The Digital Music Year That Was: 2011 in Review and 2012 Predictions

Following the disappointment of 2010, 2011 was always going to need to pack more punch.  In some ways it did, and other ways it continued to underwhelm. On balance though the stage is set for an exciting 2012. There were certainly lots of twists and turns in 2011, including: disquiet among the artist community regarding digital pay-outs, [...]

Nokia Mix Radio (What Happened After Comes With Music)

In the excitement of Nokia’s announcement of its first Windows phones today, one would be forgiven for missing the announcement of Nokia’s first major move in the music space since Comes With Music: Mix Radio. Nokia’s post-Comes With Music strategy was always going to be a difficult one to get right.  Regular readers will know [...]

Music Subscriptions: Dead or Alive?

[Please note that this post first appeared on the Forrester Consumer Product Strategy blog.  Over the coming month or so I will be migrating all of my activity there.  I will soon be posting new information here for you to amend your feeds and subscriptions. Thanks] [Posted by Mark Mulligan] Follow me on Real Networks [...]

Five Music Predictions for 2010 (and Five Reasons Why 2009 was a Flop)

[Please note that this post first appeared on the Forrester Consumer Product Strategy blog.  Over the coming month or so I will be migrating all of my activity there.  I will soon be posting new information here for you to amend your feeds and subscriptions. Thanks] Lots happened in 2009 but it wasn’t a vintage [...]

Is Apple Playing a Subtle But Smart Platform Strategy?

I have to admit to being a bit under whelmed by Apple’s announcements today.  I’d been hoping for something a bit grander from a music perspective.  I’ve spoken about the iTunes Album launch and explained my thinking that it falls short of what it could have been. But on the other hand there is an [...]

Monkeying Around With Mobile Music (Updated)

Today the triumvirate of Universal Music, UK broadcaster Channel 4 and UK mobile operator Orange announced a Pay As You Go (PAYG) mobile music service called Monkey.  The service is aimed squarely at younger consumers, which matches the demographic of PAYG users and Channel 4’s audience.  The underlying principle of the service is that it [...]

Unlimited Mobile Music Gains Momentum in Singapore

This weekend saw the launch in Singapore of SingTel’s unlimited music download service Amped in partnership with Universal Music.  The service is available with a SingTel data plan, so is very much a data revenue driver for the operator. Although a relatively small market, Singapore is fast becoming the global capital of unlimited mobile music [...]

Comes With Music Finally Gets Its Route To Market

Orange today announced they will be ‘exclusively’ providing Comes With Music on the Nokia 5800 in the UK.  Finally Nokia’s Come With Music gets the route to market it needs. I’ve long been a strong advocate of CWM and that belief remains intact despite reportedly poor sales to date.  Nokia always needed strong channel partner [...]

Apple iTunes Music Store (Finally) Goes DRM-free: First Take

So finally Apple gets DRM-free across all of its music catalogue on the iTunes Music Store (80% now, 100% end of Q1). It’s late, not too late but non-the-less late. As Apple accounts for the vast majority of the paid download market we can talk effectively talk about the impact this will have on the [...]

The Ever Changing Face of Ovi: Why It Means So Much to Nokia

I spent the first half of this week in Barcelona at Nokia World.  I was fortunate enough to spend  time with many senior Nokia executives in small group sessions with my Forrester colleagues and also one-on-one sessions.  There were a lot of big announcements, not least of which was the superb looking N97.  But I’m going [...]