Category: Content

Content

eBay Trialling Digital Downloads

eBay are testing digital downloads in a trial with software company Digital River. The 90 day pilot allows purchasers to download software as soon as they’ve paid for it.

Whilst this is a common business model for more traditional companies, it’s the first time that eBay have tried it. Pirated and counterfeit goods are still seen as a problem with online auctions, and eBay will have to police vendors and auctions carefully to stay on the right side of the law.

As eBay will only allow pre-approved sellers to offer downloads so we can forget sales of unloved, second-hand iTunes songs for the time being.

As the rapid success of online music stores is demonstrating, internet users are getting more used to the idea of buying goods on a download only basis – including software, music, fonts and reports. If eBay can keep control of their vendors, then this could be the next big phase for them.

Digital River Inc.

iTunes in Indie Deal

After the protests of indie music fans clogged up Apple’s music store with bogus iMixes, the company is close to completing a deal to get more indie music on the service.

Hundreds of artists have not been able to get their music on iTunes because lengthy, piecemeal negotiations with individual indie labels. Sony and Napster managed to get round this by doing a single deal with the Association of Independent Music, the UK trade body that represents many of the labels in question.

This means that popular acts such as the White Stripes will finally be available for download, and music fans will be able to download Franz Ferdinand rather than Franz Liszt. Not that there’s anything wrong with Franz Liszt – other than he didn’t come from Glasgow.

iTunes

Sony Connect: Video Content Within 12 Months

Sony is to extend its Connect music download service to cover video downloads within the next twelve months. The chairman and and chief executive of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Michael Lynton, said: “Sony Connect will not be just a music service but also a video business within the next year.”

Of course, no-one dropped their latte at that announcement, but this is the first time that the move has been confirmed.

Sony’s consumer electronics business is developing devices that will be able to download and play videos from the Connect store, in exactly the same way that their new range of audio devices do now. The new service will be called Movielink, and given Sony’s enthusiasm for DRM, will probably only be compatible with Sony devices and PCs.

Movielink is a joint distribution venture with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios and Warner Brothers, and will feature content from all five studios and others.

Sony Connect

CacheLogic Survey: P2P Accounts for 10 Petabytes of Data

CacheLogic, the P2P technology company has conducted a survey of global internet traffic using network monitoring tools to find out more about the size of the file sharing community.

In June, an average of 8 million P2P users were online at any one moment, with 1 petabyte of data available to share.

The growth of broadband means that users are now downloading larger files than before, so movie downloads are becoming a more attractive proposition to those of that inclination. Separately, the OECD has announced that video has just passed music as the most popular download, echoing this. Indeed, BayTSP report that “The Day After Tomorrow” was the top downloaded film of June, and Digital Lifestyles predicts that “Spiderman 2” will be July’s most popular pirate victim.

For some bizarre reason “The Passion of the Christ” was the second most ripped-off film in June – which doesn’t strike me as very Christian.

CacheLogic

T-Mobile’s Ear Phones Service

T-Mobile have launched the Ear Phones music service, hoping to have 250,000 full length music tracks available for mobile phone download and play by Christmas.

The service hopes to capture the imagination of those for whom even iTunes is too slow, who want to download music and listen to it immediately when they are out and about.

T-Mobile have outlined their vision of the future in a press release that was written by someone who objects to sentences longer than five words – although there are no full tracks on the service yet, phone owners can download and play 90 to 120 second samples of 500 tracks, with full tracks being added soon.

The service will really need 3G coverage to be usable – a short sample track takes 2 minutes to download, which is a slightly longer time span than most youths own a particular model of phone. 3G networks will take this down to about 30 seconds – roughly the amount of time it takes to disrespect someone’s trainers at the bus stop.

The service is backed by Sony and Warner music, and Amy Winehouse is even scheduled to release her next single on Ear Phones.

T-Mobile have five new compatible handsets for the service launch, and are planning on 12 by Christmas. They “conservatively estimate” that they will have sold over 1 million Ear Phones by June next year, 4 million by the end of 2006.

No estimate on the number of full music tracks paid for and downloaded, I note. I suppose we’ll just have to do a little follow up on that in a little while.

The key stumbling block here is that people will be lumbered with a piece of content that is stuck on their phone and is not transferable to another device – home, car, personal stereo – the Open Mobile Alliance 1.0 DRM will keep it locked up and immovable.

The service is in danger of dying out after the novelty has worn off and customers realise they still have to carry two music players – and worse still, keep buying content over and over.

T-Mobile

Internet Radio – On a Radio

The Reciva Reference Wireless Household Internet RadioI would listen to a lot more internet radio if I didn’t have to be in the vicinity of my computer to do so. Internet radio stations are great, but just not convenient around the house for most people – not being able to carry a small radio from room to room to listen to programmes often means that a lot of people just don’t bother listening to the huge range of programming out there.

Reciva have come up with an ingenious way round this – without even needing a computer. Their Wireless Household Internet Radio modules allow consumers to listen to broadcasts in any room of the house by using a WiFi receiver to access streamed content. You could even use it in the park if it’s in a hotspot.

Reciva don’t make the finished devices themselves, instead manufacturing the modules for their partners. They also provide a reference unit for module evaluation, and an Application Development kit. There are more than ten thousand internet radio stations in existence covering most niches, and as they don’t rely on over the air transmission, are not geographically dependent. This means that anyone can set up a station in the UK to reach the 15 million expatriates living abroad, with bandwidth as their only consideration.

If PC-less internet radio devices like this take off along with ubiquitous WiFi coverage, it could mean that digital radio will lose some of it attractiveness. After all, there are considerably less stations and the selection available is dependent on which ones are carried by your local broadcast masts.

Reciva

US CD Album Sales Continue to Rise

The first half of 2004 has been a good one for the US music industry, despite tales of woe from the RIAA. CD album sales are up 6.9% on the first half of 2003, according to figures from Neilsen Soundscan, the system for collection point-of-sale information from retailers in the US and Canada.

The January to June 2004 saw 305.7 million units sold, up from 285.9 million in the same period in 2003.

Universal is listed as the top distributor with 27.1% of the market, independent labels collectively take the second place with 17.5% and BMG are third at 16.4%. BMG’s market share was helped along by Usher’s “Confessions”, which was the top selling album in the first half of this year.

Even with the crowded online music store market, CD album sales are continuing to show promising growth, demonstrating that most consumers still have a healthy appetite for physical distribution mediums and have no wish to pirate music.

Soundscan

BT to Challenge BSkyB with Broadband TV Service; Partners with Microsoft on Web Conferencing

BT has announced it has plans to introduce a broadband television service in the UK, aimed to compete directly with BskyB’s Sky+ service. With the cheeky codename “Sky Plus Plus”, a nod to object-based programers everywhere, the project is intended to increase broadband adoption. This will be BT’s first foray into broadcasting, after months and months of false starts and speculation.

BT has already approached the BBC and ITV for content for the project, but will need much more than just those two if it really wants to compete with Sky+.

The telco had originally intended to launch the service in October, but delayed because they thought the initial package was too complicated as it comprised a digital set-top box and PC modem, plus subscribers would have to pay an additional fee for broadband internet access. They have not yet specified if subscribers will have to use a PC to view content, or if it will be viewable on televisions. Also undecided is whether the company will be streaming live programmes or just presenting video on demand. If they are to compete effectively with BSkyB, the BT offering must provide a much wider range of features, as Sky+ offers live television, pausing, archiving and renowned ease of use.

BT has also announced a new partnership with Microsoft – this time to deliver a next-generation collaboration service. Going far beyond video conferencing, the service basically glues together BT’s audio conference products and Microsoft’s Office Live Meeting.

BT have piloted the service internally in the past year, and claim to have saved 6.2 million miles of business travel, which also means 112 million less litres of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere from vehicles.

BT

Microsoft’s Office Live Meeting

Mini iPod Gets a Global Launch

iPod Mini, the tiny hard drive-based music player that suddenly makes standard iPod players look the size of a bus (with thanks to my newly-developed conscience there for rewriting that to take out a reference to Kirsty Alley), has finally got a global release date.

After months of component shortages, Apple are now confident that they can supply global demand. Coming to a shop near you, the player will cost about UK£179 (€268) in the UK – but will without any doubt be considerably cheaper everywhere else in the world.
10:35 08/07/2004 When? 24th of July.

The iPod Mini will be competing with the lower end of the digital music player market, and will probably steal even more of the market from Rio and Creative. No doubt the imminent arrival of Sony’s new models prompted a personal visit from Steve Jobs, Return of the Jedi-style, to the Toshiba factory to encourage productivity. My thoughts go out to those poor workers who were possibly beaten to within an inch of their lives to produce enough 4gb Microdrives to ensure that no rollerblader will have to go without a pink MP3 player in Hyde Park this summer.

(Simon has asked me to point out that, to our knowledge, no-one was actually harmed in the production of the iPod Mini.)

iPod Mini

Square Enix Games on Vodafone Live!

Role-playing game connoisseurs were seen weeping tears of joy today after Vodafone announced that they had teamed up with Square Enix to produce content for Vodafone live!

live!, (the bane of copywriters, editors and just about everyone believes that, in order to be useful, a language should have a consistent grammar that isn’t broken just so that marketing departments can sell things), is a content delivery service for Vodafone customers.

The first up of two titles will be Aleste, a port of the 1990 Master System game from Toppan. Whilst not exactly Ikaruga, it should provide some twitch-gaming fun with some imaginative (well, for the time) bosses and power-ups.

The next is Actraiser, a 1991 SNES RPG with world-building elements and a side-scrolling play dynamic.

Tantalisingly on the horizon is a mobile version of Drakengard, which can be described as Panzer Dragoon meets Dynasty Warriors. You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?

The excitement in this deal lies in the future – Square Enix have a back catalogue made up of the very best RPGs in console history, and if they choose the right properties, many thousands of fans will happily hand over cash (or bags of gil) for Final Fantasy yet again, just to play it on another format.

Vodafone live!

Square Enix