Sony BMG’s global digital business president Thomas Hesse was full of optimism about the emerging opportunities brought about by digital distribution channels such as iTunes and ringtones.
Speaking at the Music 2.0 conference, Hesse predicted that digital music was expected to grow to 19-20 percent of the market by 2008, adding that this was “a fundamental transformation.”
Although the single format no longer rules the pop world, Hesse enthused about lucrative new possibilities brought about by digital music technologies which could increase returns on songs.
These might include whetting the public’s appetite with extra bundled content such as exclusive digital sales, artist interviews, video footage and acoustic versions of songs.
The Sony bigwig suggested that the record industry could learn from the movie studios where carefully-timed “release windows” have helped maximise commercial opportunities for new films.
Historically, the record industry has usually shunted everything out at the same time, but Hesse advised that early releases to specific formats like ringtones and iTunes downloads could rake in extra dollars, with the “real” tracks arriving later in a host of other digital and physical formats.
Hesse also expressed his preference for new payment systems for artists, where they get paid a percentage by total revenue sales, rather than unit sales.
Sony BMG Exec Sees Brave New Digital World [Digital Music News]
Yahoo is testing a new Audio search facility to let users find audio files on the Web. 
Although the service is still in beta we were impressed with its speedy and simple interface: typing in the name of one of my (sadly) obscure old punk songs immediately brought up the album details, a list of download locations and links to reviews and other released albums. 
Hellomagazine.com, the online version of the ghastly celebrity magazine Hello!, is expanding its existing SMS and JAVA mobile offer with a new WAP portal. 
A bookmark directly linking to the portal will be sent by return, with users able to browse the latest headlines for free. 
Celeb-thirsty fans can check the headlines then go in deeper if they want the full story with photos. We’re really happy to be adding HELLO! WAP to our mobile offer and we’ll soon be beefing it up even more with wallpapers, ringtones and other entertaining stuff.” 
MTV is in the mood to get all interactive with its audience with the launch of MTV: starzine, a new online magazine designed to give “music wannabies the opportunity to realise their dreams of becoming an MTV star.” 
In another cunning ploy to keep users coming back for more, users will earn points for interacting with the magazine and the more material they shunt online and the bigger the audience, the more points they amass. 
The all-blinking, Flash-tastic, David Carson ‘tribute’ site lets users upload unlimited images as well as text on to the magazine, with the facility to directly submit photographs taken on a cameraphone. 
Amazon.com’s revenue soared internationally in the second quarter as electronics and other non-book bits’n’bobs made up more of its business. 
Amazon.com’s chief financial officer, Tom Szkutak, announced that third-party sales accounted for 28 percent of Amazon.com’s total items sold, sprightly stepping up from 24 percent for this time last year. 
This includes US$56 million (~£32.25m, ~€46.6m) in income tax expense, which was up from US$5 million (~£2.87m, ~€4.16m) a year earlier. 
The BBC has teamed up with Hewlett-Packard Labs and Gavitec to provide a digital collaboration based around the BBC TWO series, Coast. 
For phone-allergic types, the BBC will also make MP3 audio from the project available as a free download from bbc.co.uk. 
For travelling PocketPC users unsure whether to pack away a brolly or load up with the sunscreen lotion, Spb Weather could prove to be an essential tool. 
Once installed, it’s simply a case of choosing the cities you want displayed (you can manually add unlisted locations), and then having a fiddle about with all the fun display options lurking in the options dialog. 
For travellers, tourists and stay-at-homers with a passing interest in the weather, this is a handy, fun application that adds real value to a Pocket PC. Recommended. 
Google has launched an updated beta version of its personalised search tool that learns from your history of searches and search results you’ve clicked on, shuffling more relevant results to the top of the page. 
Clearly, there could be a shedload of potential privacy concerns here with the search history feature compiling a detailed list of every page you’ve ever searched for, but sneaky surfers hoping for a bit of discrete titillation can sign out of the personalised search service, pause it or remove it through their accounts page. 
eGov Monitor is reporting that pressure is building for a national campaign to spur demand for eGovernment, with the government likely to be asked to fund a large-scale marketing campaign to promote online public services. 
Although growth in the take-up of some e-services has been promising, the eGov article states that the need to drive up public usage across the board remains a major concern for the UK’s eGovernment programme.