Published on
January 10, 2008 in
music and tech.
c|net’s News.com has posted an interview with Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor regarding the release of songs from his collaboration with Saul Williams on the album “The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust.” The album, similar to the Radiohead release of “In Rainbows”, was made available for $5 or free to see who was really willing to pay for high-quality, non-DRM music.
As it turns out, the answer is not very many when it comes to Saul Williams’ album. Reznor reports that only one in five people were willing to pay. The interview reveals a different side the the “music in the new Internet world” debate. Reznor comes off very defeated and not sure where to go from here.
“The toothpaste is out of the tube and a whole generation of people is accustomed to music being that way. There’s a perception that you don’t pay for music when you hear it on the radio or MySpace.,” he said.
One idea he has is an ISP music tax, whereby everyone pays around $5 extra and all music on the Web is free. If it’s an optional tax, like taxes of gasoline or cigarettes, I don’t think its a bad idea. However, I have a real problem with forcing a tax on people who “legally” acquire most, if not all, of their music collection.
Read the full article here.
I’m a little late on this, but last week the folks at London-based Last.fm announced that they had been acquired by CBS. Most “social networking” sites don’t really appeal to me, but Last.fm hits me in my soft spot: music + cool tech + obsessive data collection & reporting.
Last.fm is all based around “scrobbling” the songs you play in iTunes, on your iPod, or however you listen to digital music. Scrobbling reports song plays to a Web server. Last.fm was born out of AudioScobbler, but where Last.fm takes off is in connection of it’s users based on play history. They’ve branched out recently to provide nice Flash-based playlists (see right column) and player. Anyway, their approach to social networking is especially cool.
Anyway, with CBS acquiring Last.fm, it will be interesting to see what direction they go. Congrats to the Last.fm team.
Published on
December 18, 2006 in
music and tech.
[G2:54]
As predicted late last week, the iPhone family was finally released today. One thing was missing though, Apple. Instead Cisco, through its sub-brand Linksys, released a series of home VoIP phones under the “iPhone” moniker.
What is funny about all of this is that throughout all the speculation and rumor mongering, the term iPhone was supposed to be a given. This assurance was based on the fact that the domain name “iPhone.org” was supposedly registered to Apple. In fact, as of my typing, it redirected to Apple’s front page. Despite the fact that anyone could drop $10 to register that domain as Apple and point it to Apple.com, this trivial fact seemed to cover up the trademark that Cisco has held on the term “iPhone.”
It’s clear now that Apple’s branding will go a different direction. It seems to me (and my 6 hours of college marketing credits) that pushing the iPod name might be the way they’re are leaning. “iPod Mobile” or something to that affect seems much more likely. Why not ride the iPod branding as long as you can. Then again, those who try to predict Apple’s next move, let alone how they will brand and market it, deal with more misses than hits.
Update: It has been pointed out to me that Apple has indeed sought to register the brand “iPhone” in a number of other countries, despite not holding the mark in the U.S. So maybe an iPhone isn’t completely out of Apple’s plans.
