Finally, Music 1.0 Is Dead

A recent report by Nate Anderson over at ars technica, covering the Digital Music Forum focused on these salient points that appeared to be accepted by all in attendance:

• DRM on purchased music is dead
• A utility pricing model or flat-rate fee for music might be the way to go
• Ad-supported streaming music sites like iMeem are legitimate players
• Indie music accounts for upwards of 30 percent of music sales
• Napster isn't losing $70 million per quarter (and is breaking even)
• The music business is a bastion of creativity and experimentation

Other highlights from the conference:

"The common theme through today’s Digital Music Forum East: physical music is for all intents and purposes dead, or if it’s not dead, its only role is as a collectible to complement the digital good." [paidContent]

"Consumers are ready to move past physical media.  (As evidence of this) we have 750K subscribers." - Brad Duea, President, Napster [Listening Post]

For further proof that Music 1.0 is dead, look no further than the latest news about Apple and the iTunes music store:

iTunes now second largest music retailer in U.S. "A new study shows iTunes has passed Best Buy and Target and is now second only to Walmart in sales of music in the U.S. According to Apple, the iTunes store now has more than 50 million customers and has sold more than 4 billion songs." [lostremote]

Technorati Tags: digital music forum, forum, music, web 2.0

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Vote for Your Favorite Web 2.0 Sites

Have an intense addiction to YouTube? Just gotta' use Google Docs and Google Calendar to keep your life organized, because you want to be able to access your work and your events from anywhere you are (and not just your home computer or just your work computer)? Have a penchant for webradio and can't do without Pandora, last.fm, or Social.FM? Well then, you might want to make sure that your daily destinations receive their just due.

Webware recently announced that voting is open for the 2008 Webware 100

Voting runs until March 31, with announcements on April 21, the day before Web 2.0 Expo.


Technorati Tags: web 2.0, webware 100, media, music

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Nominations for MIT's TR35 Almost Closed

The TR35 list recognizes 35 outstanding innovators under the age of 35 each year. The awards span a wide range of fields, including biotechnology, materials, computer hardware, energy, transportation, and the Internet. MIT Tech Review is searching for individuals whose superb technical work holds great promise to shape the next decades. Their goal is to recognize the development of new technology or the creative application of existing technologies to solve problems. They also reward ingenious and elegant work that matters to the world at large--not just to peers in a particular field or industry. Technology Review showcases the TR35 finalists, including their Innovator of the Year, in our September/October issue. They also recognize the finalists at their Emerging Technologies Conference and awards program in September.

Nominations close February 29, 2008.

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One To Watch: Teyana Taylor

Vibe magazine recently placed her in the pages of its NEXT section, which usually (historically) was a good way of gauging whether an artist was going to pop or not. Since we're not mainstream and all over here and Soulbounce has yet to write about the chick, we're holding reservations until we actually hear some tracks. (Their coverage has become the litmus test of all that's worthy of my headphones.)

But granted, when the kid had me sit down and watch the Teyana Taylor My Super Sweet Sixteen ep for the umpteenth time, I grew a little soft spot for said artist. Her style is way cool, and with that said, there's great hopes that her musical abilities will match the talent displayed when she chooses her outfits. I can confirm that her fashion acumen is real, I've seen her on 125th @ Atmos, it's just my bad for not having my video camera or a working cameraphone at the time to prove my sighting. But anyways..

That she's Pharrell signed insures us that there will be banging tracks, but what's a track without a voice? We'll have to see.

In the meantime, we'll just sit back and watch this Fader TV: Behind the scenes at Teyana Taylor's "Google Me" Video...

Or you can listen to the track "Google Me" yourself [via Different Kitchen]...

(At least it's not as bad as Laurieann Gibson's Fergie-biting "Addictive," that only gets props for reenacting a scene from the motion picture FAME.)

Or is it?

Or maybe I'm just getting to old to judge what's coming out of the studios lately. But I think my ears still have just enough youth in them to suggest that this is not a first single.

Maybe she's better as a rapper - Teyana Taylor "Swagg" vs Lil Mama "Hot." You decide.

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In Case You Missed it on BlackWeb2.0

Not that I blog all that often anymore (you know my never updates -- word to Nova), but for a while there I paid a good portion of time to the type of blogging I was trying to do at FastCompany.com, then to what I was trying to do at techPresident, and even to what I was trying to do at BlackWeb2.0. But I've lately realized, that all of the energy I put elsewhere (of course except FC because that's my job and I get paid over there) I could be putting in over here. Sharing the same insights, and even more -- like actually adding some video and audio to the site.

Not that I'll never blog any of these places or others again, but I've got to get the old Lynne d Johnson || music, media, my life back in shape (calling mr. j. smith). But in the meantime, here's a taste of some of what I most recently posted over at BlackWeb 2.0:

Get Your Thrillercast: 25 Years of Michael Jackson’s Thriller
In the event of bringing people closer to celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Legacy Recordings teamed up with SpringWidgets to create Thrillercast, a year-long podcast event featuring legends of music, film and culture taking you behind the scenes to their own experiences with Michael and hearing the album for the first time. Thrillercast launches on February 12th with Run-DMCs Darryl McDaniels. (read more)

What AllHipHop Needs to Do to Win
This week, Inc Magazine published an article about Allhiphop’s real state of affairs on its website: Allhiphop.com’s Founders Thought a Weeklong Event Would Raise the Company’s Profile and Boost Growth. Written by Kermit Pattison, the article goes into great detail about how 2006’s AllHipHop Week almost brought the business to its knees. Of course they turned it around, but the questions remains whether the company has done all it can to stay afloat? The magazine article also offers advice to AHH, provided by three experts. (read more)

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More Speak Dates On the Horizon

This is going to be a busy next couple of months. In addition to the "Latest Updates" I reported regarding my being involved on panels at EMP Pop Conference, BlogHer Business in New York City, and SXSW, there's also Women Who Tech and WebVisions.

WomenWhoTech is a TeleSummit that happens via conference call and webinar, and primarily focuses on the fact that women are underrepresented in technology. The panel I'll be speaking on:

Tooting Your Own Horn:
Do you take credit for all of the fabulous work you do? Do you feel that you are forging ahead in your career or are you being overshadowed by your male colleagues? This panel will explore personal branding and provide tips and strategies to help you enhance your careers and visibility.

At WebVisions, a conference that explores the future of Web design, user experience and business strategy for two days, I'll be a keynote exploring how the Web and mobile devices (iPhone, etc) are changing the landscape for traditional print media and what trends and big ideas are on the horizon.

I'm just really looking forward to meeting a bunch of fantastically creative people.

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The Business Smartphone vs The Multimedia Device

The other day I asked whether I'd make a switch from a Tmobile Wing to a Nokia N95. With only a week of using the N95 under my belt, I'd have to say that my answer is that I would probably use both. The Tmobile Wing, with its QWERTY Keyboard and touchscreen make better use for my business functions the things that I have to do during the week. Meanwhile, what I'm learning about the N95, though I have Exchange, Gmail, and agile messenger (for IM on Gtalk, AIM, Yahoo, MSN, etc.) set up on it, makes better sense for multimedia purposes instead of the functions I've become accustomed to using on the Wing.

Out the box, it took a little bit for me to set up my SMS service, as I stated in the earlier post. It wasn't a setting that came directly with the SIM card. Exchange wasn't built in, I had to download an app for it. But over the weekend, as I explored sending files over bluetooth, shooting video, and images, playing the music player, setting up the Flickr and
Vox accounts. On the Wing, I use Shozu to upload images and or video to Vox, Flickr, and YouTube. It's a third-party app and not a built in function of the phone as the set up for Flickr and Vox are with the N95.

As you can see below, the N95 images are much sharper than the Wing's.

In minimal lighting with the N95:

In outside daylight with the Tmobile Wing:

(If you can't really tell the difference from the small images, just click on them to see the larger views. In the smaller view, they look exactly the same, but if you click through for the original sizes, you'll notice that the larger the image, the more blurry the Wing image becomes. There is just no comparison in a contest between a 2 megapixel and a 5 megapixel camera. )

The other thing about the N95 that I really enjoyed is that it came preloaded with games. I played a lot of Snakes and a little bit of JellyPop. But most amazing was the sound quality on the device. I bluetoothed Rihanna's "Don't Stop the Music" from my laptop to the N95 and started playing it, and it sounded louder than some of the speaker systems that I dock my iPod in (I won't name them of course). Crystal clear, amazing sound. I started dancing immediately, and thought about becoming one of those subway dj's myself. Now I realize why it's so tempting to these kids, if the phone sounds good, you kind of want to show it off. But I resisted and opted instead for adding the song as my ring tone. It too a minute to set up the profile, but it wasn't that difficult to figure out. And best of all, I could do other things while listening to music.

While my Tmobile Wing serves my work needs and makes texting, emailing, and IMing easier (or anything that involves type for that matter) because of its QWERTY board, the predictive text options on the N95 aren't half bad. It just takes time to get used to if you've been using QWERTY phones for a while. The other drawback, is that I'm always attempting to touch the screen on the N95 to make something open or close -- no dice, that's not one of its features. This is why I said my Wing definitely makes sense during the week. It's not the perfect device, but it's the best for what I have to do most every day. Windows applications are more like Windows applications than the QuickOffice available for the N95.

But this is also why I said that maybe the N95 could be my weekend phone. It's just more fun. A lot more fun. And I haven't even touched the surface of its capabilities yet.

To learn more about each phone, watch these videos from phonescoop:

Video: Tmobile Wing Preview

Video: Nokia N95 Review

I had a Nokia N800 home for the past two weeks that I also wanted to review, but it's not the easiest thing to carry around with you. But since I'm looking for an alternative to a laptop, such as the Asus Eee PC. I'm still waiting for a review model of that or the OQO, ultra-mobile PC.

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Soulbounce-in

Soulbounce-in, originally uploaded by lynneluvah.

Chilling after hours at work reading my favorite music website Soulbounce.com. My black croc suede Supra Skytops like reading Soulbounce too. Really this was just an excuse to test out the Nokia N95 upload to Flickr abilities. There's a lot I can do with this N95 that I can't do with my Tmobile Wing, but there's a trade off. One functions fine as a business communications tool, while the other is a lot more hip (design and functionality wise) and plugged into social media.

Seriously though, Soulbounce is my favorite music website.

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FastCompany.com Is Now (More) Social

I feel like I just had a baby. We've been conceptualizing and user testing, and designing, and developing this Drupal project for nearly a year now, and I'm just finally glad it's here. But remember we're an agile company, so this will always be in development.

Here's a little of what my boss, Edward Sussman, president of the Mansueto Digital network of sites, which includes FastCompany.com, Inc.com, IncBizNet.com, IncTechnology.com and starting in March, FastCompany.TV and Scobleizer.com, had to say about the release:

The Media is Social By: Edward Sussman

Fast Company is about to shake things up again.

Back in 1995, in our first issue, we announced on our cover: "Computing is Social." It became a Fast Company mantra and helped open the eyes of a generation of entrepreneurs to the possibilities of the Internet.

In November of 1997, before social networking on the Web was called social networking, FastCompany.com started the "Company of Friends," dubbed the "Fast Company Readers' Network."

The network featured members' professional profiles, online business discussions that were moderated by volunteer group coordinators, and in-person monthly meet-ups of more than 200 regional groups around the world. (Sound familiar? MeetUp.com was founded five years later in 2002 and LinkedIn followed in 2003.)

As progressive as Fast Company was, serving our online community of about 100,000 members was a secondary mission to creating great editorial content.

But no more.

Starting today, we become the first major media website to tackle the following problem: Can a business publication blend journalism and online community to create something better than either by itself? (read more)

* Not to be mistaken, we've always had community at FC. In fact, the Company of Friends, the Fast Company reader's network dates back to 1997. What we've done now is basically more elegantly merged the content with the community. Let us know what you think. It's actually a public beta right now, because we know there's still work to do. So I'm definitely looking for feedback.

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Tmobile Wing to Nokia N95?

I'm currently running an experiment to see whether I'd switch from a Windows Mobile 6 phone to a Nokia N95. A few things about the potential transition have already been strange. For one, I've been using QWERTY-based phones for a while now, dating back to the initial release of the Sidekick II. From there I started using the MDA and now the Wing. So that was the initial adjustment I had to make, as predictive text can be a "B" in some cases.

Setting up Mail for Exchange to be able to access work email, calendar, contacts, tasks, etc. was pretty easy. I just set up the bluetooth for the phone to connect to my computer and downloaded the Mail for Exchange app from the Nokia site and then sent it over to the N95. It came in as a message and then loaded itself onto the device as an application. I just had to put in the settings for my work's exchange server, and I was up and running in no time.

And adding the Gmail app (something I was unable to do with the Wing) was also fairly simple. I actually like using the app, as opposed to setting it up in POP or IMAP, or having to access it on the Mobile Web.

Phone calls worked immediately, and my ability to make calls was enhanced once I got my contacts in there. (All of my contacts from work's Exchange server and home's Apple Address Book are already synced through Plaxo so there's no worry over making this Symbian device sync everything with either my work MacBook Pro or home PowerBook G4.)

Right now the main thing I'm experiencing difficulties with is getting SMS to work. Since my test unit came without a SIM card, I've been using my Tmobile SIM. And while I'm receiving text messages, I can't figure out how to send them. On the Nokia N95, you actually have to set your connections, they're not all exactly automatic. For instance, now I have to figure out what the requirements for using Tmobile's message center are.

Since the iPhone and the N95 are two of the most talked about phones nowadays, I've decided to give them both a whirl before I decide whether I really hate being on a Windows phone, just because I hate Windows. The truth is, I've been able to get my Wing to work exactly how I like it. But I suppose if I invest enough time in learning the N95, I could learn to love it too. (Gotta' admit though, I had an iPhone home for about 2 weeks, and barely touched it.)

More to come in this series as I figure out how to set up text messaging, and make real use of the image and video capabilities, and the music capabilities as well. And the follow up posts will contain images and video.

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