Month: October

Full Text:

In 2008, Amazon has made several deals to help further itself as a download service for digital music. They signed up Pepsi to offer redeemable codes for downloads and other merch at Amazon, as well as making a deal with Rockstar Games to allow players to tag songs from the soundtrack while playing Grand Theft Auto IV to download off Amazon at a later time. Now, Amazon has made two new moves. It is now the digital music sales provider behind MySpace Music and is also the mobile music vendor for Google's new Android mobile phone platform. These are important moves and Amazon has come a long way, but it is still far behind Apple and not yet a threat to iTunes. At the end of 2008, Amazon will have sold 130 million songs, compared to the 2.4 billion songs expected to be sold off iTunes. It is expected for Amazon's sales to surge 60%, up to 208 million in 2009 if they continue to make such deals. Amazon also has the backing of the industry in the sense that everyone is looking for something to seriously compete with Apple's iTunes to have leverage in digital music sales. Other companies like to partner with Amazon because it has DRM-free digital music, unparalleled ecommerce research, providing affiliates with 20% of the revenue from any song purchase (compared to Apple's 5%), and also there is Amazon's Web Services developer program. Its designed to integrate its commerce features with a given site without requiring users to navigate to Amazon's site. Execs say that all the ingredients are there for Amazon to drive rapid expansion.

Month: September

Full Text:

Due to "format fatigue" and lack of revenue coming in from the ringtone and ringback market, major labels are backing what they see as the future of the mobile music market: full-song downloads. The music industry wants to turn phones into a platform to enjoy music and not just showcase one's taste. Aside from being able to the wind out of iTunes' sails somewhat, the main reason for this is money. Wireless data revenue has been on the rise, but the amount of revenue gained from selling content via phone fell 1%, meaning people are paying to use basic wireless data services like Web browsers and are not paying an extra fee to use the same connection to buy and download content. This is where the mobile entertainment industry means to redeem themselves with this new generation of phones for full-song downloads. Nokia's Comes With Music phone is set for release in the UK this October. It comes with a one-year unlimited music subscription service in the cost of the mobile phone that supports it. MyPlay is a mobile music download store created by Sony BMG with UK operator O2. Verizon's partnership with Rhapsody is the first for a mobile service to link up with an already branded music service provider and in an integrated way.

Month: September

Full Text:

Each week, Apple's iTunes store gives away a free download. This track is typically from a little known artist that caught the fancy of the staff and is looking to get some exposure. But when Jazmine Sullivan's new single was featured on Sept. 2 the main difference was that it's already a prominent fixture on the charts. So why give away a hit single? J Records execs see the promotional value of this exposure as outweighing the loss in sales for the week. They are hoping it will bolster sales of her forthcoming album. The iTunes store Single of the Week has also featured tracks from Duffy and Raheem DeVaughn, two other prominent artists. These artists and others in the past have seen significant increases in their album sales during and after the single has been posted for free download on iTunes. The store provides great visibility for the song and exposure to a much broader and diverse audience.

Month: September

Full Text:

Kid Rock's latest album has made an attempt at increasing its sales by withholding the individual track downloads of its most recent hit single. By only allowing the purchase of the full album on iTunes and other online digital music services, Atlantic Records have found some success in driving up the sales of the album. The real question is if this is only a special case, or if it can be replicated. Atlantic seems intent on giving it another go with pulling Estelle's latest single off individual track downloads, and possibly doing the same with Buckcherry. Other record execs disagree, saying the consumers have spoken and they want single tracks. They also believe it gives the impression of there being only one good song on an album. Kid Rock's case may also be an anomaly. On illegal P2P services, it has been shown that the full album has downloaded surprisingly well in comparison to the single. So even if users have the ability to just get the single for free, they have chosen the full album. Therefore this could be more of a case of people liking the entire album rather than success from pulling the single off of iTunes.

Month: July

Full Text:

iTunes' Complete My Album is emerging as a marketing tool for labels releasing new albums from their artists. In recent years, releasing an upcoming album's first single for digital download has been common practice. But many believe this takes away from full album sales when the release date comes along. That is where Complete My Album comes in. The premise is to release several singles in a timely fashion before an album's release. Consumers can purchase these singles to give them a better idea of what the rest of the album will sound like, paying the usual 99 cents per song. When the album comes out, they will be offered to pay a reduced price for the rest of the album. In reality, they are paying the same amount, but in smaller installments over time. Lil Wayne's latest album released six singles beforehand, and the Complete My Album sales accounted for 52% of the digital sales on iTunes. Labels are happy this option gives a better chance of consumers purchasing the album after getting the singles. The videogame industry has done similar marketing schemes by releasing demos and screenshots in anticipation of the release date to generate excitement and demand for the final product.

Month: May

Full Text:

Since many music services have switched to MP3 and DRM-free downloads, not much has changed in the market still. Napster recently converted its entire library to unprotected MP3 files and EMI became the first major label to embrace DRM-free music. Still, not enough change has been seen in the overall market. iTunes is still on the top, by a huge margin. The market of downloading is not increasing on a year-to-year basis. Some companies have seen small share increases, but no individual or collective of companies have made any sort of move towards rivaling Apple. Still, this is only been recent changes in events. Maybe in time DRM-free will catch on.

Month: October

Full Text:

UMG is reported to be developing a new competing service to Apple's iTunes, named Total Music. Total music is based on an agreement between UMG and Microsoft where UMG receives $5 of the purchase price of each Zune player. UMG has to now convince the other majors to sign up with Total Music. Even then, there are many skeptics who are unsure as to how positive the consumer will behave.

Month: September

Full Text:

With mobile sales climbing, Nokia announced that they will start focus more on the mobile music content market. Nokia's Music Stores will carry music from the four major international record companies and thousands of independent record companies. Similarly to Apple launching iTunes to be compatible with their iPod, Nokia will bring four new phones optimized for their Music Store.

Month: August

Full Text:

UMG will begin to test the sale of DRM-free music. UMG will do so without iTunes. The chosen format will be MP3s and the price will be 99 cents, the same price as most of the DRM protected content available.