Digital Daily » digital media

Does This Mean We Can Expect a Live Nation "iTunes Convenience Fee"?

John Paczkowski — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:10:08 +0000

This year, Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promoter, will put on some 22,000 live shows–each one attended by carping about the asinine “convenience” and “courtesy” charges the company likes to tack on to ticket purchases. Funny, isn’t it, how quickly a $28 show can become a $50 one?

But much as concertgoers might loathe the idea of giving Live Nation (LYV) even more of their money, they may soon do so. Because beginning today, the company is offering exclusive audio and video recordings of some of its events through Apple (AAPL) iTunes. Prices start at $7.99, which seems astonishingly reasonable for live recordings of this quality. More so when you factor in Live Nation’s involvement.

Not an original idea, by any means; Metallica, Primus, The Pixies, Phish and others have been peddling soundboard recordings of their shows through their official sites for years now. But this is the first time, I think, that we’re seeing the live side of the music business really leverage iTunes and its massive installed base.

And, let’s face it, this is a great idea, indeed. I saw two live shows in the past few months and happily paid $10 and $14 for soundboard recordings of each. But I had to spend some time seeking them out, creating a new customer profile, etc. It would have been much nicer to just fire up iTunes and buy them both with one click.

MySpace | A Place for Layoffs, Redux

John Paczkowski — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:00:19 +0000

MySpace has extended its war on bloat overseas. This morning the company announced plans to close at least four of its offices outside the U.S. in a bid to reduce costs. Some 300 of the company’s 450 international employees will lose their jobs as a result.

“It was clear that internationally, just as in the US, MySpace’s staffing had become too big and cumbersome to be sustainable in current market conditions,” said MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta. “Today’s proposed changes are designed to transform and refine our international growth strategy.” Operations in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden and Spain are “under review,” he added, and face possible closure.

The cuts follow a 30 percent reduction in headcount in the states last week and the hastening erosion of MySpace’s position in the social-networking market. MySpace lost the title of world’s most popular social network to rival Facebook last year and was overtaken by it in the U.S. last month as well.

"Unsupported Third-Party Digital Media Players." Hmm, Wonder Who That Could Pre…

John Paczkowski — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:13:43 +0000

Palm’s Pre is the first non-Apple device to successfully link with iTunes in years. And it may be the last. On Tuesday, Apple issued an advisory warning that it does not support iTunes integration with third-party digital media players.

Apple is aware that some third-parties claim that their digital media players are able to sync with Apple software. However, Apple does not provide support for, or test for compatibility with, non-Apple digital media players and, because software changes over time, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with non-Apple digital media players.

Translation: The Pre won’t be syncing with iTunes for long.

Now, Palm isn’t explicitly named in the advisory, but it’s clear that this is a broad shot across its bow. And it’s not like we didn’t see it coming. Did anyone really think that Apple (AAPL) would permit the Pre to sync with iTunes by masquerading as an iPod?

Funny. Asked last month at D7 if Apple might take issue with the Pre’s iTunes integration, Palm investor Roger McNamee said, “I don’t think so. They are practically a monopolist and this is what consumers want. Consumers own all this media. I find it hard to believe that Apple will get bent out of shape.” (see video below)

Well, believe it. That said, Palm (PALM) seems unfazed by Apple’s implied threat. Reached for comment, the company said Cupertino will only harm consumers if it disables iTunes integration with the Pre. “Palm’s media sync works with the current version of iTunes,” Palm spokesperson Lynn Fox told me. “If Apple chooses to disable media sync in a future version of iTunes, it will be a direct blow to their users who will be deprived of a seamless synchronization experience. However, people will have options. They can stay with the iTunes version that works to sync their music on their Pre, they can transfer the music via USB, and there are other third-party applications we could consider.”

[ See post to watch video ]

MySpace | A Place for Layoffs

John Paczkowski — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:15:14 +0000

The ax has finally swung at MySpace. This morning the AOL of social networks announced plans to sack 30 percent of its workforce. All told, 420 workers will lose their jobs, reducing the size of the company’s staff to 1,000 employees.

“Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company,” CEO Owen Van Natta said in a statement. “I understand that these changes are painful for many. They are also necessary for the long-term health and culture of MySpace. Our intent is to return to an environment of innovation that is centered on our user and our product.”

“MySpace grew too big considering the realities of today’s marketplace,” said Jon Miller, News Corporation’s (NWS) CEO of Digital Media. “I believe this restructuring will help MySpace operate much more effectively both structurally and financially moving forward.”

The news follows a report by market research outfit comScore (SCOR), indicating that Facebook has surpassed MySpace in the U.S. market as the top social-networking site.

Below, CEO Owen Van Natta’s all-hands memo breaking the ugly news.

Everyone,

Today we are making a number of changes to MySpace’s domestic organizational structure. For the long-term health of the company we are making some very tough, but unfortunately very necessary decisions.

We are reducing our workforce from 1,420 employees to 1,000 – all divisions within the company are affected by this restructure.

These decisions are difficult for everyone, but especially for our friends and colleagues who contributed to MySpace’s success and are directly affected by the changes. Through no fault of theirs our company’s size became unsustainable. The future success of MySpace is dependent upon us operating as a nimble and entrepreneurial company with the adaptive mentality of a start-up.

I believe this is the first difficult step toward a major turnaround – a step that will not only shore us up in the short term, but position us for long term success. We need to become a more innovative company. Becoming more innovative is an ongoing responsibility for all of us, not a one-time effort. We are developing a process that will empower anyone in the company to contribute ideas and enable us to integrate your thoughts into our plans for the future. We will follow-up with details on this process in the coming weeks.

This week we will communicate the foundation for our company strategy. In the days ahead, I will visit a number of U.S. offices, starting tomorrow at HQ, MySpace Music, and El Segundo. On Thursday I look forward to seeing everyone in Seattle and San Francisco, and on Friday, I’ll be spending time with the team based in New York.

I’m honored to be working with you on the next phase of MySpace and I’m grateful for your patience during this difficult process.

Thank you,
Owen

Departing Sun Co-Founder Keeping His Business Cards

John Paczkowski — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:53:46 +0000

Andy Bechtolsheim has given his notice again. The Sun (JAVA) co-founder is leaving the company he helped establish in 1982, just four years after returning to it and reinvigorating its aging product line. His new gig: chairman and chief development officer of Arista Networks, a start-up he funded with Stanford University’s David Cheriton that sells lean, high-performance network switches for data centers to the likes of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and digital media streaming company BitGravity. Together with Cisco alum Jayshree Ullal, the two hope to take on Cisco Systems (CSCO) in the data center infrastructure market.

This is the second time Bechtolsheim has left Sun, and in all likelihood his last. On Monday, the company warned of a much larger-than-expected quarterly loss on lower revenue. Sun shares have fallen more than 70 percent this year, and they fell lower still on news of Bechtolsheim’s departure.

Sun, still reeling from the beating it’s been taking on Wall Street, claims it’s not losing Bechtolsheim–just his undivided attention. “Andy will remain with the company as an essential product architect as part of the Sun Systems group; however he will be working with Sun in a reduced capacity as a result of his being named Chief Development Officer of Arista Networks, a start-up company he founded,” Sun said in a statement. “Andy will focus his time with Sun on technology development and ongoing systems projects to help drive new product architectures, including X64 servers and storage servers, and will continue to work on key strategic initiatives such as HPC.”

Just how Bechtolsheim will manage that with a new full-time job as chairman and chief development officer of Arista remains to be seen. Although if anyone can do it, he can.