MySpace has now added online music sales shop

From digitalmusicnews.com 20/03/07

MySpace Boots Hoooka Widget, Tila Tequila Miffed

MySpace has now removed a portable music sales application from the Tila Tequila page, a development that has angered the model-turned-artist. The widget, known as the Hoooka and supplied by Los Angeles-based indie911, was positioned just days ago on the Tequila MySpace page. The application can be placed on any webpage, including social networking spots like MySpace, and revenues are distributed between indie911, the artist, and a distributing fan if present. As reported earlier, MySpace executives have been actively reviewing the status of third party music widgets, and the latest removal suggests that the company will not be playing ball with outsiders. And according to Tequila, non-MySpace providers can probably expect a greater level of exclusion moving forward. "MySpace recently asked me to take down all of the things on my page that don't involve just MySpace ... but it never used to be that way," Tequila noted in a recent blog on her website, tilahotspot.com. The
post is not available on the Tequila MySpace page, allegedly because it was removed by the social networking giant.

The move follows the removal of other third party applications from providers like Revver, part of a difficult balancing act for MySpace. On one hand, the company is interested in preserving a sense of freedom and user-generated chaos. On the other, unregulated third party applications often spell missed revenues and usability issues. For Tequila, the reaction has been decidedly sour. "I just want to express how I am feeling right now about MySpace and I am sad to say that I am pretty bummed out about all the changes," the model continued. "If MySpace decides to delete my page due to me having other cool stuff up such as my Hoooka feature, or other embedded videos that I have recorded ... then so be it. I'm just really bummed how everything has changed so much." MySpace was not available to respond, though the move comes just as the company is ramping its partnership with Snocap, a provider of digital music sales and screening software.

The solution to the music industry is simple: Fix the product!

...could not have said it better myself!

Forget DRM, It’s the Music
Excerpted from CNET News Report by Charles Cooper

Pushing my vacuum cleaner around the living room last week, I suddenly did a double take. Chockablock with records, cassettes, and CDs, the wall unit across from me contained my 35-year-old history as a music consumer.

Truth be told, I did download a few digital-music files here and there during Napster’s heyday in the late 1990s. (Personal note to the RIAA: They’ve all since been deleted. I swear on my pet rock.) But I paid for most of the rest of my collection, down to the last penny. I bet you can say the same for the majority of the music-listening public.

So it was with a mix of amusement and disappointment that I read about the recent get-together for music industry executives, where the folks invited as talking heads took turns bashing Apple CEO Steve Jobs and offering pale prescriptions about how to fix what ails their business.

I don’t want to get into an argument about which generation created the best music. Personally, I’m partial to jazz and classical, though I can’t deny that I dig a lot of hip-hop. But is it possible – or even likely – that the falloff in music sales has more to do with the quality of contemporary music than with digital infringement? We obviously have an enormous appetite for schlock, but there are limits.

With all due respect to the high-quality bands working for a living, the studios have always chosen the easy out by shoving numbingly formulaic, bad music down the public’s throat. For most of the postwar era, that was the way things worked. Then came the Internet, which ushered in the revenge of the music buyer.

The studios shouldn’t be surprised at what happened. Throughout their history, they routinely targeted Top 40 titles at teenagers and early twenty-somethings. The irony is that these folks make up the demographic most likely to infringe music copyrights.

Instead of threatening to sue their own (potential) customers, why don’t they do more to monetize the growing demand for oldies and indie music? Fans clearly are willing to pay it. What’s so hard about finding a way to make that work? With a little creativity, the studios could find ways to better promote musicians who cater to these – and other – demographic categories, in which digital infringement isn’t the fashion. All the consumer wants in return is a fair value.

Instead, the industry’s best and brightest continue to look elsewhere.

For instance, they insist on clinging to DRM as if it were a lifeboat. Pardon the cliché, but that ship has sailed. The endless wrangling over Jobs’ call to get rid of DRM is so irrelevant. Same goes for their tired refrains, blaming the likes of you and me for their plight.

To wit: Ted Cohen, who directs music consulting for Tag Strategic, says the solution is “to get money flowing from consumers and get them used to paying for music again.”

Really? It’s not as if we haven’t been paying all along. With all the high-powered MBAs in their employ, it’s hard to fathom why the music industry can’t move beyond finger-pointing and develop a more creative approach. I can understand the angst expressed by Cohen and his music industry cohorts about the future, but squeezing music fans for a few more shekels isn’t the answer.

These folks are still shell-shocked from the Napsterization of their business, which has suffered a 23 percent decline in worldwide sales the last six years. Blaming P2P technology has become the convenient undertaking of our times. But it’s useful to recall that people didn’t stop buying books or maps when the Xerox machine hit.

Customers will pay for worthwhile products, even if they can get free lower-quality copies. There’s a better reason to explain what’s gone wrong. It’s the product, stupid. Then again, maybe I’m simply showing my age.

Out of office!

My dear readers,

I am a bad, bad, blogger! I have not been posting much lately and i won't do either for the next couple of days!

Basically, I am out of office now until Thursday because RawFlow, the company I work for, has an exhibition stand at the IPTV World Forum in London's Kensington Olympia to promote our new product; Selfcast. This means loads of work and late hours for me, so no blogging these days I'm afraid! But if you're in the area, feel free to drop by (we're in booth 70).

Just some quick notes on news of the day:

- More royalty payments for web radio: The US Copyright Royalty Board has announced higher royalty rates for internet radio use of mastering recordings. Fair enough perhaps, but I must say that I agree with some of the webcasters who will run into trouble based on this, because costs of live streaming can be high and many of these radio stations are relatively small and not for profit. Kurt Hanson commented (editor/publisher of RAIN, the radio and internet newsletter): "The math suggests that the royalty rate decision — for the performance alone, not even including composers' royalties — is in the in the ballpark of 100 percent or more of total revenues." As Hanson noted, the master recording schedule is separate from payments related to the underlying compositions, which are collected by ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC. The latest rate announcement replaces an earlier system based on a percentage of gross revenues, a structure that is currently used for satellite radio providers XM and Sirius.

- EMI rejected initial Warner bid: EMI rejected a early bid proposal from Warner Music Group, citing reasons of price and regulatory uncertainty. In a statement, EMI pointed to a "non-binding proposal ... indicating that WMG might be prepared to make an offer, pre-conditional on regulatory clearance, of 260 pence per share in cash for EMI, subject to numerous assumptions and conditions." But that price point, which equates to about £2.1 billion ($4.1 billion), was not high enough for EMI, and a protracted regulatory review process was deemed highly disadvantageous. The development closely follows a broadened reexamination of the Sony BMG merger by the European Commission, a process that is expected to last though June.

...another bissi day in the business of music in other words!

What else is there to report? Well, I finally caved in, and have registered for Facebook, so another network to maintain! Oh dear. But it is quite good acually, and I am getting v. sick and tired of Myspace, so always good to try out something new, eh?

....And now, back to focusing on IPTV and TV over net...!



Hugz :-)