Rowan's blog

Kazaa to rise from the dead

It's happened folks. Kazaa has joined the ranks of Napster and Pirate Bay as a legit paid music download service. The deal in the US is $20 per month for unlimited music downloads. WMA format. Will it fly?

From smh.com.au:

"The new Kazaa, to be announced on Tuesday, will initially only be available to people in the United States due to licensing issues but Bermeister said he was expecting it to be available to Australians within six months.

"In the US, customers pay $US20 a month and can download as many songs as they like.

"People have been enamoured with the ability to rebel and break through and get stuff for free, but I think sentiment is changing and people are going to shift towards a quality [legal] product," Bermeister said in a phone interview."

Full article here.

I guess time will tell. I'm not convinced the new Kazaa is going to be able to take much market share from iTunes (the WMA format won't help). But then, there may be additional functionality. Good luck Kevin.

'Mad Avenue Blues' - Song parody

I just came across this song parody on advertising, marketing and new media. Hilarious!

Music industry mining some revenue from YouTube

For the other ex-Kazaa peeps out there, thought you'd be interested in this article from LA Times: Music industry mining some revenue from YouTube

Seems they are starting to work out how to monetize it. Though "Pete Waterman, who wrote the Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up," complains that after his song was streamed tens of millions of times during the heyday of the Rickrolling phenomenon, he only made about $15."

CD launch in Second Life

It looks like launching a CD digitally via peer-to-peer networks has become old school. The Sarah Mac Band just launched a CD in Second Life (SL).

Check out the news, reported from within SL.

Overpass launch 'INSANE'

My friend Chris and his band Overpass launched their 'INSANE' EP last night at the Gaelic Club. Quite a few of the work crew came along, was cool to see them outside of the office!

Fun night.

P.S. Chris, you rock!

Coldplay and The Italian Dive

Coldplay was fab. Chris Martin forgot which verse he was singing and said 'Oops!' a couple of times. He also had a bit of difficulty popping a giant gold balloon by diving onto it, but the 'mistakes' made him seem all the more down to earth and lovely. There are some pics on the Triple J site.

As he bounced and gangled his long legs up, down and across the layered stages I wondered whether he was going to face plant! But no, it wasn't he who perfected the art of the choreographed dive that night.

Looking at the crowd, you could easily have thought a soccer game was being played at the Entertainment Centre. Green and gold festooned. Mr Martin flung a socceroos scarf about on stage. The band held it up in unison for the concert finale.

Then it was time for the game. And in the final minute, the dive.

There's not much I can say about that game except that I'm glad I'm not Lucas Neill (poor chap). In the short time since the dive, some lovely pieces of advertising and consumer generated content have popped up. I'm sure there will be more. I hope at least one of them can make Lucas smile.

1. Download italian_dive.bmp (62k) - Great to use as picture after your email signature.

2. A fabulous viral piece from The (very quick off the mark) Guardian: Download SoccerTrainingCamp.mpg

3. And the Oscar goes to:

When will a movie will be made about this Italian job?

The long tail grows

I was explaining the concept of 'The long tail' to a friend this morning.

The long tail - in brief:

Analysts are saying that the future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream (as opposed to the content at the top of the charts).

Longtail.typepad.com

I did a search for the Wired article and discovered that Chris Anderson, editor of Wired mag (who coined the term 'The long tail') has a blog on the subject. Very interesting & includes points of view from well known others in the left hand column. Check out the blog.

Chris Anderson also has a book due out on the subject in 2006 called "Hyperion".

From his about page:

"[The Long Tail] is about the effect of the technologies that have made it easier for consumers to find and buy niche products, thanks to the "infinite shelf-space effect"--the new distribution mechanisms, from digital downloading to peer-to-peer markets, that break through the bottlenecks of broadcast and traditional bricks and mortar retail.

The Wikipedia entry on the Long Tail does an excellent job of expanding on this."

What's so good about the long tail?

From my perspective:

1. I can't wait for obscure information, content, entertainment to be available at my fingertips.

2. I think it's so much more fair that 'hits' are 'hits' based on public consensus - rather than some media bigwig selecting the 'hit' and pumping it out for mass digestion through controlled channels.

Some examples of 'niche market content' that's proven surprisingly popular:

• 'Touching the Void' became a successful book - then movie. Read how.
• Ten Mile Tide became a popular US Indi band. Read how.
• An hour ago (following my discussion on subject with friend), I received this BBC article (not a completely niche market, but surprisingly popular nonetheless):

"Nearly 700,000 listeners of BBC Radio 3 downloaded live performances of Beethoven's first five symphonies, with number one proving the most popular."

Creative Archive reveal what content people want

Following my last post, my Dad sent me a Creative Archive newsletter. Some interesting results from their first voting poll:

Q1. What type of archive footage do you want from the Creative Archive? Read which categories people most want to rip, mix and share.

Q2. Why does the future of the archive stock footage business lie in open content?

"Writer and film maker Rick Prelinger is confident that today’s re-mixer is tomorrow’s licensee. The transcript of Rick’s speech on open licensing as a business driver, delivered at the Creative Archive Licence Group launch seminar on April 13th, is now available to read". View it here.

If you'd like to contribute to the Creative Archive Feedback forum, click here.

Subscribe to Creative Archive Newsletters here.

The Oakley Thump

Now I couldn't do without my sunnies or my MP3 player, but these are two products that really don't seem right bundled together. (Some clever geek suggested it should be called 'EyeTunes'!)

Check out the product details. It feels like we've reached 'the future' all of a sudden...

The Long Tail

There's a new economic model emerging for the media and entertainment industries. Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it. The future's likely to be very different to today's mass market culture.

"If the 20th- century entertainment industry was about hits, the 21st will be equally about misses.

For too long we've been suffering the tyranny of lowest-common-denominator fare, subjected to brain-dead summer blockbusters and manufactured pop. Why? Economics. Many of our assumptions about popular taste are actually artifacts of poor supply-and-demand matching - a market response to inefficient distribution.

The main problem... is that we live in the physical world and, until recently, most of our entertainment media did, too." Source: Wired Magasine

Read the article here: 'The Long Tail': Forget squeezing millions from a few megahits at the top of the charts. The future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream.

A long but interesting article. And great news for creative types, everywhere.