Posts filed under ‘New services’
Streaming For Bookworms
The streaming audio marketplace isn’t just about music – Audiobooks is a new service competing for listeners’ ears. This new service competes with Amazon owned Audible.com and offers a cloud based service that lets listeners stream, listen and sync between devices as they move around. One article I read called it “Netflix for audiobooks” and another “Spotify for books”.
The service offers a $24.95 subscription, after an initial free offer, that enables you to stream as many books as you want. It’s a price point that is more expensive than Audible, which offers a tiered rate plan starting at $14.95 for the equivalent of one book a month. Audiobooks has about 10,000 titles in their library.
Some may find the subscription price point a little high, but when compared to the price of books or audiobooks, it’s actually not a high price for consumers looking for more than one book a month. Trade paperbacks these days are around $14.95/month, and hardcovers often cost more than the Audiobooks monthly fee.
The question is, of course, how many subscriptions will users tolerate on a monthly basis? This is the question that no one really has the answer to in the new streaming audio marketplace.
A Little Christmas Cheer
There are more than 425 stations streaming Christmas music this year, according to BRS Media, owner of web-radio.fm. That number includes AM/FM stations that are also streaming their Christmas programming online as well as online only stations. This year a record percentage of terrestrial AM/FM radio station are streaming online. Nearly 90% of terrestrial stations, playing Christmas music 24/7 over the air, are streaming online. That’s up from 75% in 2010; 60% in 2008 and up from only 35% in 2005. The total number of Christmas stations streaming has more then doubled in the past five years.
BRS Media, widely known for its top level domains .FM and .AM, has been tracking streamed Christmas offerings through it’s web-radio portal for 16 years as part of its more than 20,000 stations’ offerings. BRS Media launched the radio directory with two stations in the fall of 1995. Today, Web-Radio features nearly Twenty Thousand (20,000) radio station web sites, with over Fourteen Thousand (14,000) stations webcasting On-Line. Visitors to Web-Radio can search for their favorite station by call letters, format, state, country and Internet-only.
You can check out the extensive list of merry offerings here.
Last.fm’s New Site Is a Game Changer
Not to be outdone by recent enhancements by Spotify and Pandora, Last.fm has rolled out a new interface for Last.fm Discover that is easily the best looking offering I’ve seen by a streaming station. It’s based on HTML5 and was developed in tandem with Microsoft to showcase the new capabilities that HTML5 in Internet Explorer 9 can offer.
Last.fm Discover is a customizable, personalizable offering that focuses on new music and artists. Launched a few months ago, the offerings are influenced by Last.fm’s charts of what listeners are scrobbling and listening to on Last.fm.
The site is very playful and inviting – perfectly suited to the Discover theme – rolling green textured hills invite you to explore the various music genres. It’s a fun and inventive look that feels more like a game – listeners can’t help but poke around, relax, hang out and discover new music. Once you select a genre, it shows you some artists and endless options for listening to similar artists, or taking a new direction. It’s addictive – I found it hard to stop clicking. (The screenshot reveals my affection for K pop..)
While much of the new site can be seen in any browser, the experience is enhanced in Internet Explorer 9. In fact, I’m a Chrome user and this got me to open IE for the first time in a while. ”What we want is to see more and more websites using as much of HTML5 as possible and one of the reasons for that is we want websites to be more like apps in the way they feel,” explained Ian Moulster Microsoft product manager.
I really like this new development – I think they’ve done a great job of breaking the mold when it comes to streaming station interfaces, developing a look that matches the station’s theme of discovery. So we’ll see if it gets Last.fm a little more traction in terms of listening. Last.fm has been surprisingly stagnant in terms of audience growth and general awareness here in the US compared to Pandora and Spotify.
Streaming Station That’s Out of This World
Image by Arjan Almekinders via Flickr
NASA has launched a new space station and this time it’s an Internet radio station called Third Rock. They’re calling it “America’s Space Station” and it’s a custom-produced Internet music radio station that is crafted specifically to speak the language of tech-savvy young adults.
“NASA constantly is looking for new and innovative ways to engage the public and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,” said David Weaver, Office of Communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We have led the way in innovative uses of new media and this is another example of how the agency is taking advantage of these important communication tools.” The station will be operated at no cost to the government by the Space Act Agreement. Houston based RFC Media is collaborating on the execution.
The station’s format is alternative/indie/new rock. Space related career info and job listings will also be featured. I’m hoping that – in addition to the new stuff, there’s room for a few space tunes. I tuned in and was hoping for some older space themed classics like Dark Side of the Moon, Walking on the Moon, Space Truckin, and maybe even Sinatra’s Fly Me to the Moon. No such luck, the station’s definitely much hipper than that…give it a listen for yourself, here.
Deezer Will Snub US, Expand Globally
On the international Internet radio front, French streaming service Deezer has big plans. They’ll launch in 100 countries in the next few weeks, but stay away from the US to avoid high royalties and stiff competition. While some may consider the US market critical to the success of an online streaming service, Chief Executive Axel Dauchez says there’s lots of online music opportunities globally, in lots of countries not serviced by the big shots in the US. Pandora for example is currently only streaming in the US and European based Spotify is only in 8 countries. Even Apple ITunes is only in 30 countries. ”The music industry earns 80 percent of its profit in seven countries so there are many under-monetized countries.” said Dauchez. Deezer’s upcoming launch plans include Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico and Brazil.
Deezer, an on demand streaming service, offers both ad-free and ad supported subscription based tiers. They are privately held and have raised some 15 million euros from investors to date. They claim to have 20 million users signed up for its free streaming service in France. That should grow with their newly announced integration with facebook and this expansion.
Deezer has been successful in developing telecom relationships, in particular with France’s biggest mobile operator, France Telecom‘s Orange, in which Deezer’s ad-free premium service, which usually costs about 10 euros a month, was bundled into some smartphone and broadband offers. This has helped them grow their audience quickly. France Telecom now holds 11% of Deezer. Deezer reportedly has about 50 million Euros in revenue and will break even this year – if so, that’s an accomplishment that none of the US competitors can claim.
Check In Radio Makes Mobile Contesting For Radio Easy
Triton Digital has introduced a new product that radio broadcasters can use to interact with their listeners. Check in Radio is an app that listeners can download to their smartphones and use to “check-in” with their favorite radio stations. It’s basically Foursquare for radio, agreed Patrick Reynolds of Triton when we spoke about it yesterday. I think it sounds like a pretty useful tool for stations.
Check In Radio is easy to use for both radio stations and listeners. After registering their station, broadcasters simply announce their contest on the air as usual, but ask listeners to “check in” via the simple smartphone interface within a specified time period to be automatically entered into the contest. The app has an intuitive user interface and GPS-based location awareness that automatically pulls up stations in the listeners’ current area. Stations can access the intuitive back-end interface to monitor check ins and select winners.
Check in Radio is a free app for iPhone and Android. Stations can register their station and begin using it right away. Claiming their station enables broadcasters to access a back-end dashboard which features check in monitoring and enables stations to determine contest winners.
This sounds like a cool way for stations to interact online with their FM listeners. It also gives stations an opportunity to expand their relationship with those listeners. In the meantime, Triton is expanding their database on those listeners as well..
Artists Streaming Albums Online For Free
There is a growing number of artists who are taking their music promotion directly to their fans by offering streaming access to it online. Why not – it’s a great way to give people a sample – and if they like what they hear they might buy a song, share it online, or buy a ticket to a live performance.
Singer songwriter Ryan Adams‘ latest album Ashes and Fire went on sale this week. For the past few weeks, listeners could sample songs or listen to the entire album online at NPR Music, SoundCloud, or at the Ashes and Fire website.
Some might think he’s crazy, offering his entire album upfront for all to hear. How on earth will he sell albums? In fact, I think Adams and a growing number of artists understand that the formula for selling songs has changed, and restricting access to your songs isn’t the way to get folks to buy your music. Instead, offer a listen to everyone. In fact, offer them the chance to hear your whole album! If they like it, do you think they’ll be satisfied with returning to the website every time they want to hear it? Of course not – they’ll buy it, or the songs they like from it. And maybe they’ll come see a show as well.
BRSMedia Just Keeps Growing and Growing
BRS Media has launched a new platform to support its top level domain registry for .FM. The new site, Get.fm, will showcase how .FM domains are fast becoming the premier channel to deliver news, information, music, entertainment, and social media to the masses on the Internet.
Indeed, some of the Web’s most innovative online addresses are now broadcast through .FM domains. Turntable.fm and Last.fm are among a long list of well known music sites that use .FM as their domain registry. ”The .FM TLD has some of the most recognizable and innovative brands in streaming and social media today,” said George Bundy, Chairman & CEO of BRS Media Inc. “.FM is increasingly attracting premier broadcasters and media companies including Last.fm, Turntable.fm, Blip.fm, Ping.fm, Digster.fm, Shuffler.fm, Headliner.fm and thousands more; as a result, the Registry’s brand and services are now also evolving to meet the growing demand and creativity of our clientele head on.”
George Bundy is one smart guy. Early on he saw an opportunity and bought the rights to sell the .FM top level domain. Since then he has built BRS Media into a highly successful business that ranked as one of the 5000 fastest growing private companies in the country for the 4th year in a row. In addition, BRS Media ranked in the Top 75 Media Companies, that featured prominent companies like: Pandora, FriendFinder and Demand Media.
Next year BRS Media will introduce, manage and market a new top level domain – .RADIO, having been selected by ICANN as the exclusive representative of that extension.
Facebook Likes Third Party Streaming Services
Rumors that Facebook will announce a new music service at its upcoming developer conference f8 are circulating, but it doesn’t sound like that service will sell or stream music. Instead, it sounds like it’s a new set of tools that will enable music services such as Spotify, Pandora, MOG, Rdio and Rhapsody to integrate with its platform. Users will be able to share what service and songs they are listening to.
Reportedly, Rhapsody just launched a beta version of its Facebook integration that lets listeners “like” an artist or song and have that info show up in their friends’ news feeds. The idea is that friends would then want to hear the artist or song, or even sample Rhapsody if they are not a subscriber.
Spotify is already integrated with Facebook, listeners’ friends can access the playlists their friends have chosen to share. Rdio’s current integration enables users to follow other users and find out what albums they have been listening to the most.
Reportedly, the new set of tools will enable the services to enhance their integration with Facebook. Rhapsody spokeswoman Jaimee Steele said the company is “definitely interested” in improving its Facebook tools. ”We think that music is a very social experience and we are always looking at ways to enhance that experience,” she said.
Facebook first embraced a higher level of integration with music services almost a year and a half ago with Pandora. Descriptions that I am reading of the new integration sound like an expansion of that experiment, with easier ways to like and share music. With 700 million users worldwide and roughly 150 million in the US, facebook has incredible clout and the ability to drive more listening online. This news indicates that they intend to work with third party streaming services rather than develop their own, which is good news for folks like Pandora, Spotify, MOG, Rdio and others.
MP3tunes Scores A Victory For Cloud Locker Services
Image by ConanTheLibrarian via Flickr
This is a guest post by Angus MacDonald, General Counsel at Live365, Inc. regarding a recent court ruling that could have significant impact on the streaming audio industry.
Cloud-based music services can heave a sigh of relief. MP3tunes, the cloud locker service founded by Michael Robertson, scored a partial victory in the copyright litigation brought by EMI. In his August 22nd decision, Judge William H. Pauley III agreed with MP3tunes that the safe harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) protected it against many of EMI’s infringement claims. The decision represents a significant victory for other cloud-based music services – such as Google, Amazon and Dropbox – who should have renewed confidence in operating their cloud services without a license. Though the decision sets a beneficial precedent for cloud-based music services generally, it is a mixed result for MP3tunes as the court also found both the company and Robertson liable for copyright infringement on some of EMI’s claims.
MP3tunes allows its users to store music files in personal online storage lockers and then to play those stored files from Internet-connected devices. MP3tunes also operates a second website, Sideload.com, that permits users to search for free song files on third-party websites and then “sideload” those songs, which would be saved to users’ lockers. EMI, along with fourteen record labels and music publishers, filed this lawsuit in November 2007, claiming a laundry list of violations of copyright and unfair competition laws.
Yesterday’s decision turned largely on whether MP3tunes is eligible for the DMCA’s “safe harbor” protection, which shields qualifying online service providers from copyright infringement for content uploaded (or “sideloaded”) by their users. To qualify, online services must follow the rules set forth in the DMCA, including expeditiously responding to takedown notices from copyright holders. The court found that MP3tunes – for the most part – complied with all of the DMCA rules and, therefore, was largely immunized from liability.
However, MP3tunes and Robertson did not completely avoid liability. Shortly before filing this lawsuit, EMI sent MP3tunes three takedown notices that identified specific song titles and URLs to be removed. Although MP3tunes disabled the links to those songs, thereby preventing more users from downloading them, it did not actually delete the songs from the lockers of its users who sideloaded the songs from those links. (MP3tunes claimed that it would be subject to lawsuits by its users if it removed property from users’ lockers.) The court held that MP3tunes did not do enough when it failed to remove the sideloaded songs from users’ lockers.
As for Robertson, the court ruled that Robertson was “directly liable for the songs he personally sideloaded from unauthorized sites.” This finding is somewhat confusing based on the court’s earlier statements that “there is no evidence that MP3tunes executives or employees had firsthand knowledge that websites linked on Sideload.com were unauthorized.”
There are several key-takeaways from this important decision. First, this decision provides significant legal cover for cloud-based music locker services to continue providing their storage and play-back services without obtaining a license. (When Amazon and Google launched their respective cloud services earlier this year, the record labels were “upset” and clamored that licenses were necessary.) While the decision does not specifically address the legality of MP3tunes’ music locker business model or other similar cloud-based services, it is clear that MP3tunes would have completely escaped copyright liability if it had removed the specific songs listed in EMI’s takedown notices from its users’ lockers.
Second, the ruling re-affirms the DMCA as a powerful shield against copyright holders, who claimed that the DMCA did not apply to MP3tunes. As the court observed, “the DMCA does not place the burden of investigation on the Internet service provider.”
Third, the decision appears to let MP3tunes off-the-hook for its storage process, which eliminated duplications of the exact same music files so that only one copy of a particular file would be stored on its servers and then streamed to its users. Google and Amazon took a different approach when they launched their respective services as both companies require every user to upload every song, regardless of whether other users had uploaded identical files, thereby resulting in an enormous consumption of bandwidth and storage space.
Finally, the ruling indicated that playing back songs stored in a user’s digital locker was not a “public performance” requiring a license, contrary to EMI’s contentions. This holding was a natural extension of an earlier decision – commonly referred to as the Cablevision case, which determined that a public performance license was not required for the play-back of television shows that were stored on a remote DVR at the direction of Cablevision’s subscribers.
The EMI v. MP3tunes case, however, is not over. While the decision disposes of some claims, several issues (such as damages) still will need to be tried – unless there is a settlement. The range of damages is $750 is $30,000 per work infringed, and can increase to $150,000 per infringed work if there is a finding of “willful” infringement. Because there are at least 350 works at issue, the damages could exceed $50 million dollars, though that result is highly unlikely. And, barring a settlement, one can certainly expect an appeal of this decision. But, in the meantime, the decision provides some important clarity and leverage for cloud-based storage services that may have been considering the daunting process of negotiating with labels (and other copyright holders) for the right to store and play-back their users’ lawfully-obtained digital files.
A copy of the decision is available here:
http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/cases/show.php?db=special&id=125
Your comments are welcome below. You can reach Angus MacDonald at amacdonald@live365.com.
