Posts Tagged ‘Media’
If only …
Posted by Richard in Media, Music Thursday, 4 December o 10:43 No Comments
Hindsight is 20-20. The record labels have never had great foresight, otherwise they may now been offering concerts, ticketing, merchandise, and many non-music ways to make money. This one beats it all. Seymour Stein as quoted in the Globe and Mail:
Stein says the rot set in the music industry 60 years ago. “We blew it,” he says on the phone from his office in New York. “The first major music labels were all phonograph manufacturers, but by the time the Beatles came along, most companies were no longer involved in the hardware.
“Had we remained in control of the hardware,” he adds. “We wouldn’t be hurting as much as we are now. And the iPod would be ours.”
Popularity: 6% [?]
An Internet copyright levy?
Posted by Richard in Music Saturday, 5 January o 15:55 No Comments
In his Midem blog post A Very Taxing Situation, Ted Cohen suggests we should consider a flat rate levy/tax/tarriff imposed on ISPs to compensate for unlicensed downloads and transportation of media.
“There’s a lot of discussion these days about the idea of a levy/tax/tariff on ISPs to compensate copyright holders for the unlicensed transport of music, film and television content across the Internet and mobile carriers. Whether or not these proposed revenues would offset the 15-20% drop in physical sales this past year, it is an interesting concept to consider.”
For me this brings to mind a situation we still live with today. In some countries, the recording industry benefits from a “tax” on the manufacture and distribution of blank magnetic tapes and CDs. I wasn’t supportive of this idea, and I’m not supportive of applying it more broadly to Internet access.
If the recording industry were to get a tax imposed on ISPs, then surely other industries, with alleged copyright violations, would want a similar ISP tax. This would include: television, movies, software, book publishers to name a few. Of course, these so called taxes would be passed onto the consumer. Consumers may ultimately end up paying more in Internet copyright tax than for monthly access. Surely there has got be a better way.
I’m all for an “all you can eat” approach – but on a voluntary basis. If the ISP or mobile operator I use, offer this service at an additional monthly fee, then I should have the choice whether I want to sign up for it or not. There are many people who have a hard time paying the $9.99 NetZero price to get to the Internet each month.
Let’s not impose additional reasons to create a divide between those that have access to the Internet and technology and those that don’t.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Digital Hollywood Panel
Last week, I was a panelist at Digital Hollywood. As usual I was invited to speak to issues around the intersection of technology, digital entertainment business models and content licensing. It turned out to be a great discussion. I suspect that the panel moderator, Mike McGuire of Gartner, had hoped to pit us against each other, and to a certain extent he did. In fact we did not agree that outdated copyright laws and complex content licensing are a bad thing.
The panel split into two groups, the lawyers and the entrepreneurs. We had very different perspectives on how to solve the difficulties, complexities and time involved in negotiating content licensing, especially for new tech enabled entertainment startups.
Technology now enables us to push the edge of the envelope with new entertainment business models. Consumers and artists are ready to try new approaches. In fact, one audience member suggested that Creative Commons offers a solid alternative to the current approach.
This panel, reinforced my opinion that the greatest obstacle to new entertainment business models may be outdated copyright laws and not content pirates or fear of technology.
Popularity: 7% [?]
The Value of Music: Is downloading really stealing?
Posted by Richard in Music Wednesday, 2 May o 15:42 No Comments
Today, I was talking to a collegue about how his 19 year old daughter gets her music. He told me about that a few weeks ago his daughter had 4 friends over to the house and they were on her computer using limewire to download their music and then sharing it with each other via usb flash drives. I asked him whether they understood that they were stealing the music. He told me they didn’t believe they were stealing – its coming from Limewire and it’s not as if it’s a real CD. He explained to me that he asked them the same question about movies and they all believed that downloading a movie was stealing – because they see it in a mini commercial on every DVD and whenever they go to see a movie at the theater.
I believe this is prevalent in the thinking of today’s youth. Removing a physical CD from a store is well understood as stealing, the same goes for removing a DVD from a store. Even with music download sites like iTunes, where you have to pay to download music, there is still a belief that downloading music is not stealing. The movie industry has gone a long way to educate people that downloading is stealing. The RIAA prefers to file lawsuits as its method to educate. Perhaps if it took the money made from settlements with consumers and invested it in ways that help educate consumers such as TV commercials, billboards, and other mass communications, there would be less people using peer-to-peer download sites and more people buying music from legitimate download sites.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Searching for Search Growth — The Truth is Still Out There
Posted by Richard in Media Monday, 6 March o 14:51 No Comments
In the last week, Nielson//NetRatings and comScore Media Metrix, two competing Internet measurement companies, both released their search engine results — with contradictory findings and implications for GYM. Tables 1 & 2 show Nielson//NetRatings results while Table 3 shows comScore Media Metrix results. Here is a link to the Nielson//NetRatings press release in pdf or in html at Tekrati and a link to comScore press release in pdf.
What’s interesting is the degree of the difference and the implications that can be derived.
According to Nielson//Netratings, searches grew by 1.6 billion or 39%, January 2006 over January 2005. It looks like the growth is very good, not quiet as high as the same period in earlier years — but trending well. According to comScore Media Metrix, search grew by half a billion or 11%, January 2006 over January 2005. Now the alarm bells are ringing and I’m wondering whether search engines and media sites that derive significant revenue from partnering with these search engines (like Google Adsense), are a worthwhile investment.
What’s even more confusing is share percentage increase. Looking at one set of numbers Google & Yahoo only slightly increased. Looking at the other set of numbers Google had a good increase while Yahoo lost 3 points.
It seems the only thing that both agree upon is the fact that Google is still the leader and still pulling away from its competitors.
Table 1. Total Online Searches, Jan 2005 vs. Jan 2006 (U.S.), According to Nielson//NetRatings
|
Month
|
Online Searches (000)
|
|
January 2005
|
4,085,880
|
|
January 2006
|
5,699,528
|
|
Y-O-Y Growth
|
39%
|
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, February 2006
Table 2: Search Share Rankings (U.S.), According to Nielson//NetRatings
|
Search Engine
|
Jan 2005
Search Share |
Jan 2006
Search Share |
Precentage
Change |
|
Google Search
|
47.1%
|
48.2%
|
1.1%
|
|
Yahoo! Search
|
21.2%
|
22.2%
|
0.9%
|
|
MSN Search
|
12.8%
|
11.0%
|
-1.8%
|
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, February 2006
Table 3: Total Internet Searches and Share of Online Searches by Engine, January 2006 vs. January 2005 — Total U.S. Home, Work and University Internet Users, According to comScore Media Metrix
|
|
Searches
Jan 2005 Billions |
Searches
Jan 2006 Billions |
Precentage
Change |
|
Total Internet Searches
|
4.95
|
5.48
|
10.7%
|
|
Share of Searches by Engine
|
Jan 2005
% |
Jan 2006
% |
Share Point
Change +/- |
|
Google Sites
|
35.1%
|
41.4%
|
+6.3
|
|
Yahoo! Sites
|
31.8%
|
28.7%
|
-3.1
|
|
MSN-Microsoft Sites
|
16.0%
|
13.7%
|
-2.3
|
|
Time Warner Network
|
9.6%
|
7.9%
|
-1.7
|
|
Ask Jeeves
|
5.1%
|
5.6%
|
+0.5
|
Source: comScore qSearch
Technorati Tag: Media
Popularity: 3% [?]
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