Digital-Lifestyles

Distribution

The new digital ways content was becoming distributed

  • Dating on Demand

    Video on demand: reasonable state of health, no proven business model, WLTM  established internet commerce concept for  broadband fun, and maybe a bit of transactional  processing, apply at www.hurrydate.com

    I seem to be writing another of those “It had to happen” stories this week.

    Dating On Demand is launching this summer – in Philadelphia, of all places. A series of events will allow singles (or at least people claiming to be single) to record five minute video profiles which will then be available on demand on Comcast Digital Cable.

    Recording the profiles is free and even includes the services of professional television production crews. The profiles will be available to view free on cable and interested potential partners will be able to register anonymously through the HurryDate website.

    Interviews and features will attempt to draw out interesting glimpses into singles’ personalities and will even include video “bloopers” and tales of dating disasters. HurryDate operate a speed dating service and are hoping that this will expand their market somewhat.

    “This service is as close as you can get to meeting someone over a cup of coffee,” said Adele Testani, co-founder of HurryDate. Except with out the coffee, two way communication, body language and bare-faced lies, presumably.

    “Dating ON DEMAND adds a personal touch to meeting potential dates by presenting ‘real singles’ – how they move, how they speak, their true appearance. Best yet, it all happens in the comfort of your home with the touch of a remote control and the click of a mouse.” HurryDate are keen to point out in their press release that no extra equipment is needed.

    Is it me or does the name HurryDate add an extra air of desperation to the whole thing, like “Budget Bride”?

    HurryDate

    Budget Bride – Money Saving Wedding Solutions … I didn’t realise weddings were a problem

  • WiFi in Court

    Bored when waiting to be called as a witness? Need to brush up a bit on public decency laws before you get called into the dock? Then if you’re at one of the seven UK courts that have just rolled out public WiFi access, then you’re in luck.

    As a pilot that might lead to a national deployment, seven courts have installed BT Openzone WiFi access. Ostensibly to assist court staff in research and communications, the access points are open to the public too, and standard OpenZone pricing will apply (about UK£6, €9 for an hour).

    “The hot spots should enable lawyers to access information held at their offices or receive emails and have information sent to them while they are attending court,” said Lord Justice Thomas, the senior presiding judge of England and Wales.

    “When new points of law arise during the course of the hearing, they should be able to carry out the necessary research without leaving the building.”

    Obviously the service will not be available in the courts themselves.

    The pilot runs until 2006, and echo a similar WiFi trial in UK public library also announced this week.

    The Court Service

  • Real Networks and Starz Launch Broadband Film Service

    Real Networks and Starz Encore Group have launched a new service delivering films over broadband to US subscribers. A US$12.95 (€10.68) subscription to Starz Ticket gives viewers access to a library of major films encoded in RealVideo 10 with download times of as little as 20 minutes. Titles include such reasonably recent fare as Pirates of the Caribbean, and comedy fish movie Finding Nemo.

    Content providers seem to like subscription models, either charging a flat rate for access to all content, or a lower subscription with content priced individually. It’s a good way of locking in customers.

    “In the cable and satellite world the ‘all you can eat’ subscription business model has proven to be much more popular than the transactional pay-per-view model,” said Starz chairman, founder and CEO, John J. Sie.

    Subscriptions are a cheaper business model too, as lots of small individual transactions cost money to process and unless all your customers suddenly jump ship one month, month to month income is more predictable.

    It’s a shame that geographical boundaries still apply to distribution rights – there’s no other reason why Starz Ticket should be US only.

    Starz

    Real Networks

  • Samsung’s Digital Multimedia Chip for Mobiles

    Samsung have developed a low-power chip for processing terrestrial digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) on mobile phones. The new chip will allow content providers to customise content such as high quality digital terrestrial television for on-demand viewing on mobiles.

    The chip consumes 40% less power than their previous design attempts, making it suitable for inclusion in 3G phones.

    To showcase the technology, Samsung are teaming up with SK Telecom to offer satellite-based DMB by the end of the year.

    Samsung’s Press Centre

  • European iTunes Launches – UK79p or €0.99

    Apple’s much-awaited iTunes store has launched in Europe, and is setting a new price for music.

    Offering 700,000 songs for UK79p and €0.99, the price point is considerably less than Napster UK, who last month claimed to us that wholesale prices where the cause behind their UK£1.09 (€1.62) basic price. Most iTunes albums will cost UK£7.99 (€12). However, iTunes UK is rather more than its US equivalent, famous for its US99c price for single tracks.

    Also, note that UK79p is actually €1.19 by today’s exchange rate, so UK music buyers are getting fleeced yet again.

    iTunes has one of the best set of consumer rights behind any music site, allowing users to play a track on up to five different devices along with unlimited CD burning.

    Due to massive interest, the iTunes store is being a little unresponsive at the moment – we’ll be logging in later and taking it for a proper test spin.

    AOL chose today to announce that they have formed a partnership with Apple to integrate iTunes into their product. The main advantage for AOL will be single-click registration, with free downloads promotions and iPod competitions.

    Apple Launches iTunes

  • OD2 Launch Pay Per Play Jukebox Sonic Selector

    OD2 think that streaming music to PCs, rather than downloading tracks, is the way forward: “Most of the music our users listen to on their PCs will be streamed,” Charles Grimsdale, chief executive of the company said.

    Consequently, OD2 have launched their Sonic Selector service – allowing customers in France, Germany, Italy and the UK to stream any track from the company’s 350,000 track catalogue. As the streams are Windows Media encoded, you’ll need you’ll need Version 9 of Microsoft’s player.

    OD2 already offered a similar feature on their download sites such as the shudder-inducing MyCokeMusic, where users can stream some tracks for one of their credits, as opposed to buying the track for 99 credits. Napster also offer a streaming service, but only with their UK£9.99 (€15) subscription.

    OD2 evidently hope that a pay-as-you-go system will entice more users to buy music in a market where increased competition every day means that punters are less willing to lock themselves into a particular vendor with a subscription: “The pay-as-you-go system also allows the users to spend as little or as much as they wish each month, without the burden of a fixed rate subscription” commented Grimsdale.

    Sonic Selector is in fact a proprietary plug in for Windows Media Player, created by OD2, but is a little more interesting that just a streaming gadget. Every day, the Sonic Selector team pick through new releases, chart hits and exclusives to offer their recommended picks, with featured artists in key genres. If you really like a track, then you can buy it and keep it.

    Sonic Selector marks another small shift to consumers not owning music, instead paying for each play – it’ll be interesting to see how iTunes reacts to this at launch.

    Sonic Selector

  • UK Digital Radio Market Set to Double by 2005

    The Digital Radio Development Bureau (DRDB) has claimed that the UK’s £45 million (€67.75 million) market is going to double by the end of the year.

    There are currently 547,000 digital radios in use in the UK, and this is hoped to expand to 1 million by 2005.

    Why the sudden jump? One theory is that personal stereos and portable music systems equipped with digital radios are about to hit the market, rapidly increasing the installed base. As the cost of integrating a digital tuner into consumer electronics declines, many more audio devices that featured analogue only tuners will get digital ones by default.

    The DRDB is a trade body funded and supported by the BB and commercial radio operators, with a remit to ensure the swift adoption of digital radio in the UK, so you can imagine that they’re pleased at this proposed sudden spike in uptake.

    The Digital Radio Development Bureau

  • Napster and NTL’s Broadband Partnership

    Napster UK and NTL have completed a deal to bundle the new music store with NTL’s Broadband Plus package. This will bring Napster a potential one million more customers, and will also include a 30 free trial subscription to the store.

    NTL’s Broadband Plus package starts at UK£3.99 (€6), or UK£9.95 (€15) including a Napster subscription.

    “This is a significant deal for Napster because we are partnering with the biggest provider of broadband services in the UK, and ntl’s own research has shown that over 75% of broadband customers download music each month,” said Brad Duea, president of Napster.

    Napster’s catalogue now stands at over 750,000 tracks, making it the largest music store in the market at the moment.

    Napster UK

  • RIAA Is Lobbying For DAB Radio Copy Protection

    The Recording Industry Association of America is lobbying for digital rights management features to be incorporated in digital radio, and Mitch Bainwol, CEO, intends to make the issue the focus of the forthcoming Congressional Hearing on Digital Copyrights on 16th June.

    “We’re in favour of HD radio,” Bainwol said, referring to Digital Radio, “It offers great benefits for consumers and everyone involved, but we’re not blind to several concerns. Someone could cherry-pick songs off a broadcast and fill up a personal library and then post it on Kazaa.”

    Therefore, to prevent this evil, the RIAA are keen to have a copy protection scheme in place to prevent digital copies of digital radio broadcasts. The Consumer Association are not pleased, however.

    Many are concerned that the RIAA are trying to removing another freedom from the consumer. Besides, no DRM scheme will currently stop people from making high quality analogue copies of music and then re-digitising them. The RIAA, in it’s fervour to prevent perfect digital copies of music seem to have forgotten one thing: digital radio is compressed, it’s not possible to create a “perfect” copy. On top of this the act recompressing to make an MP3 or Windows Media file, transcoding, generally makes audio and video quality even worse. A digital radio copy will never have the same quality as a CD recording.

    The technology behind digital radio broadcasting in the US comes from iBiquity, who are obviously willing to build in a copy protection scheme if it brings them more revenue, but even they can’t see the point … at the moment: “If there’s a consensus among the groups, we’re willing to go along,” said Jeff Jury, COO of the Baltimore-based company, “But given the state of the technology, it’s premature to worry about this.”

    By imposing a DRM system on digital radio, the RIAA can remove the consumer’s ability to time shift or archive radio programmes. Also, it some feel that it marks a shift towards preventing consumers owning music, instead they will have to rent it, paying time and again to hear tracks.

    Michael Petricone, technology vice president at the Consumer Electronics Association commented: “Our position on this is that there has been no demonstration that there’s a problem. It’s not clear what the RIAA is talking about. Do they want a broadcast flag or some limit on recording material? We regard a consumer’s ability to record off the radio as a pretty fundamental right. They’ve sold a half-million digital radios in Great Britain over the past five years, and this problem hasn’t come up. It’s premature to ask the FCC for restrictions on devices for a problem that might not exist.”

    RIAA

  • Steve Jobs: The 99c Track Is Staying, iTunes 4.6 Released

    Steve Jobs has confirmed Apple’s commitment to a single US$0.99 (€0.82) price point for tracks bought from their iTunes music store. Apple have been vehement in stating their commitment to 99c, and have reiterated it several times over the past month, despite some iTunes album prices climbing.

    Labels have been gradually increasing wholesale prices, but Apple have not passed these cost onto their single-buying customers … yet.

    At the recent D: All Things Digital conference in San Diego, Jobs stated: “We don’t think the consumer wants to pay more than 99 cents.” He’s not wrong.

    Apple have also released version 4.6 of the iTunes application, adding support for AirTunes and AirPort Express, so that users can stream music wirelessly around the home. The new version is also features a number of other “minor enhancements – we’re downloading a copy now and if there are any surprises in it, we’ll let you know.

    Download iTunes