Technology News

5 Ways the Cellphone Will Change How You Listen to Music

Source: All About Jazz
January 17, 2009

The portable music revolution has only been with us for a few years, but we may already be on the cusp of the another paradigm shift: With smartphones becoming commoditized -- and with so many excellent music apps being designed for them -- it's becoming viable to leave your MP3 player at home and tune into the cloud.

This change will not be driven by cellphones that act like MP3 players, dishing out music that must be organized by the ...

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eMusic Data Supports Long Tail

Source: HypeBot
January 17, 2009

The Long Tail theory has come under heavy fire recently. But eMusic says the critics are wrong and that 75% its indie-only 5 million track catalog sold at least once during 2008.

“eMusic is the Long Tail," said Madeleine Milne, eMusic Managing Director, Europe. The theory that the internet enables businesses to sell a large selection of goods in small quantities to a large population of customers at minimum cost was popularized as the “Long Tail" by Chris Anderson of ...

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Thumbplay to Expand Indie Mobile Services

Source: HypeBot
January 17, 2009

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Circuit City Goes out of Business

Source: All About Jazz
January 16, 2009

Circuit City to close 567 remaining US stores Bankrupt Circuit City Stores Inc., unable to work out a sale of the company, said Friday it will go out of business - closing its 567 U.S. stores and cutting 30,000 jobs.

The nation's second-biggest consumer electronics retailer is the latest casualty of an unprecedented pullback in consumer spending that has driven other brands such as KB Toys, Mervyns LLC and Linens 'N Things into bankruptcy. Experts believe there will ...

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Sell Your Own Ringtones

Source: HypeBot
January 16, 2009

In addition to downloads its now easy for any band to sell ringtones created from their songs. Most services require no up front costs or long term commitments. You may be tempted to dismiss ringtones as pointless for your style of music. But for hard core fans, its another way to show their support; and every time a phone rings and your song plays, it's a free viral ad for your band.

With no upfront costs and and only a ...

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5 More Indies Take Myspace Music Deal

Source: HypeBot
January 16, 2009

Indie heavyweights Nettwerk, INgrooves, IRIS Distribution, RoyaltyShare and Wind-up have all signed deals to have their music featured and sold on MySpace Music. Indie aggregators The Orchard and IODA signed on several months ago. Today's announcement leaves Merlin and its supporters including Koch and Beggars as the last large indie holdouts.

When MySpace Music launched late last year, the indie community cried foul because they had not been offered the same equity position that the social networker gave the four ...

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Will Ferrell's 'Funny or Die' Site Branches Out

Source: PC Magazine
January 16, 2009

Politics might make for strange bedfellows, but the digital entertainment business is capable of pairing some unusual bunkmates in its own right. Just look at the newest tenant at budding Internet empire Or Die Networks, home to Funny Or Die, Will Ferrell's comedy dot-com. The company is branching out into new fields, each with celebrity poster boys attached to their corresponding sites, including skateboard guru Tony Hawk for action-sports hub Shred Or Die and video game god Fatal1ty for gamer ...

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MySpace Music Adds New Labels

Source: PC Magazine
January 16, 2009

MySpace Music has added several record labels to its roster, including Nettwerk Music Group, INgrooves, IRIS Distribution, and RoyaltyShare. MySpace will also have access to the Wind-up Records music catalog through its existing deal with Sony Music Entertainment. Sony has a deal to delivers digital content from Wind-up across multiple platforms. The deal will add several hundred thousand songs to the MySpace Music lineup, which launched in September with music from EMI Music, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, Sony/ATV Music ...

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