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, [...]

Dear Lucian Grainge…

Dear Lucian Grainge and co, Congratulations on your successful bid for EMI.  You are about to find yourself in charge of an unprecedentedly large share of the world’s music market.  Not so long ago, to have even imagined that regulators would countenance such a situation would have been fantasy.  But the world has changed, and [...]

Facebook Fallout

As if to prove that Facebook’s F8 announcements were truly seismic we are still feeling the aftershocks now.  Interestingly though it is Spotify who is feeling most of the effect of Facebook’s moves towards becoming a 21st Century Portal. When Spotify was positioned centre stage at F8 (literally in the case of Daniel Ek)  it [...]

BBM Music: First Take

Today Blackberry announced their anticipated BBM Music service, which it transpires is powered by white label cloud music stalwart Omnifone (who also power the likes of Sony and Vodafone). In short the service offers: 50 tracks per month for a £/$ 5.99 fee Is available to Blackberry Messenger (BBM) users Users’ tracks are available for [...]

Spotify and Virgin Media Take The Third Way

UK cable broadband and TV provider Virgin Media and Spotify today announced the partnership deal they’ve been working on for some time.  The deal will ensure that Spotify is delivered across the web, mobile and TV to Virgin customers. On the surface this might not seem like such a big deal, but don’t be fooled, [...]

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 [...]

Virgin and Universal Announce Unlimited MP3 Subscription: First Take

Today Universal Music and UK ISP Virgin Media announced the launch of an unlimited MP3 subscription service.  Yes, you read correctly, ‘unlimited MP3’.  And, perhaps even more significantly this goes hand in hand with Virgin committing to a graduated response (i.e. Three Strikes and You’re Out) policy for music file sharers.    Universal and Virgin have [...]

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 [...]

Spiral Frog R(edd)IP?

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I’ll state up front that I have no privileged information on the current financial situation at Spiral Frog and I’m only going to focus here on the strategic positioning of the music service. This strategic analysis stands, whatever the outcome of Spiral Frog’s current management situation. There have been press reports concerning Spiral [...]

What the ISPs and the Record Labels Need to Do Next

The UK music industry and ISPs have been working towards the goals of the government-brokered Memorandum of Understanding since last summer but we’ve yet to see concrete results, in particular with regards to new music offerings. All stakeholders recognize the crucial importance of having a big fat carrot to accompany the stick. Yet we still [...]