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Archive for March, 2010

GNC-2010-03-15 #559 My SXSW Wrap up!

Posted by geeknews at 10:42 PM on March 15, 2010

I spend some time talking about the SXSW and my experience there. I give you a small sound bite from Cuban and Avner debate which was really good. SXSW was a interesting experience, while pretty good for networking, the evening parties was not the places to do business.

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Show Links:
Cuban vs Rosen
P2P in Spain Legal!
Microsoft Phone App Lock Down!
Knife Block!
Can we kill Asteroids?
Website Usability Testing!
Hacker News Banned Search Engine Indexing!
Future of the Internet.
30 Months for Recording Sportscaster!
Microsoft Employees and iPhones!
Digg Redesign!
Gowalla versus Foursquare!
China Rail!
.com at 25yrs!
The First .com’s
Admin NASA Plans Disaster?
FCC wants 120mhz!
FCC Broadband Plan!
TV Search!
Mobile Phone Ad Rates.
Twitter Announcement a Bust?
More iPad Features!
ISS to 2020!
Wearable Computing.
Sputnik Insanity.
China Warns Google Partners!
40% Want to Switch to iPhones!

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On-line Royalties Exceed CD Shortfall

Posted by Andrew at 3:17 AM on March 15, 2010

The UK’s Performing Rights Society (PRS) announced their financial results for 2009 today and for the first time, the growth in royalties from on-line music exceeded the fall in revenue from the sales of CDs and DVDs.

The PRS reports that on-line revenues in 2009 grew to a little over £30m, which was an increase of just under £13m, but revenue from CDs and DVDs fell by over £8m.  This is the first time that the growth in on-line music has overtaken the fall in the sales of traditional media.

 The PRS is the approximate equivalent of ASCAP in the USA and total revenue for the year was £623m, a growth of 2.6%.  Most of the PRS’ income comes from other sources, such as licence fees for broadcasting and playing music in shops and other businesses.  Recorded media such MP3s, CDs and DVDs is actually the smallest of four revenue streams.

Regardless of what we might think of organisations like the PRS, ASCAP, MPAA, etc., I’m pleased to see these results.  First of all, it will make a musicians and music publishers take the on-line sales of music more seriously if the revenues from on-line sales are (potentially) greater than CDs.

Secondly, it would appear that easy availability of competitively price music appears to be making it less attractive to “pirate” music.  Of course, this is conjecture and probably has much to do with MP3 players extending to social groups who are not technically-savvy.

Thirdly, while I’m not privy to the exact royalty percentages taken by the different formats, it perhaps indicates that even during an economic downturn, people are still buying music.  Perhaps on-line music comes off better, as it’s easier to buy a 99p track than a £10 CD.

Finally, it’s probably not good news for the few bricks’n'mortar music stores which still sell CDs and DVDs.  If Amazon has already eaten their lunch, it looks like iTunes and their ilk will be taking their breakfast too.

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Posted in Music

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Getting Pitched in Sessions at SXSW

Posted by geeknews at 1:56 PM on March 14, 2010

Just a few minutes ago, I left my third session in 2 days because the speakers were pitching their companies. SXSW better get a handle on this! I have spoke at a number of conferences over the past 5 years and have been very careful to never pitch my companies products, during what is supposed to be educational sessions. Pisses me off big time that I could have attended another session of which there are many competing for people’s attention. He SXSW get a handle on your speakers and BAN them if they do this from ever participating in SXSW again!

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They Continue to Stomp on Privacy – The Social Experiment

Posted by Jeffrey Powers at 1:35 PM on March 14, 2010

**Update: The “Who’s been watching my Profile” application (and 25 variants) are a Hoax and a phishing scheme, according to Trend Micro – If you see it, you should not select or accept any offer to see who’s been looking at your profile.

I got another “Who’s checking your profile on Facebook” application. It seems to be the newest annoyance on the Social Network site. We seem to run into new avenues where privacy just seems to continue to be trampled over. You can complain, but the damage has already been done. So why have privacy anyway?

First of all, we have to ask if this Facebook application is stomping on my privacy and how it’s doing so. Well, I have already been in a couple pictures stating I have recently read their profile page. I don’t remember giving the application permission to do so. A friend of mine just mentioned that he felt the app was only pulling random pictures from your friends list, so in that case, it can be a misleading picture altogether.

Nonetheless, it’s a picture. It circumvents other privacy initiatives. Such as “Certain friend see my wall posts”. If you leave your photos open, hey! I can see the picture. I know who you’ve been talking to… well… sort of.

Think about it: You get an email from a “Former friend” saying “Dude. Stop going to my profile”. Worse yet, paranoia might set in and they delete their Facebook profile altogether.

Not to get on a tangent on this one Application. The reality is we seem to continually get bombarded with privacy issues – Some of them are common sense issues – by bigger corporations. It could be Facebook, MySpace, Google, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Intel or a number of other companies. Most of the time, it’s the 3rd party applications that cause the issue; in which these companies state that: “We are not held responsible for what these apps do”. Yet they approve them.

Some people have said that privacy is only a figment of your imagination. That may be true, but I like to feel a little safe as to who I share my info with. Kinda like the home with the door that is falling apart and that could be kicked in at any moment: At least I have the one lock, so I feel safer. Nevermind the window I leave unlatched in the living room…

Privacy online is a different story – Of course. We have to continually monitor who has what information. It only takes one company with an idea, and another company employee to blindly approve said idea.

The “Who’s been Watching” application is a small infarction to a much bigger issue. However, we cannot overlook the smaller issues, because they can snowball. With Facebook being under the microscope as of late changing around their privacy issues, any new problem is definitely going to be scrutinized. But sometimes, you just cannot hide behind the 3rd party disclaimer. Yeah, it’s not your program, but it is my data. I can take that ball and go to another place with a beat up door and flimsy lock…

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Posted in Social Media

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MacHeist Good deal?

Posted by KL Tech Muse at 11:00 AM on March 14, 2010


If you are a Mac user you have probably heard of MacHeist. MacHeist is a package program that is release occasionally. It contains several programs, which if you brought alone would cost several hundred dollars. When you buy the MacHeist package you get all the programs for less then $20.00. The programs that are offer with MacHeist vary with each release and the date of release is unknown. This latest MacHeist which is now over, had the following programs in it: MacJournal, RipIt, Clips, Flow, CoverScout, Tales of Monkey Island, RapidWeaver and Tweetie. The MacHeist Web site says that they sold over 175,000 copies of the software and raised over $1,250,000 for charity. I admit I am one of those who purchased the MacHeist package this time around. I was already going to buy Ripit and was interested in Clips, so it made sense.

If you are a user and are interested in any of the programs in the package MacHeist seems like a no brainer. It is also a good deal for the charities, and MacHeist itself. There, however is a fourth group that maybe the losers in this scenario. That group is of course the developers of the various software. For example if you brought Rapid Weaver as a stand alone package it would cost you $79.00. With MacHeist you are getting it plus five other programs for a little less the one-fourth the price. So why do they participate in the MacHeist. It can’t be that the money is being given to charity, as Merlin Mann said on Macbreak Weekly 184 if you want to give money to charity, then give to charity. Is it a way to foster good will, that is the willingness to sell product A at a lost for a short period of time, in the hope that the buyer will buy product B at full price down the road. I don’t have an answer to this question, but there is obviously a reason developers participate after all this is the third year of the MacHeist program.

There is one area that I don’t totally agree with Merlin Mann. He thinks that as a user you should not purchase a MacHeist bundle, but if you really want the product you should pay full price. I disagree with him on this, my way of thinking is that MacHeist allows me to have programs that I wanted but couldn’t afford. I have always wanted to use Rapid Weaver, but I could not afford it, the chance of me buying it at full price was very small. Therefore the creators of Rapid Weaver didn’t loose $79.00, because they never would have gotten it in the first place. Also, I didn’t force the developer to participate, I just took advantage of their participation. If you are a mac user did you purchase the MacHeist package. If you are a developer did you participate in the program, if so why or why not, I would be interested to hear either way.

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Posted in Apple, application, mac

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Daylight Savings Time and the Auto-Scan

Posted by susabelle at 5:51 AM on March 14, 2010

So, this morning, I get up and wake up my laptop. I have a big meeting later this morning and I need to finish up some notes and gather some other information together. I check the clock, and note that it has already adjusted for daylight savings time. That’s good, I can move on.

Then I realize that my Microsoft Security Essentials icon is yellow with an exclamation point. This means something is amiss, and I click it to see. It says I haven’t done a scan since last Sunday March 7th, and I might be “at risk.” That’s odd, as I have it set to auto-scan every week, on Sunday. At 2 a.m.

But there was no 2 a.m. today, as it got bumped by Daylight Savings Time to 3 a.m. What a funny fluke. I had to run a manual scan this morning to take care of it. I am pretty sure the Sunday 2 a.m. setting was the default when I loaded MSE, so I’m wondering if anyone else running the program may end up having a little yellow caution note this morning as well.

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Maybe It’s Not the Provider, Maybe It’s the Phone

Posted by susabelle at 9:17 PM on March 13, 2010

I hear lots of people complain about the reception their iPhones get. Lots of complaints about dropped calls seem to make their way to me from many iPhone users. They readily blame ATT for the issues.

I have had ATT wireless service for about 8 years now. I have had multiple phones during those years, as have my family members who’ve had phones on my plan. Some phones get great reception, others drop calls constantly. My daughter’s Samsung Propel had terrible reception. We could be sitting side by side on the couch and I had four bars on my Sony Ericcson Walkman phone, and she had no bars on her Propel. Same service, same contract, same couch, same house. Big difference in reception. Prior to my Sony phone, I had a RAZR, and its reception was awful most of the time.

I have since replaced her Propel with a Pantech Insight. I also have the Insight. These get amazing reception even with only one bar, or a bar coming and going, while my husband’s LG flip phone is only adequate with five full bars.

So I’m wondering, maybe the poor reception on the iPhone has nothing to do with the service provider, but instead with the device itself. I hear so many complaints, so often, I have to wonder if the device is to blame, and not always the service provider. And if this is the case, then why aren’t we making the complaint known to ATT and to Apple: if a low-end smart phone like the Pantech can get better reception and fewer dropped calls and 3G than an iPhone, on the same service provider in the same location, then maybe the device needs some tweaking.

Something to ponder.

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MP3 Music Downloads – You’re Doing it Wrong

Posted by susabelle at 9:00 PM on March 13, 2010

The other day I heard a song on the radio that I wanted to buy. Yes, I know not too many people listen to the radio, but my new used car has a crappy stereo in it that won’t take an auxiliary jack for my iPod, and I don’t have an FM transmitter yet. The new stereo is in the budget, just haven’t done it yet. Anyway, I wrote down the name of the band (Pearl Jam) and the song (Just Breathe) and when I got home, I fired up Amazon and looked for the album and particularly the song in MP3 format.

Usually for the low, low price of ninety-nine cents, I can download a single song from Amazon’s MP3 store, and then toss that song onto my iPod, or onto my media-server PC, and that’s that. I am a fan of Amazon’s MP3′s because of the lack of DRM, and because their customer service is outstanding. One time I had a failed download of an album, and I simply wrote to customer service and they reactivated my purchase for a second download, free of charge. You can’t beat that kind of service, and I tend to reward vendors with great service by my return business.

So, I’m surfing through the albums, and I see I can buy the physical CD (Backspacer, in case you were wondering), an album that was released in November 2009. But I cannot buy and download it in MP3 form. Not any of the singles, nor the whole album. Older Pearl Jam albums are available as MP3′s, but not this one. So, I go over to iTunes, where I’ve never spent a penny to buy any song, and find that I can get the song for $1.49, or the album for $14.99. But if I bought it that way, I’d have to accept their DRM, and keep the song only on iTunes or my iPod, and never be able to use it any other way.

I’m not interested in doing that. I want an MP3 of the single. I don’t want to buy a CD, I don’t want to be locked into anyone’s DRM, I just want this song. I’m sure Pearl Jam, or the record label they publish on, has decided that Backspacer cannot be made available anywhere but on CD or on iTunes. And I find this to be backward and ineffective. I’m not a fan of Pearl Jam’s music most of the time, but here was a song I wanted, that I was willing to pay for, but they weren’t willing to sell me. They lost a sale. And they probably lost other sales as well. Not everyone uses iTunes or wants to. How many others went out looking for that song, especially since it is getting incredible air play now, and found that they could only buy it one way, which may not have been a way they wanted to buy it.

I am disappointed. I suppose at some point the album will become available through Amazon’s MP3 store, but by then, I’ll likely have forgotten about the song or gotten so frustrated with the band’s lack of foresight that I won’t give them any of my hard-earned money.

It is unfortunate that this is how they want to do business. No wonder people go out and pirate music. In ten minutes I could have found this song on a torrent and had it ripped to my iPod, and had it not cost me a thing, and the band would not have benefited from that action. Yet what other choice did the band give its listeners, after they walled themselves into the iTune walled garden?

Makes me wonder if they thought this through, and how long it will take them to release the album through Amazon MP3?

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Posted in amazon

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Companies Launching new or updated sites at SXSW

Posted by geeknews at 10:44 AM on March 13, 2010

I will have some more details on my next podcast, but here is a lineup of some sites launching at SXSW

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Mark Cuban and Boxee’s Avner Ronen Battle at SXSW

Posted by geeknews at 10:01 AM on March 13, 2010

Yesterday in the last session of the day at SXSW Mark Cuban and Avner Ronen had what I consider to be one of the better debates of the show so far. While it was a bit over the top and some ego’s in play, both made great points about the future of how we are going to be consuming media from traditional broadcast sources. Mark contends that the web in it’s current state cannot support large segment of subscribers getting there HD content via an IP connection which is probably true. Avner contends that the younger generation wants their traditional content via Internet.

From Mark’s comments it is obvious that the only way he would make HDNet available on the net is by guaranteeing 500,000 subscribers a month and the entity would have to pay base card rates for the right to get the content aka $2.00 to $3.00 per subscriber.

Mark feels the Ala Carte model will never scale and doubtful that companies like ESPN would make their programming available anytime soon to companies that would like to make it available to consumers on the net.

I will have a much more detailed commentary and sound bites on my next podcast because the breadth of the conversation was pretty wide.

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