Week of May 19, 2008

The IMDB of music

Friday, May 23, 2008

While Google keeps on rolling and Microsoft ponders combining their search assets with Yahoo, smaller players continue to make waves via various niches, including those that combine search and content. The most well-known is Wikipedia, but IMDB and others are out there with significant usage. A new one recently launched for music: The Rock Hard Times (http://www.trht.net). It is an information source like IMDB, but it is also editable by users like Wikipedia. Check it out and add your music expertise to what looks like an interesting resource.

H&R Block Meets Social Media

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Even the most staid-seeming businesses are expanding their online marketing efforts beyond banner ads. The latest issue of Advertising Age has the story of H&R Block and their initiative to use social networking media to increase brand awareness and top of mind status. Block utilized MySpace, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter in their marketing efforts.

The result was 171% increase in internet ad awareness among the targeted audience and an overall brand awareness lift of 52%. According to the article, H&R Block devoted about 0.5% of its total marketing budget to the social networking campaigns. The campaigns used humor on MySpace and YouTube, while the Twitter efforts contained more serious one-on-one communications with consumers. Learn more about H&R Block's experience in AdAge.

The Internet & Music Purchases

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The new Pew Internet & American Life Project report has just been released and it includes a lot of interesting information about how American consumers use the Internet. The key finding of the study is that, while consumers use the Internet extensively for research on products and prices, it doesn't affect their purchases as much as more traditional methods. Consumers usually find out about new products and often close the deal via other methods.

Specifically, with respect to music, "the internet is generally not the source people are most likely to use in the pre-purchase information gathering for [music]." Instead:

"83% find out about music from the radio, TV or in a movie."

"64% find out about music from family, friends or co-workers."

3G iPhone Release Date: June 9

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Gizmodo has confirmed that the new iPhone will be released on June 9, the day of Steve Jobs' keynote address at the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC). The new phone will include blazingly fast download speeds using AT&T's 3G data network. Rumor has it that the phone will sport a slick all-black case, doing away with the chrome and flat metallic back of the current iPhone. AT&T already has "iPhone Black" listed on its website as a purchase item, so the rumor of the release date and the look details appear to be legit.

Napster to sell entire catalog DRM-free

Monday, May 19, 2008

Napster, bitten by the poor economics and the intense competition of other services and free download sites, has announced that it is now selling its entire catalog of 6 million songs DRM-free for 99 cents a song. It's a bold move by Napster, but one that may simply be too little too late for the company, with free streaming web services growing every day, iTunes showing no let-up in its dominance, and new products like Zune and its marketplace making inroads.