News

TMV Music Industry Predictions for 2009

If 2008 was the year that music went truly digital; we’re predicting that 2009 will be the year digital music got truly consumer-friendly. With any luck, 2009 will b the year we look back upon and say ‘that was the last time we heard DRM mentioned’ or ‘that was the last time I recall a music fan being sued by the music industry’.

Time will tell of course, but on the eve of MIDEM, we thought we’d throw in our lot and peer into the TMV crystal ball and see what it reveals. This post was co-written by Jakomi Mathews and Chris Mclellan

1. iTunes & Amazon will launch subscription services
Recent problems with Last.FM royalty payments notwithstanding, the growth of it and other subscription services such as nokia “Comes With Music’ Rhapsody have now combined with ubiquitous home broadband and interesting hardware solutions (Sonos & Logitech) to make music subscription a truly valid alternative to “owning” tracks.
Read the story »

Mobile

T-Mobile Launches Mobile Music Discovery in Conjunction with Last.FM, Shazam and Wikipedia

Yesterday saw the launch of T-Mobile’s “enhanced” mobile music service. So what does this contain that makes it stand out from other key mobile music offerings currently in the marketplace today? In short - discovery.

The new music service offers, in partnership with Last.fm, Shazam and Wikipedia , a host of dynamic music discovery tools which are bolted onto T-mobile’s music content merchandising storefront. Initially the service will be rolled out in the UK, Germany and Austria.

According to Luke Magnuson, International Category Manager at T-Mobile International “[T-mobile] insights show that simplicity, value for money, and freedom to use the music the way they choose is what matters most to customers”. Read the story »

Online

We7.com goes ad free for the festive season

Thats right you read it correctly ad-funded model we7.com who have regularly featured in TMVs posts have announced that they will remove all audio advertising from their catalogue until new years day 2009. The promotion runs from Christmas Day 2008 to New Years Day 2009.

In effect this will let we7 users to listen online to as many full tracks and albums as they want for free and they will not have to bear the brunt listening to ads before they listen to their chosen tracks. Read the story »

Marketing

Will Kerchoonz Mean Kerching for Artists?

You might expect a lot of things from former Wet Wet Wet producers (like rapidly fading into obscurity) but launching a new social music website that (potentially) has the jump on both MySpace Music and Last.FM is not one of them.

And yet this is precisely what Ian Morrow and singer/songwriter partner Indiana Gregg have gone and done. Scheduled for public release later this month, new website Kerchoonz (in PHP framwork, for the nerds out there) aims to pay artists, both signed and unsigned, for every single stream and download that their community generates.

Backed by a $490,000 (£250K) investment from the Scottish Co-investment Fund, Kerchoonz is artists ‘doing it for themselves’ and seeking to address the perceived imbalance in social music sector with regard to artist royalty payments (a topic touched upon in my recent posting “Why Social Music Rocks“).

Read the story »