Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Music lovers holding a Verizon subscription will better be able to say “I can hear you now” to their favorite musical artists, as Rhapsody and Verizon team up to offer users with certain V Cast phones DRM-free PC downloads. In obvious competition with iTunes, Rhapsody is still behind in the numbers game (about 5 million in their online library as opposed to iTunes 8 million), however, the bonus of not being stuck with DRM puts them ahead in many people’s minds. This way, you can play the music on any PC, MP3 player, or other digital device. Bonus.

So how much is it going to cost you? The songs are going at 99 cents each, and most albums will be $9.99. You’ll also find a Windows-only download utility that will import your music directly into iTunes, RealPlayer, or the Rhapsody client; Mac users will get their songs in a ZIP file. Select Verizon Wireless V Cast phones (including the upcoming Chocolate 3, the new Dare, the Samsung Glyde, the Juke, the RIZR Z6tv, and the RAZR V9m) can purchase tunes from Rhapsody over the air, and get an MP3 “master” PC download in the bargain.

If you jump on the ball, Verizon is running a special through July 4th: The first 100,000 people to sign up with the MP3 store will get their first album free.  And hey...free is always good.

Via [Yahoo! Tech]

A fast week already yet, June 9 can’t seem to come fast enough.  Lucky for us it just not Apple speculation feeding the pipes this week, oh no!  A quick look at the industry shows us just who is on the edge and just who is out there, really out there.  Let’s begin, shall we?

For the second game in a row, Microsoft starts us off.  Microsoft has the stones to

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In the latest indication that Apple truly is revolutionizing mobile phone technology, Google appears to be borrowing one of the most anticipated features from the forthcoming iPhone 2.0 revision.  While an official announcement has not been made, comments by Android project leader Andy Rubin indicate that an Android App Store is definitely in the works:

“It would be a great benefit to the Android community to provide a place where people can go to safely and securely download content and where a billing system would allow developers to get paid for their effort”.

The weight of these two up-and-coming names in the cell phone industry (Google and Apple) represents a complete sea change.  Previously, application distribution models have been carrier-specific.  Applications are usually available only from a single, carrier-chosen storefront, such as Verizon Wireless’ V Cast service.  Applications bought through such services are usually tied to the phone they are purchased on, and are always tied to the carrier.  With the iPhone App and Android App stores, that appears ready to change.

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For those who are caught between choosing an iPhone because of its musical features particularly its tie up with the iTunes music store and the BlackBerry Bold’s productivity features which are not supported by the iPhone, a new application might actually make them forget about the iPhone and get a BlackBerry Bold instead.

RIM is said to be developing a new application called the BlackBerry Media Sync that would allow synchronization of purchased music from iTunes to the BlackBerry Bold. This means that Bold users would have the luxury of listening to their iTunes purchased music via the BlackBerry’s excellent internal stereo speakers. You don’t usually get this kind of experience with the iPhone’s speakers.

Of course one must also take into consideration the upcoming 3G iPhone which just around the corner, when considering whether to get the BlackBerry Bold which is about to have the same iTunes synch features, or to wait up for the 3G iPhone or even contend with the current iPhone models for both their mobile application and mobile entertainment needs.

Read [CNET]

Although Apple started offering customers movie rentals through iTunes back in January, some customers have found the service less than appealing because most of the movie titles, both from major film studios and independently produced titles, took much longer to be released as compared to DVD’s. Normally these new titles are released in iTunes 30-days after their DVD release. But Apple is pretty determined to get a sizeable share of the movie download market and possibly do what it was able to do with music downloads. Thus, it has officially announced that new movie releases can now be downloaded from iTunes on the same day that their DVD counterpart.

So, now we are talking. With the new service, iTunes customers would have access to new releases and catalog titles from major film studios including 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount and more. Customers can purchase new releases for $14.99 and most catalog titles for $9.99.

To kick off this service, iTunes has announced some new titles available for purchase this week, coming from its collection of around 1,500 high-quality films. These new titles include recently released in DVD formats - Juno, Cloverfield, I Am Legend and more.

Read [Apple]

Two legendary movie producers, Samuel Goldwyn and Jack Warner, are both credited with telling some studio underling, “If you want to send a message, call Western Union.”
It now appears that the men (and yes, it’s still mostly men) who now sit in the corner offices at the studios that Goldwyn and Warner built are sending a clear message to consumers: we’re willing to roll with the digital tide.

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes told those listening on his company’s earnings conference call that Warner Brothers will release movies to video on demand (VOD) on the same day they become available on DVD. And the Hollywood Reporter tells us Apple now has a deal with nearly all the major movie studios to sell new releases on iTunes at the same time they hit brick-and-mortar retailer’s shelves.

Corporations as big as Warners, Sony, Disney, et al don’t suddenly “get” this digital revolution thing; most of them have been experimenting with day-and-date releases in some form or fashion. They’ve been studying sales figures to determine just how much a digital movie release eats away at real-world sales. The answer, at least for Warners Brothers, appears to be only 3-5 percent; not enough, it seems, to continue the 1-2 month window that has traditionally existed between DVD release and a movie’s appearance on your Comcast, Time Warner or Apple TV digital service.

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Starbucks is furthering their partnering with Apple to offer customers free music by announcing the launch of “Pick of the Week.” At more than 7,000 Starbucks locations, the new promotional program provides customers a “world-class digital discovery experience”. Every Tuesday, Pick of the Week download cards will be handed out to coffee drinkers giving them the opportunity to hop online and download a complimentary song or music video from iTunes. Artists include Carly Simon, Duffy, Counting Crows, Adele, Sia, and Hilary McRae to name a few. Each song and music video will be handpicked by the Starbucks Entertainment team and iTunes. Once handed out, each download card will have an expiration of 60 days. The first free song to be available for download is the Counting Crows’ “Washington Square.”

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The courtship began in December with heady bids, chocolate kisses, and flowers. Blockbuster, the movie rental leader was set to hitch Circuit City to it’s star. Making its overtures public on Monday with an offering reportedly worth nearly 1 billion dollars. There were talks of crossing platforms with Circuit City renting movies and Blockbuster selling home electronics. And a day later there were talks that it would never happen. According to published reports, questions about how Blockbuster, a company valued at less then their initial offer to Circuit City would finance such a deal arose. My guess was late fees (I swear I returned that copy of A New Hope and I will fight those charges to the death!) but apparently the pot just didn’t have the gold. So in this post possible merger world how will these companies survive?

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As a man of twenty five I am comfortable saying that the most challenging, and truly self discovering journey of my life was the transference from CD to digital music. A process that took months of short activity spurts and endless accumulated hours of musical rediscovery from the very depths of my musical collection (talking about Morris Day & Time, and Hanson in one sitting). In the end, like Highlander, “there could be only one” device that is. My trusty iPod, filled with every song I have ever loved up until next new release Tuesday. All in all I tore through 572 CD’s, all colorful and slick, some with scratches, others with little dots indicating that they were not long for this world. 

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It is no secret that MySpace has completely changed the music scene.  Arguably, the artists MySpace music page is more important than their website.  But other sites are creeping up and taking advantage of something MySpace has not mastered:  new music.

Sites like thesixtyone.com and others are helping new artists get noted.  By allowing voting and an incentive to listen to new stuff, these sites are creating fans for little known acts from all over the world.  Take Temple Scene, a two person ensemble from the UK.  Their songs have done very well on thesixtyone.com and on MySpace.  I had the chance to get the bands input on the value of other sites that focus on new music.

Gadgetell:  Which is more important for building a fan base: MySpaceor thesixtyone.com?

Temple Scene: To be honest, it’s difficult to say if we are getting more listeners from MySpace or T61, because in both cases we have a smallish group of vocal fans, but we have no way of knowing how many other people might be interested. Certainly we can reach more people on MySpace, but on T61 there’s a much higher ratio of people who actually end up getting into the band (being a music lovers’ site).

Gadgetell: So how how many people are we talking about?

Temple Scene:I have no idea! That’s part of the motivation for selling the songs - we’re not going to sell enough to make real money, but as we release each E.P. we’ll actually have some data about how many people there are who like our songs enough to spend their time/money getting them! It’ll be weeks before we get any sales data though.

From an interview at Max Bumps:
silkworm: What effect, if any, has your experience with thesixtyone.com had on the process of putting together the new EP? What are your thoughts about the site?

Temple Scene: Until recently, we’d been streaming the music and keeping our options open about the next move, but the fantastic feedback we’ve been getting on the61 encouraged us to re-assess that. There’s nothing more satisfying for a musician than people wanting to buy your music - and nothing more frustrating than telling them they can’t! The best part has been seeing the reaction to our songs. We just try and make music we like, but it’s amazing to find out that other people like it too.

Like a lot of people, we found the61 on Digg, and it was immediately clear that someone had finally solved some of the fundamental problems with music discovery sites. There are countless places that use competitions and votes as a way to get extra traffic from a band’s existing fan base, but where no one has any incentive to stay and explore. the61 actually puts listeners in contact with new music, and makes it fun - any site that can do that is something special.

You can download a free copy of Temple Scene’s Story and stream their first E.P. at thesixtyone.com, last.fm and MySpace.