Week of January 7, 2008

PMG Prediction for 2008: Digital Music Subscriptions Go Mobile

Friday, January 11, 2008

By the end of the year, the entire music library from Napster or another digital music subscription service will be available via streaming on mobile phones.

For more details about this and 18 other predictions, send an email to hq@pollackmedia.com and request our new media trends report--The New Media Landscape.

AT&T Considering ISP-Level Content Blocking

Thursday, January 10, 2008

At a CES panel on Tuesday, a legal executive for AT&T discussed how the company was looking at technological methods of addressing copyright infringement, which he mentioned as being an "optimal" way to address infringement. The result would be that copyrighted materials would be filtered by the ISP level. There are complex issues involved (how to differentiate between legal delivery and illegal delivery, what about online backups of copyrighted material, etc.), but the idea that ISPs are getting involved in filtering copyrighted material would have a dramatic impact on peer-to-peer traffic.

Writer's Strike Helps Online Video

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

According to Nielsen Online, the anticipated online boost in video viewing from the Hollywood writers' strike has occurred: Online viewing has doubled since the day the strike started. While no real online series or video content has remotely approached what we could consider hit territory, the fact that video sampling is occurring in greater and greater numbers is making that possibility greater.

Openness Opening Wider?

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

The movement towards more openness in social networking got a big boost today when Google, Plaxo and Facebook agreed to join DataPortabilitiry.org. This is an industry organization that's working on ways to get more interoperability and more data exchanges between social networks. The real surprise is that Facebook joined with the others. What this means is that these 3 have agreed to participate in the discussions with others, but it's a big step since Google and Facebook control more user data than any other companies.

Sony/BMG DRM-Free Plan: Hunh?

Monday, January 7, 2008

Sony/BMG has announced the details around their release of DRM music, and it's interesting to say the least. Unlike the other labels, you can't just go to Wal-mart or Amazon and download the DRM-free music for a fee. You need to go to a physical store to buy a gift card, and then bring it home and download your music off of a Sony/BMG site called Musicpass.com.

Yes, you read that correctly, to download DRM music from Sony/BMG you actually have to get in your car, run out to a store, and buy a card.