it virtually shut out independent artists from getting their records played. In April 2003, Clear Channel, the largest radio business with 1,200 stations, said it stopped accepting promotional payments after first saying that the payments did not influence which songs it played. It did not specify what service it was providing for the fees. Company president Mark Mays said in a statement, "These relationships may appear to be something they're not" when he announced the ending of its relationships with the promoters. Spitzer has attacked illegal
practices in a number of fields including insurance and the
financial markets. It's the second time this year that he's
taken aim at the labels. This past summer, he forced the
labels to pay royalties they had collected to artists they
claimed couldn't be located.
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Ashcroft on the Perils of Copyright Infringement US Attorney General John Ashcroft conducted a day's lecture to about 100 high school students in Washington, DC, on the perils of copyright infringement. "Don't illegally download songs and games from the Internet because people make their livings selling those products, stealing is a crime, every crime has unseen consequences, and so on" was Ashcroft's pitch, according to the Washington Post. "When you download stolen songs or movies or computer games posted on the Internet, you're stealing," Ashcroft told the kids. Ashcroft described songwriters and film production workers who lost their jobs because Internet pirates had in effect "stolen money" from their employers. "You may not think a theft online is as consequential as stealing something from a store, but even stealing a song is serious," he lectured. "I think you can see how stealing intellectual property puts at risk the very lives and well-beings of these people." The lecture will be shown in
about a month on Court TV as part of its "Choices and
Consequences" program. Tapes of the event also will be
included in materials distributed to 4,000 to 5,000 schools as
part of a nationwide education drive.
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Aussie Court Denies Altnet CTO's Dismissal An Australian court has denied Altnet's CTO Anthony Rose's request that he be dismissed from the labels' suit against Sharman Networks, Altnet and certain of their executives. Altnet's involvement is based on it allegedly providing the search function in Sharman's Kazaa P2P file-sharing software. Rose's lawyer John Ireland said that Altnet's search technology does not search for unlicensed tracks and that "if Altnet technology was turned off then the Sharman technology would still work." Tony Bannon, the labels' lead counsel, said that the Sharman technology is such that it is not "allowed" to work without the use of certain Altnet "tools." Presiding Justice Murray Wilcox said the case is of a "complex nature" and refused Rose's request. The trial is scheduled to start
November 29.
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Wanadoo, Loudeye Expand Relationship Broadband Internet access provider Wanadoo, a France Telecom company, has forged a new deal with digital music provider Loudeye that confirms Loudeye's OD2 business as its preferred digital music provider. Wanadoo already operates OD2-powered music download sites, the Wanadoo Music Club, in France and the UK. Under the new agreement, it will continue with those services and launch new ones in Spain and the Netherlands in November. Once the new OD2-powered sites launch, Wanadoo will be able to offer more than three million broadband subscribers access to high-quality legal music downloads. Additionally, Wanadoo will offer the OD2 Music Manager, a proprietary plug-in for Microsoft Windows Media Player that gives users a personalized media player interface and the ability to stream individual tracks. The new agreement also calls
for Wanadoo to launch an unlimited on-demand streaming
package. For 7.99 euros a month subscribers will have
unlimited access to a full library of digital music. On the à
la carte download side of things, the company is offering
400,000 tracks for 69 pence (99 euro cents) each for a limited
time.
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Apple Opens EU iTunes Music Store As expected, Apple has launched a pan-European version of its iTunes Music Store, giving music fans in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain access to the market-leading music download service. Individual tracks are 0.99 euro each, the same as Apple charges for downloads on the iTunes stores in France and Germany. The new service offers downloaders all the same features that are available on all the other iTunes versions including seamless integration with the iPod, compatibility with both PCs and Macs, iMix playlist sharing and personal usage rights. iTunes users can play songs on up to five computers, burn a single song to CD an unlimited number of times, burn the same playlist up to seven times and transfer the tracks to as many iPods as they want. "We're excited to bring the iTunes Music Store to even more music fans across Europe, and with this expansion we now reach customers in almost 70% of the global music market," said Apple VP of applications Eddy Cue. "iTunes is the world's number one online music store, with more than 150 million downloads and over 70% market share in the US and UK." The EU iTunes Music Store has some 700,000 tracks available for download from all the majors and more than 100 independent labels. It also features a wide variety of exclusive tracks from "leading worldwide artists" and offers the iTunes Originals in-studio series with exclusive recording sessions and interviews with the likes of LL Cool J, Jack Johnson, PJ Harvey and Sting. Apple also announced plans to
launch a Canadian version of the iTunes Music Store in
November.
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RIAA Announces Digital Sales Award Certifications The Recording Industry Association of America has officially awarded its first Gold and Platinum Digital Sales awards. It held a launch party back in August to hype the awards that are meant to "recognize the significant sales of the burgeoning digital music market." Since digital music is still a small market, the RIAA has set lower sales thresholds for downloads than for physical record sales. A "Gold" certification requires 100,000 digital downloads. "Platinum" is 200,000 downloads. In the physical world, a US Gold Record needs to sell 500,000 copies and a Platinum Record is certified at a million sales. The RIAA has awarded 45 Gold, six Platinum and one multi-Platinum single. Hip-hop duo OutKast was responsible for quite a few of the awards, hauling in both Gold and Platinum certifications for the singles "Roses" and "The Way You Move" and Gold, Platinum and multi-Platinum awards for "Hey Ya." Other awards given include: - Black Eyed Peas for "Where Is the Love" and "Hey Mama." - Beyonce for "Naughty Girl" and "Dangerously in Love." - Usher for "Burn" and Yeah!" - Maroon 5 for "Harder to Breathe." - Jet for "Are You Gonna Be My Girl." - Coldplay for "Clocks." - Yellowcard for "Ocean Avenue." - "The Reason" by Hoobastank and "This Love" by Maroon 5 earned both Gold and Platinum honors. Contenders for the new Digital
Sales awards are limited to recordings put out by RIAA member
labels, which include all four major record companies.
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TrustyFiles 2.3 Downloads From Multiple P2P Networks at the Same Time RazorPop Inc has released a new version of its TrustyFiles file-sharing software. TrustyFiles 2.3 is what the company calls a "high-performance file-sharing" application because it searches through hundreds of millions of files across the major P2P networks including FastTrack, Gnutella, Gnutella2 and BitTorrent as well as the Internet. In addition to searching multiple networks simultaneously, the new version also downloads the same file at the same time from the various networks. The update also adds "significant" performance enhancements for faster searches, more results and increased stability - none of which, we assume, will be music to the record industry's ears. The simultaneous multi-network file downloading can be initiated in several ways: - Automatically when the software connects to another TrustyFiles client during a search or download; - When a qualified Magnet Link is clicked at a Web site; or - When a TrustyFiles user initiates the "Send a File" feature that e-mails a Trusty Link to a friend. TrustyFiles operates on three different levels. The public file-sharing mode opens the user's selected drive and searches Kazaa, Grokster, Morpheus, LimeWire, BearShare, Shareaza and other FastTrack, Gnutella, Gnutella2 and BitTorrent network users. Personal file sharing only shares files among friends or known users and private file sharing restricts access to invited users. "We're focused on the
consumer experience to deliver the largest pool of users, the
most search results and the most and fastest downloads,"
said RazorPop CEO Marc Freedman. "Six months ago we
launched multi-network searching and sharing to supercharge
searches. Today's addition of simultaneous downloads gives
TrustyFiles users total access to search, download and share
files across our networks."
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Napster is expanding the number of payment methods it accepts. Now, folks who use the service in the US, UK and Canada can use their PayPal accounts to pay for monthly subscriptions and buy individual track and album downloads. The move opens the digital music service up to consumers who don't have a credit or debit card, don't want to use one on the Net or don't want to deal with picking up a prepaid Napster card. It's also a good way for parents to get the kids to download music legally - instead of from a questionable P2P site - without having to give them access to a credit card. Users who don't already have a PayPal account can set one up on the Napster site. The acceptance of PayPal is
significant. The online payment service claims more than 50
million accounts worldwide.
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Most-Played CDs on the Internet
For the Week Ending October 24 This
Last 1
2 Usher/Confessions
(Arista) 'Master Showman of Technology' Unveils New iPods Apple CEO Steve Jobs, described by CNBC reporter Maria Bartiromo as "the Master Showman of Technology," introduced two new models of the iPod on Tuesday. The iPod Photo, the first unit in the family to sport a display, stores both music and digital photos, making it possible for users to carry thousands of pictures and songs with them wherever they go and create a slideshow set to music whenever they want. The thing even can even connect to a TV set or projector for showing the slideshow to a group of friends. Available with either a 40GB or 60GB hard drive and a vivid color screen with backlight, the iPod Photo can hold up to 25,000 digital pictures and 10,000 or 15,000 songs (depending on model). It promises better battery life than its brethren with up to 15 hours of music playback or five hours of slideshow presentations on a single charge. "Having both your entire photo and music collections with you wherever you go is the next big thing," said Jobs. "Everyone has a digital camera and wants to enjoy and share their growing library of digital photos wherever they are. Unlike video content, photo content is free and abundant, and there are no copyright issues to deal with." The new gadget also displays album artwork, games, calendars and contact info. It features Apple's Auto-Sync technology to make it easy for users to automatically download entire digital music and photo libraries and update them whenever the unit is plugged into a Mac or Windows PC via FireWire or a USB connection. Mac users can Auto-Sync their iPod with their photo library in iPhoto. Windows users can sync it up in Adobe Photoshop Elements, Photoshop Album or their My Pictures folder. iPod Photo works with the new iTunes 4.7 release. The 40GB iPod Photo is $499; the 60GB model is $599. Jobs also introduced the iPod U2 Special Edition, the result of a partnership between the company, Irish rockers U2 and Universal Music Group. The 20GB U2 iPod model is snazzier than the rest of the family - black with a red click wheel - and features a custom engraving of the band members' signatures. U2 lead singer Bono, who appeared live at the introduction, called the iPod the most interesting art object since the electric guitar. As previously reported, the band's new single "Vertigo" from its upcoming album "How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" is available for download exclusively from iTunes. U2 is also featured in an iPod commercial. Additionally, iTunes is the only place to get what Apple calls "the online music industry's first digital box set," a compilation of more than 400 U2 tracks including all of the band's albums plus a bunch of rare and unreleased tracks. U2 fans will be able to purchase and download "The Complete U2" with a single click on the iTunes Music Store in the US and Europe in late November for $149. Folks who buy the U2 iPod will get a coupon for $50 off the compilation. The 20GB iPod U2 Special Edition will be available in mid-November for $349. Analysts have speculated on whether Apple can maintain and extend its dominance in the portable media player market, something that Apple was unable to do with its PCs. iPods and iTunes surged to account for 23% of the company's revenue in the most recent quarter. iPod holds 65% of the overall portable media player market and 92% of the market for hard disk-based players. Expectations are that Apple will sell about three million iPods in the current holiday quarter. There's been no word on whether
HP will sell either of the new models.
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It seems like a good idea - for laptop users who want to carry a full-size keyboard or for slobs. The UK's Hela has a new lightweight, "ultra slim," full-size keyboard that can be rolled up for traveling and washed down with soap and water.
The Hela Washable, Roll Up Keyboard Manufactured in durable silicone, the "virtually indestructible" keyboard is said to be resistant to water, coffee, tea, alcohol, dirt and sandstorms. Yes, sandstorms. It connects via USB/PS2 with Windows 98/2000/ME/XP and Mac OS and comes with a two year warranty. Priced at just £49.00 ($90), the Hela Roll Up keyboard is available online from www.helashop.com.
Newer Technology sells a $40
self-installed battery replacement for the iPod. Battery life
is the only major complaint from iPod owners due to the fact
that initial battery life of eight-10 hours after a recharge
drops to two or three hours over time. Newer Technology says
its battery can run for 22 hours per charge.
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Gateway Adds Photo Support to MP3 Player Gateway, which appears to be in hot competition with Dell and HP to see which PC maker can put out the most - and most innovative - consumer electronics products, has unveiled a new portable MP3 player. Like the new iPod Apple introduced this week, the new Gateway gadget also adds support for digital photo viewing. The new Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox sports a 4GB hard drive for storing 1,000 MP3 files or thousands of digital photos. The mini 3.4-ounce device boasts a 1.6-inch color display and a removable/rechargeable battery that's good for eight hours of playtime on a single charge. Last year when Roxio resurrected Napster as a legal digital music subscription and download service Gateway was one of the companies to sign on to promote the iTunes competitor and even started pre-installing the Napster software on its PCs. With the MP3 Photo Jukebox Gateway is pre-installing Microsoft Windows Media Player 10 and the plug-in for the Napster To Go service so the gizmo is ready out-of-the-box to download music from the new portable music service. It's also offering a free month of the service with the purchase of the new handheld jukebox.
The Gateway 4GB MP3 Photo Jukebox Napster To Go gives subscribers unlimited access to the company's catalog of a million songs that they can take with them on supported portable players and listen to for as long as they subscribe to the $14.95-a-month service. For folks who want the thing for the digital photo support, the jukebox can connect directly to a digital camera via the included USB 2.0 cable. Simply connect the devices, follow the prompts and the pictures are transferred to the jukebox. Users can view the photos one by one or in a slideshow format. Due out sometime in November,
the Gateway MP3 Photo Jukebox will retail for $249.99.
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Satellite Radio Becomes iPod Competitor Competition sometimes comes
from unexpected sources - think the railroad companies when
the airline industry started. On the assumption that people
will carry around at most maybe two digital devices and one of
them will be a cell phone, a potential iPod competitor popped
up this week when XM Satellite Radio announced that it would
release a $350 portable satellite radio. The fact that the
unit can record up to five hours of programming increases its
threat to portable media players. It's a sort of TiVo for
audio. The 2.5 million XM subscribers will be able to record
XM radio broadcasts even while listening to a different
station. It will not, the company says, be able to download
music from other sources. Perhaps "yet" should be
added to that statement.
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'Jobs Capable of Better, Much Better' "Even his biggest fans
might see Steven P Jobs, Apple Computer's chief executive, as
a brilliant dunce. He has the absolutely best software to run
a personal computer but can't figure out how to convert
technical superiority into the industry standard. He has the
absolutely best portable player for tunes but can't figure out
how to convert market dominance on the music side into
increased market share on the computer side. He's capable of
better, much better." - Historian Randall Stross in a New
York Times article on how Jobs developed a winning strategy
for Pixar Animation Studios after a shaky start.
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"Codec killers" are
sounds and songs that produce audible defects when compressed
into formats such as MP3, WMA and AAC, according to CNET.
Songs with instruments that make sharp sounds, such as
castanets or wood blocks, produce audible artifacts when
compressed. So are very pure sounds, songs recorded at very
high volumes and songs with powerful, low frequency bass
tracks. Tracks that produce such distortions when compressed
include The Beatles' "Revolution 9," Pearl Jam's
"Daughter" and Hole's "Celebrity Skin."
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to Headlines
State Libraries Offer E-Book Downloads Nine Michigan state libraries
have launched e-book "lending" programs so members
can check out digital books for reading on PCs, PDAs or mobile
phones, according to the Holland, Michigan Sentinel. Users
have 21 days to read the e-book before the download expires.
Many libraries offer music CDs and movie DVDs. Wonder if
they'll be offering them for download? Not any time soon, one
suspects.
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Every BBC Show Free to UK Residents Over the Net The BBC will reportedly soon
offer, for free to anyone in the UK, every show from the past
week or taped to run over the air next week. BitTorrent P2P
technology will bring down the cost of doing so.
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to Headlines
Broadband Utopia and Its Impact DSL Prime's Dave Burstein
paints a pretty picture for tomorrow's broadband in the home:
100 Mbps DSL, 30 Mbps to 100 Mbps wireless broadband, DOCSIS
cable modems at 200 Mbps down, 100 Mbps up. The cherry on top
for Burstein is HDTV, which will be compressed to fit and be
distributed inexpensively. Hmm. Think what such a broadband
world could mean. The impact it would have on entertainment,
information and education in the home would be significant. It
would change forever, like an overturned apple cart, those
three industries. Content would have to multiply ten-, perhaps
a hundred-fold, to fill the pipes. Consumer marketing,
publishing, shopping and hobbyist activities would also be
changed. Burstein also puts "universal service and open
networks" on his wish list.
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to Headlines
San Francisco Mayor Gavin
Newsom wants every inhabitant to have a PC and a broadband
connection. "We will not stop until every San Franciscan
has access to free wireless Internet service," he said.
"These technologies will connect our residents to the
skills and the jobs of the new economy." Next thing you
know they'll be promising à la carte cable TV service.
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to Headlines
"It was cool because it
was small." - Apple chief Steve Jobs on how the success
of the Mini Cooper inspired the introduction of slimmed down
Apple mini retail stores, as quoted in the New York Times.
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to Headlines
Sony Selects Falk for Ad Serving Sony Pictures Digital has
selected Falk eSolutions AG as its global provider of ad
delivery and management solutions. The Sony sites include
sonypictures.com, soapcity.com and station.com.
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Sony surprised lots of industry
analysts when it priced its upcoming PSP (PlayStation
Portable) handheld video game console in Japan at $186. The
unit will begin shipping in Japan on December 12 and in the US
and Europe in early 2005. Competitor Nintendo is expected to
start shipping its new DS handheld unit at $149 a few days
ahead of Sony's PSP release.
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to Headlines
AOL Nabs "Star Wars" Trailer Exclusive AOL Movies and Moviefone.com
are the only places sci-fi fans can go to catch the online
premiere of the trailer for "Star Wars: Episode III -
Revenge of the Sith" on November 4, the day before the
trailer debuts in theaters.
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No: Jobs on Video for the iPod Apple CEO Steve Jobs insisted
this week that video is not coming to the iPod despite all the
rumors. During the launch event for an iPod model that
displays digital photos, he said that video isn't the right
direction. Portable video players have to be larger, heavier
with bigger batteries, of necessity, due to the need for a
large, high-resolution screen.
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"Because we have all of
the teams working together - the iTunes, iPhoto, iPod software
and hardware and marketing teams - we can create a unified
experience that goes from downloading music to taking your
camera and hooking it into iPhoto all the way to syncing with
your iPod. Nobody else can do that - that is Apple's
strength." - Jon Rubinstein, senior VP of Apple's iPod
division.
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to Headlines
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Tops Popularity List Triumph the Insult Comic Dog hit the number one spot on IFILM's list of most popular video shorts. The episode features Triumph interviewing political spinmeisters after the third presidential debate. Visit www.ifilm.com/ viralvideo?ifilmid=2653646 to check out the short where "Triumph: Poop Valhalla" skewers both Democrats and Republicans. It's another example of the Net delivering what people want, when they want it - video content not available on the TV set - even if it's a commercial. IFILM last week signed a deal to distribute its goodies to users of Philips' new Streamium digital media products. -------------------------------------------------------------
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