MySpace is dead. Long live Facebook!

If someone thought I was in love with MySpace, they're wrong. MySpace is a good place to be because it allows you to mess up the pages and customise them yourself, and it has proven a good way to get in touch with and discover new bands. However, there's also a lot of problems with MySpace. First of all, nothing WORKS! Secondly, it is too big to be a true community. Most of my friends on MySpace are completely unknown to me, and search feature is crap. Third, the whole site is loaded with ads. Fourth, MySpace lost cred after being bought by News Corp. What's next then?

Contrary to analyst's prediction, Facebook has continued to grow. It is now the sixth most-trafficked site in the U.S. and 1 % of all Internet time is spent on Facebook, and some estimates suggest it will bring in $100 million in revenues this year. Why? Well, it provides an easy way to keep in touch with friends and family, links between people are defined, you can start groups and there's a real-time news feed where you can see what your friends are up to (who uploaded new photos, who's going to Glastonbury etc).

AND unlike MySpace which sold out as soon as it could, Facebook has turned down $750 million -$1 billion offers, and wants to stay independent, according to a recent article in FastCompany.

However - Among the only holes in Google’s portfolio is good social networking play, and after Google’s DoubleClick buyout goes through (if it goes through), this might be the next in its sight? Let's see shall we.

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 :-)