Week of March 23, 2009

New Nintendo Handheld Game

Friday, March 27, 2009

Nintendo has announced the release date for the DSi handheld video game system, their 3rd generation handheld system. The system will go on sale in the USS on April 5th, with a price tag of $169. The DSi will support a library of more than 850 games, including "Rhythm Heaven," a DSi and DS music-based game set to debut on the same day.

In addition to the capability to run hundreds of games, the DSi also contains a number of new features:

• Dual cameras -- one mounted on the external body, and another that aims at the users.

• A Sound application, offering an interactive voice recorder which enables users to manipulate audio files while they listen

• A Shop where users can download games and software directly to the device.

Jango: Online Radio's Pay-For-Play Service

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Raising the specter of the payola scandals that have rocked terrestrial radio over the last half century, Jango, an online radio service with 6 million monthly listeners, has launched a new pay-for-play initiative called "Jango Airplay." Artists or labels pay to have their song played on the service, with placement starting at $30 for 1,000 plays on the Jango service. Each song is linked to Amazon or iTunes to allow purchase by the listener.

The artists themselves decide what stations they get played on and what kinds of music they want to be played next to, similar to the way that advertisers on Google choose what keywords should generate their advertisements. Listeners are also encouraged to rate all songs on the service so any Jango Airplay song which garners 50 positive ratings gets pushed into regular rotation free of charge. On the other hand, listeners can also vote to block a song from appearing again on their station.

So is this a new form of (legal) payola, or the same as paid placement in online search results? At this point, the songs are not clearly marked as being paid for. Instead, they're listed as being from "emerging artists."

Shelf Life of iPhone App Is About 30 Days

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Techcrunch reports that Greg Yardley, CEO of Pinch Media, has been keeping tabs on the proliferation of iPhone apps. So far, more than 20,000 apps have been developed, with a total of 500 millions downloads (Apple's own public numbers are 25,000 apps and 800 million downloads). His analysis of the traffic is that the average iPhone app stays relevant for about a month. Only about 20% of the people who download a free app return to use it again more than a day after downloading it. After 30 days, that number is down to 5%. For paid apps, the drop-off is even steeper.

Yardley's analysis of the economics of this process is that, from the developers' perspective, most iPhone apps should be paid, not free. With such a short period of relevance, only about 5% of all apps could generate more money for the developer via advertising, rather than as a paid download.

Apple seems to agree, the new iPhone 3.0 OS, announced on the 17th, in addition to having some nifty upgrades with basic things like Search and Cut and Paste, will be open to more APIs. It also makes it easier for paid apps to sell even more, introducing subscriptions, virtual goods and extra content right from within the app itself.

Growth of Mobile News Access

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

ComScore, a digital measurement company, released a new study on March 16th that shows that the number of people who access news and information on their mobile device has grown 107% from January '08 to January '09. The weekly growth is up 87% and the monthly increase was 71%.

One of the faster growing categories was social networking via a mobile device which grew 427% from 1,761,000 last January to 9,278,000 this year. People are becoming much more comfortable with their mobile devices doing everything from using it for GPS to performing financial transactions. In fact was a 188% increase in people trading stocks with their mobile devices from year to year. Click here to read the full study.

Radio's Online Lifeline

Monday, March 23, 2009

Where would radio be without online sales? Even though online sales continue to be a small part of US radio's total revenue, the segment did grow in 2008, a year when overall revenue fell more than 10%. Leading the way for radio's off-air revenues are in-stream audio and pre-roll video ads. According to the RAB, radio's online sales increased 7% in '08, jumping to a total of $1.8 billion. RAB president/CEO Jeff Haley says that $2 billion for 2009 is a realistic goal for the industry. Growth may even accelerate as radio increasingly reaches mobile platforms.