Henrik Gehrmann

In the News...

Henrik Gehrmann — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:31:01 GMT

The Popkomm Primer: Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

Once again, Berlin is playing host to the annual Popkomm, a blended festival, conference, and music marketplace. The mega-event always attracts a strong European crowd, though Americans, Australians, Africans, and Asians are also part of the action. Just like Midem, that creates a more international tone, and offers something fresh for those trudging through repetitive conferences in the United States.

On the ground, the weather has been mostly crisp in Berlin, and the rains appear mostly gone for the week. Expect average daily temperatures in the 50s Fahrenheit (10s Celsius), with some cloud cover and fog. That sounds like fall, though anyone spoiled by warm climes like Miami, Los Angeles, or the Mediterranean will undoubtedly have to adjust.

Of course, markets are getting roiled, investments are going south, and credit pipelines are freezing. Is anyone coming to this thing? According to the conference organizers, Popkomm will host 843 exhibitors from more than 50 countries, though preliminary attendee figures were unavailable. That is down slightly from last year, when exhibitors totaled 886, while attendees reached 15,400.

This year may also be healthy. Most booked their flights months ago, and it still remains unclear how the economy will ripple through the music industry - positively or negatively.

That uncertainty affects startups, a group that always finds itself battling against a portfolio of problems. Popkomm is featuring a slate of startups as part of a face-off called IMEA (Innovation in Music and Entertainment Award), which takes place today. Startups will present, judges will judge, and everyone will experience some fresh faces and concepts. This year, IMEA will feature Rawrip, Kyte, Independent IP, Roccatune, The Filter, and BMAT.

What else? On the panel side, the slate includes all-too-familiar topics like online monetization and Radiohead, though the schedule also features debates on pan-European rights licensing, shifting legal terrains, secondary ticketing, automotive dashboards, and Asian and Eastern European markets. Keynotes include BigChampagne cofounder Eric Garland; violin virtuoso Daniel Hope; movie director Wim Wenders; CISAC president Robin Gibb; IMMF chairman Petri Lunden; and Jamie Kantrowitz, senior vice president of Marketing and Content International for MySpace.

YouTube Trying eCommerce; iTunes, Amazon On Board

Labels are having an increasingly difficult time hating YouTube. The Google-owned video behemoth is now jumping into ecommerce, starting with music. Initial partners include Apple and Amazon, and the first crop of products include music downloads and games. "This is a first step towards building a broader ecommerce platform for content partners and users on YouTube," the company explained in a morning briefing.

In that developmental light, the YouTube eCommerce Platform will soon include a broad range of partners across music, film, TV, and publishing. The move represents a monetization stab beyond advertising, and the notoriously low CPMs that the site attracts.

The initial platform is being rolled out in the United States, though an international expansion will happen within months, according to the company. In a typical scenario, videos viewed within the EMI Music channel would be accompanied by purchase links, both from the iTunes Store and AmazonMP3. "Those partners who use YouTube's content identification and management system can also enable retail links on claimed videos that they choose to leave up on the site," the company explained in preliminary details.

Story by news analyst Alexandra Osorio.

[all articles by Digital Music News]

In the News...

Henrik Gehrmann — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:01:25 GMT

Global Markets Under Serious Pressure; More Questions Surround Music

The now-global financial crisis dragged exchanges across Asia, Europe, and the United States on Monday, despite the recent passage of a massive bailout package. During a roller-coaster day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average tanked more than 800 points, a one-day record that dragged the needle below 10,000. The crater then prompted a late-day buying rally, leaving the exchange at a more mild, 370-point drop by the bell.

The US Treasury is now moving forward with an approved rescue package that exceeds $700 billion, though expectations of a successful resolution appeared baked into pre-Monday valuations. Instead of gains, the market collectively expressed doubt that the bailout would reinvigorate markets, and indeed, some time will be required to unfreeze a tightening credit climate.

Music-related stocks were battered by the broader malaise, though the late-stage rally mitigated the declines. Warner Music Group (WMG) slipped to $6.09 before recovering to $6.61, down 4.21 percent. Apple (AAPL) had its ups and downs, dropping to a 52-week low of $87.54 before landing at $98.14, up 1.1 percent. Sirius XM Radio (SIRI) continued to suffer, ending at just 50-cents.

Ahead of US-based trading on Monday, European and Asian indices offered a dreary prelude to the profound intraday drop. Banking bailouts, stepped-up deposit guarantees and aggressive interventions are now part of the European reality, a serious confidence drain for investors. Asian markets also stumbled, and Russia actually closed its markets prematurely.

The broader tale of woe is rippling into the music industry, though the exact fallout remains difficult to predict. Issues related to consumer confidence undoubtedly impact the CD, already a tanking commodity. Music-focused entrepreneurs may also be forced to scrape together funding from sources outside of Sand Hill, including benevolent angels and even credit cards. The new reality could thin the field and slow the entrance of startups, though troubled markets are frequently weathered by profitable, financially-disciplined companies.

Permalink: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/100608markets

We Have Our Own Coalition, Thank You: British Stars Unite

Artists want more control over their digital careers, and now, they are banding together to gain that control. Over the weekend, a coalition of British artists announced the formation of the Featured Artists Coalition, a growing group that includes Radiohead, Robbie Williams, Billy Bragg, Craig David, Sia, Travis, and Kaiser Chiefs. "We want all artists to have more control of their music and a much fairer share of the profits it generates in the digital age," the group declared on featuredartistscoalition.com. "We speak with one voice to help artists strike a new bargain with record companies, digital distributors and others, and are campaigning for specific changes."

The official coming out happened at the In the City Conference in Manchester. The group is aiming to create legislative changes to give artists greater ownership of their works and build more transparent negotiation processes with labels and other business partners.

Those objectives transcend digital distribution and emerging formats, though artists carry far more clout in the current era. Radiohead is leading the charge into independent format distribution and control, though the band carried considerable brand equity into their initiatives. That always helps, though unknown artists can now cultivate targeted audiences, sell content directly, and develop revenue streams without the assistance of labels, part of a game-changing disruption that affects artists at all levels.

Second Life Lessons: Underestimate Niche at Your Peril

September roiled the recording industry, and tightening consumer wallets could spell a vicious fourth quarter. That is part of a bigger, multi-year slide for major labels, a downward spiral driven by a tanking CD.

But not everyone is getting the doom-and-gloom memo, including EMI Music senior vice president of Digital Strategy Cory Ondrejka. During a late-day keynote at Digital Music Forum West in Hollywood, Second Life cofounder Ondrejka offered a snappy, smart, and optimistic outlook for the beleaguered label. Tossing words and phrases likecollaborative filtering , community formation, entrepreneurship, and crowdsourcing, the incoming brain focused on niche audiences, microtargeting, and rapid responses to consumer needs. "Underestimate niche at your peril," Ondrejka urged.

But the coveted niche exists within a very, very large potential audience. "We basically have access to half of the earth," Ondrejka said, pointing to collective internet and mobile penetration rates that easily surpass three billion (1.2 billion internet users, 3.2 billion mobile users). "We have billions of fans, and zero marginal costs."

If Ondrejka at times seemed like a digital dreamer, he also realistically pointed to a business model and cost structure that has been focused on big hits, big artists, and super-sized marketing campaigns. But Ondrejka also placed emphasis on Long Tail theories throughout, and was clearly motivated to energize more focused audiences. "Those artists way out on the curve are valuable, and this can be scary in a hit-driven world," Ondrejka said. "The top of the curve is dropping faster than the market as a whole. That is the curve flattening out, this is the Long Tail that Chris Anderson talks about. The niche actually monetizes better, and if you doubt that, you should probably go check out eBay, or Google, or Second Life for that matter."

Of course, label revenues are clearly declining, though Ondrejka pointed to massive increases in music consumption, across both free and paid channels. "This is actually a really great time, in some ways this is the best time ever to be in music," Ondrejka said.

Ondrejka was recruited by Douglas Merrill, an ex-Googler and EMI newbie who shares a similar digital brilliance and optimism. The combination is certainly refreshing, though largely incongruent with technophobic strategies like file-sharing lawsuits and arduous licensing approaches. Those touchy topics were left untouched, though the broader question is whether Merrill and Ondrejka can quickly solve an urgent monetization riddle.

Report by publisher Paul Resnikoff in Los Angeles.

[all articles by Digital Music News]

In the News...

Henrik Gehrmann — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:27:47 GMT

Opening Olympic Ceremony Hits Million-Mark on BitTorrent

Videos of the opening ceremony at the Olympics in Beijing have been downloaded more than one million times on BitTorrent, according to one estimate surfacing Tuesday. BitTorrent-focused journal TorrentFreak reported the tally, citing a sample of BitTorrent trackers.

The most popular version of the ceremony is an HD-quality, 5GB file, a large download that flexes the distribution capabilities that BitTorrent offers. An iPod-formatted version also topped the list. The ceremony was widely available across television networks worldwide, and watched by more than one billion people across the globe, according to various estimates.

Lotta Apps: Apple Scores 60 Million iPhone App Downloads

Apple has now sold 60 million applications for its iPhone, an accomplishment that comes just one month after the second-generation device hit the market. The App Store has produced sales of roughly $30 million, or $1 million daily, of which Apple takes a payout of 30 percent. "This thing's going to crest at half-a-billion soon," Steve Jobs told the Wall Street Journal, referring to an annual run-rate. "I've never seen anything like this in my career for software."

A large number of the Apps are free, though the combination of free and paid is rustling some cash. On the free side, beneficiaries include Pandora, a free application that quickly became a favorite among early iPhone buyers. Other gratis apps, including Tap Tap Revenge, have also stirred excitement. The music-focused game, developed by Tapulous, awards users for tapping and shaking their iPhones to the beat.

Digital Music Provider Aims To Compete In Social Media Market

WaTunes.com, a leading digital content provider that helps music artists, record labels, and distributors sell their music on iTunes has announced its plans to enter the social media market with their new site WaTunes 2 scheduled to launch on September 1st of this year.

WaTunes 2 is a social media distribution service that provides not only digital services for music artists to sell their music on iTunes, but also welcomes the fans to listen to free music from the WaTunes 2 catalog, rate & comment their favorite albums, meet new friends, and download music on iTunes.

Kids discover music the new old-fashioned way

According to a report by the NPD Group, "Kids & Digital Content," 70% of kids in the "tween" age bracket (ages 9 through 14) are downloading digital music in an average month. A separate report from NPD estimates that while one million consumers dropped out of the CD buyer market in 2007, it was younger consumers who led that exodus. According to the report, 48% of U.S. teens did not purchase a single CD in 2007, compared to 38% in 2006.

But while both tweens and teens are moving online -- along with the rest of consumers -- to buy and acquire their music, they are still heavily influenced by the same sources that have always influenced them -- their peers, their parents and the media. The difference is that these influences are moving online, as well.

Along with the mainstream social networks Facebook and MySpace that kids and teens in the U.S. most commonly use to communicate with their friends online, there are a number of other social music sites that are being used to make music recommendations and suggestions -- Last.fm, Pandora, iLike and Imeem, just to name a few. Earlier this month, another competitor in the social music space, social.fm, announced that it was folding. And with shakeups still ongoing in the online music industry, it is yet to be seen which sites will be long-term winners in the social music space.

[from digitalmusicnews.com , The Industry Standard, and Webnewswire.com]

In the News...

Henrik Gehrmann — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:16:07 GMT

D: All Things Digital
    http://allthingsd.com/d/
Among those scheduled to speak are Microsoft's Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Sony's Howard Stringer, Time Warner's Jeff Bewkes, IAC's Barry Diller, and Amazon's Jeff Bezos.
    http://news.cnet.com/A-star-studded-cast-at-D6-confab/2009-7345_3-6240303.html

10-cent songs from lala.com
    http://next.lala.com/
Lala.com testing 10-cent “trapped in your browser” song rentals
    http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/37659/113/
Free Music Now! Lala.com's Plan to Give Songs Away Could Upend the Industry
    http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/15-11/ff_lala

Online library offers 1.5 million works and counting
    http://news.cnet.com/Online-library-offers-1.5-million-works-and-counting/2100-1025_3-6220358.html?tag=cd.top

Google shows touchy-feely Android phone
    http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9953924-2.html
Google I/O conference
    http://code.google.com/events/io/

In the News...

Henrik Gehrmann — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:24:00 GMT

Economics of New Media: Pay to Play or Free?
http://mashable.com/2008/05/27/economics-of-new-media/

Who Will Control Your Digital Media?
http://gigaom.com/2008/05/22/who-will-control-your-digital-media

Pew: Internet Playing Minor Role in Music Buying Decisions

The internet has little sway over most music-related buying decisions, at least according to a survey released by the Pew Internet American Life Project. "The internet helps music buyers connect with artists and learn more about music, but it doesn't strongly influence what or how they buy," the group asserted in a recently-published report.

In telephone surveys traversing several thousand adults, the group found that 83 percent of Americans discover music through terrestrial radio, movies, or television. A total of 64 percent pointed to tips from friends and family, while another 56 percent pointed to online sources.

And when it comes to actual purchasing decisions, the survey showed that offline sources carry the greatest influence. In fact, 51 percent responded that the internet carried no influence whatsoever on purchasing decisions, while 37 percent pointed to a minor impact. A total of 12 percent pointed a major role, according to the survey results.

But post-purchase, fans generally started engaging with the artist more online. Meanwhile, Pew cautioned against a premature dismissal of the CD. According to the data, 82 percent of music buyers reported that most or all of their purchases were in the form of a disc. That figure lessened somewhat to 69 percent among buyers under the age of 36.

AT&T Now Finishing 3G Deployment; iPhone Hovers

Exclusive iPhone carrier AT&T is now finishing its US-based, 3G (third-generation) network deployment, a move that comes alongside fresh iPhone release rumors. On Thursday, the telecommunications giant indicated that its rollout should be completed at the end of next month. AT&T has already implemented the network within 275 cities, and plans completion across a total of 350 municipalities.

Against that backdrop, Apple is expected to unveil its second-generation iPhone with stepped-up, 3G mobile broadband compatibility. Recent rumors suggest a launch next month at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, an event that has featured various product launches in the past. The improved AT&T network will deliver download speeds of up to 1.4 mbps, and upload speeds nearing 800 kbps.

In the News...

Henrik Gehrmann — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:29:01 GMT

Napster Gets It Done: MP3s For Everyone

Napster is now offering its entire downloadable catalog as MP3s, a development that follows protracted licensing negotiations. According to information shared early this morning, a catalog of roughly six million tracks has been transcoded into the unprotected format. That means compatibility with the all-important iPod, previously a major obstacle for the company.

The DRM-free shift is an important one for Napster, a company that has struggled against compatibility problems since its relaunch in 2003. But the bread-and-butter subscription service will remain protected, a critical component of the on-demand system. That puts the shift into perspective, though the move away from DRM-protected downloads lifts a major negative associated with the Napster model.

Download pricing will remain at 99-cents per track, and $9.95 for most albums.

[Digital Music News]

In the News...

Henrik Gehrmann — Mon, 19 May 2008 18:18:41 GMT

Pennywise, Poundwise: MySpace Free Experiment Pays Off

Major labels have been fighting against free content distribution for years. But a number of established artists are embracing the gratis giveaway, and driving dollars into more controlled areas.

The biggest players in this discussion are Radiohead, Trent Reznor, and most recently, Coldplay. But others, including Pennywise, are also pushing gratis concepts and helping to define best practices in the process.

In March, Digital Music News reported that the band attracted 500,000 takers on a free album giveaway driven by MySpace Records. That figure eventually notched to 640,000, according to MySpace, though 400,000 actually completed the process to secure the MP3s. "On top of the 400,000 downloads, we've scanned over 20,000 albums in the US and another, roughly 25,000 overseas," MySpace Records executive J. Scavo told Digital Music News on Friday. The giveaway officially ended in April.

The campaign involved a sponsorship tie-in with Textango, a mobile-based billing and download delivery platform. Scavo also noted that the band was paid for their participation, a move that helped to allay fears of traditional product cannibalization.

Now, the band is seeing some meaningful results, boosted by the MySpace project. That includes a well-charting single, and according to Scavo, significant jumps in concert tickets, tour guarantees, and merchandise sales. After playing sold-out dates in Japan and Australia, the group is now hosting shows in the United States through mid-June. And the band is being factored into the Vans Warped Tour this summer. "If you ask them, their career has been revitalized far beyond their expectations," Scavo said.

Unlike the Radiohead and Reznor campaigns, the Pennywise initiative did not include a paid option, closing off potential recording revenue from willing buyers. And looking forward, the next steps are somewhat uncertain. Scavo could orchestrate another pet project with similar parameters, though broad-scale participation by major labels in MySpace Music could complicate future initiatives.

MySpace is now planning to premiere the video for the lead single, "The Western World," on May 21st. The album, Reason to Believe, comes roughly twenty years after the band first formed in Southern California.

Reformed, Ad-Supported Deezer Grabs Universal Catalog

Is ad-supported content the answer to monetizing music online? Interesting question, though testing the hypothesis requires serious capital, lengthy licensing negotiations, and an unhealthy dose of litigation.

Upstarts like Qtrax, Spiralfrog, and We7 are leading the charge, though others are also bubbling. That includes Deezer, a Paris-based, ad-supported startup that just secured the licenses to Universal Music Group content. According to the company, the deal is international in scope, and boosts the catalog total by one million.

The deal may have carried elevated licensing costs, thanks to a checkered past. Deezer, formerly known at Blogmusik, was unceremoniously shut down following a swirl of infringement charges. The revamped service was launched last year, and also carries content from Sony BMG. In total, Deezer claims a catalog total of 2.5 million, and an active user base of roughly 2 million.

Amazon MP3: Freshly Portable, Totally Widgetized

Like many other heavyweights, Amazon is pushing outside its traditional walls. Last week, the company announced the availability of its Amazon MP3 Clips Widget, part of a broader multimedia portability push. The widget allows site owners to embed clips of songs into their destinations, either hand-picked or dynamically selected by Amazon.

That boosts an existing affiliate program, one that gives site owners a 10 percent cut on referred sales. Among the early takers is the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, which is tying the widget into its concert listings. Others are already directing ecommerce action towards Amazon MP3, including Last.FM.

Other Amazon widgets are tied to Kindle-compatible ebooks and video content from Unbox.

[articles written by Digital Music News, Daily Snapshot, Monday, May 19, 2008]

CommunityOne Convention Notes

Henrik Gehrmann — Mon, 19 May 2008 18:14:43 GMT

2008-05-05 Wrap up from CommunityOne conference

Session: Open Sourcing Music
Summary: The panel discussed java-based music development. It noted that overall bandwidth is up, the demand for multi-media is rising, and the complexity of implementing functionality is down. It supports an open source approach, because more people contribute, it is easier to capture new ideas, and source code becomes stable quicker. Drawbacks mentioned included legal issues w/playback, and reliance on other projects.

Resources of interest: jFrets

Session: Website into OpenSocial Container
Summary: NetBeans is supporting easy widget implementation and deployment. It is possible to drag a widget into a live webapp. A widget can be implemented in both JSP and PHP. There was a "Project Socialsite" demo that illustrated some of the main concepts.

Resources of interest: OpenSocial RO; Apache Shindig (incubator.apache.org/shindig); socialsite.dev.java.net (release planned for October)

Session: PHP/RIA
Summary: Discussion about AJAX development challenges, including the reduced latency (RIA's usually require lots of asynchronous web requests), lack of a 'push' model on the web (e.g. for stock price applications), and that traditional web servers are not designed for these kind of operations. Outline of the Comet model and Bayeux protocol (using the Dojo ajax toolkit) as a possible solution. Current issues encountered are that there is no de-facto standard, that the HTTP connection can be cut by firewalls (i.e. after long idle times), and that the browsers/servers are not optimized for this model.

Resources of interest: Zend (php)

Session: Async AJAX for Revolutionary WebApps
Summary: Panel focused on development of Web 2.0 applications, specifically using so-called 'AJAX push' models. It mentioned frameworks and technologies such as NetBeans, Comet, Dojo, DWR, ICEfaces (combining JSF and AJAX), and GlassFish (a webapp server). Web 2.0 was described as "by the people, for the people", where content is mainly provided by users. It could also be called the "participation age", with examples given the development of open source software, eBay auctions, Wikipedia, Flickr and YouTube. Typcial signatures of Web 2.0 are a collaborative environment, interaction, and a powerful UI. One of the speakers announced that "AJAX is a state of mind".

Most web applications are still typically synchronous, where user events are given preference, and browser lock-ups (page-loads) are avoided. A fully asynchronous model would allow updates to be pushed from the server at all times. This is called "AJAX push", or "Reverse AJAX". AJAX Push is responsive (event driven; no frequent polling), and usually low-latency. Example applications are Meebo, jotLive, KnowNow, 4homemedia, and Gtalk. The main models are standard Ajax (polling), Ajax Push (long polling), and Ajax Push (streaming). Looking at the network level, Ajax Push basically waits for an event on the server side after a request has been made, before sending the response.

The idea is to keep an open connection, i.e. not to respond to initiating requests, and wait for events on the server-side. Polling means that the connection is keep-alive. There is no JavaScript-threading, so polling might timeout. This is also called "the long response" from the origninal 1999 push model. Long polling can be understood as HTTP message-flow inversion, where a 'GET request' is followed by a 'wait for event' and then returns a 'Response with update'. A different approach would be using the JSON publication/subscription model, which would offer good performance, but less security.

On the server-side, one of the main questions is , can push scale? Connections are basically in a waiting state, which means that additional memory is consumed by each blocked thread. Having the JVM to scale to 10k threads is not efficient. A technology solution would be a new I/O (NIO), which supports non-blocking sockets.

Server-side AJAX push would require functionality, such as asynchronous content handlers (R/W), suspendible request (suspend/resume), and a support delivery guarantee mechanism (i.e. which pushes data from one connection to another, and aggregates data before pushing it).

A future standard for these challanges is currently under way by the JSR-315 expert group.

Resources of interest: ICEfaces; GlassFish; Grizzly; Dojo; Servlet 3.0, iSpaces, WebMC, Jetty, Resin, jMaki demo, DWR