A adesão das editoras aos serviços de streaming

Editoras de música apostam na net e no streaming

«Major labels are continuing to invest in emerging digital companies, part of a broader diversification strategy.  Over the weekend, sources pointed Digital Music News to a Universal Music Group stake in Uber (uber.com), a startup that allows users to instantly create multimedia websites and blogs. (...) But Universal Music Group is not the only major investing in startups.  Just recently, Warner Music Group invested $20 million in Lala (lala.com), a company that offers ubiquitous access to music collections and is launching a novel, per-stream purchasing proposition» fonte: «Universal Music Keeps Investing; Uber Stake Surfaces», Digital Music News, 4/06/08

EMI Starts Supporting Ad-Supported; Qtrax + Spiralfrog: «The experiment that is ad-supported music received a powerful nod this week from EMI Music.  On Tuesday morning, the company licensed its catalog to Spiralfrog, and later in the day, the company announced an agreement with Qtrax.  (...) The Qtrax license covers both streams and downloads.  The DRM-protected downloads can be ported onto three compatible players, though users must visit the Qtrax destination at least once every 60 days to keep the songs alive.
Both Qtrax and Spiralfrog have been trudging through difficult and expensive licensing processes, perhaps a strong advertisement against legitimate licensing paths.  In the case of Qtrax, a blowout launch in January simply blew up, thanks to missing major label licenses. Spiralfrog has also experienced its ups and downs, though both are pushing forward with their steadily-expanding catalogs.  On Tuesday, Spiralfrog pointed to a monthly unique user base of five million, quoting data from Nielsen//NetRatings. fonte: EMI Starts Supporting Ad-Supported; Qtrax + Spiralfrog, Digital Music News, 4/06/08

08/05/2008

Editoras permitem downloads legais? (modelo de negócio)

«Some of the biggest music labels could soon allow free legal downloads, after an ambitious ad-funded file-sharing service, Qtrax, signed a deal with Universal, the world’s largest record label and home to U2, Kanye West and Mariah Carey. (...) When it emerged that several deals were not yet fully in place or had lapsed, analysts expected the service to disappear in the ensuing backlash. But it has since signed deals with Beggars, the UK’s largest independent label, home to Dizzee Rascal and the White Stripes, and the publishing arms of EMI and Sony/ATV.The contract with Universal is the first with a major label to cover both publishing and recording rights, meaning that it should be able to offer music by its artists within the next month or so. The Universal deal is initially understood to cover only the US. Qtrax is just one of several sites trying to make money from the concept of free, ad-funded downloads and streaming. Earlier this year We7, backed by Peter Gabriel, began offering downloads with embedded audio adverts and signed a deal with Sony BMG to offer its catalogue on a streaming basis. Other sites such as Imeem and Last.fm have also signed deals with leading labels to offer streaming services that act as vast, ad-supported online jukeboxes. Adverts are displayed during the search and downloading processes. Spiralfrog, a New York-based site that has been striving for two years to establish a user base in the US and Canada, also has a deal with Universal. Qtrax has promised that tracks downloaded through its browser can be kept by users for ever as long as they regularly log in to renew the rights management software. It will also enable iPod users to transfer the tracks to their audio players, which could hit sales of downloads through Apple’s iTunes Music Store. In addition to sites offering ad-funded music, labels are also exploring new licensing models for subscription-based or bundled offerings such as Nokia’s Comes With Music and MusicStation and beginning tentative discussions with internet service providers about packaging music downloads into monthly broadband subscriptions» (fonte: Universal to allow free music downloads, Owen Gibson, The Guardian, Thursday May 8 2008»)

26/03/2008

We7: «música gratuita com publicidade»

«A partir de Abril, músicas de Bruce Springsteen, Leona Lewis e outros artistas da Sony BMG estarão disponíveis gratuitamente no site We7, fundado pelo também músico Peter Gabriel e que será pago unicamente por publicidade. A Sony BMG é a primeira grande editora a disponibilizar música gratuita neste site, que até agora apenas tinha como parceiros editoras independentes e artistas sem editora. As músicas disponibilizadas pela Sony BMG serão antecedidas por um pequeno anúncio publicitário. (...) Segundo Peter Gabriel, a We7 «é um modelo que oferece música gratuita aos consumidores e, mesmo assim, assegura uma fatia importante de receitas para os músicos e os donos dos direitos de autor».

 

O site de musica das varias majors (Imeem.com)

«In a major increase in the availability of legal free music, the world's largest record label has agreed to let users of a fast-growing website listen to its entire catalog of digitized music files.
Universal Music Group struck the deal with Imeem.com, a music-oriented social networking site, in exchange for a cut of the revenue from advertising viewed while its songs are playing.
The deal by the label for artists including U2, Amy Winehouse and Black Eyed Peas brings the last of the four major record companies to Imeem, which lets users listen while on the site but not download their own copies.
Each play of a song will net Universal a guaranteed minimum of a fraction of a cent, even if no ads are viewed, a person familiar with the arrangement said Sunday. That clause is believed to be the first of its kind for any ad-driven deal with a label.
"We're embracing the ad-supported business model. These are our crown jewels: on-demand, full-length tracks," said Universal Executive Vice President Rio D. Caraeff. "Imeem is the largest deal we have struck to date."» fonte : «Universal Music Group, Imeem strike deal», By Joseph Menn, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, December 10, 2007

12/12/2007 18:59

A industria não percebe o que se está a passar

We employ hundreds of thousands of dedicated and talented individuals, from every city and town in America.  We deliver local news, weather, traffic, and sports updates every hour, every day, 365 days a year.  We raise hundreds of millions of dollars every year for local and national charities and people in need. 

How in the world did we become the bad guys?

Peter Smyth  «Why Doesn't Washington Like Free Radio?», Greater Media inc Julho 08

A rádio apanhada desprevenida

«Some of the founding fathers of consolidation truly believe satellite radio is their competition.
They are slow to embrace the Internet.
Have no plan to get into the mobile content business.
They are in deep denial that HD Radio will actually matter let alone make a difference.
They have become prisoners of Wall Street's slash 'em and trash 'em strategy of ruining good assets run by exceptional people just to deliver what investors want in the short term.
(...) WiFi on Wheels will prove to be radio's worst nightmare.
Ironically, the only thing more outdated than a tower and transmitter is the CEO who controls the tower and transmitter.
(...) To compete with thousands of new streams increasingly available on WiFi, terrestrial radio is going to have to get better. Fast.»

Colliano, iNside Music media, WiFi on Wheels -- Radio's Worst Nightmare  2/07/08

Oportunidades para a rádio

Radio fills de need to filter the choice (22)

Social networks on the internet are the next radio (26)

mais:

http://www.slideshare.net/gleonhard/music2-the-future-of-radio-media-futurist-gerd-leonhard

Sobre o streaming

«How Streaming Works
A very simple analogy to illustrate how streaming works is be that of taking a bath (a 'download') in contrast to a shower (a 'stream'): when taking a bath it's necessary to fill the tub with water to the desired level before getting in, whereas with a shower you can turn on the water and get in straight away!

Typically with a shower the flow rate (or data) is lower but you can actually finish sooner as you don't have to wait so long at the beginning.

With streaming, content can be played even while the data packets are still being sent over the network, so there is no need to wait until a complete file has been fully downloaded. Therefore a song or movie can begin to play after only a very short delay (a few seconds in most cases).
And unlike a download no file is ever stored on the device; instead it has "streamed" through in its entirety but can easily be viewed again by repeating the process. Usually the stream requires consistent throughput (i.e. a steady network without too many variations) to give a good user experience, although some mobile streaming systems such as Vidiator's Xenon Streamer maintain the streaming quality even in varying network conditions that are inherent in wireless networks.

Benefits of Streaming to the Consumers
The key benefits of streaming to the consumer are that it requires no storage on the mobile and allows access to a vast library of content with minimal delay to start playback.
Some streaming servers including Xenon support user-created playlists, to play songs in the desired order or in a randomized shuffle mode. A music streaming service can be considered a network-based MP3 player giving the consumer their own personalized listening service.
With all these advantages, one may wonder why downloading still dominates the mobile music services available today?»

Bank, Roland, Music strategies - To stream or to own? 3/07/08, Mobile Europe

Do Pandora

Pandora grew out of the Music Genome Project. The idea with this project is that the system will monitor your likes and then create a custom station which will match those likes. In my testing it seems to work reasonable well. A nice thing about this website is that you can type in a music type as well as an artist and it will attempt to build a station to your likes. For example if you like Piano music, you can type in Piano and it will create a station of piano music. In some competing sites you would have to select a piano music composer in order to get the same result.

Para a caracterização dos sites de musica

«Free legal streaming music is a great thing to enjoy when you are searching for a particular song, working, or just plain relaxing. Listed below are some of the more interesting live streaming music sites that are definitely worth checking out. Some of the sites below operate as live streaming radio stations, and some allow you to program your own virtual station, or even to search for a specific song or artist. Check out all of them, since they are all free!

O grande dilema da rádio convencional

Quanto mais activa se tornar, menos secundária será - o que porá em causa o modelo em vigor, com a necessidade de criar um novo modelo; a transição far-se-á de uma forma dificil, tentando conciliar duas situações inconciliáveis: a rádio como elemento de consumo secundário e a necessidade de ser cada vez mais activa

Castells: uma aventura humana extraordinária é a história da criação e do desenvolvimento da internet

«De acordo com o pensamento de Castells (2003:13), uma aventura humana extraordinária é a história da criação e do desenvolvimento da internet. Ela põe em relevo, segundo ele, a capacidade que têm as pessoas de transcender metas institucionais, superar barreiras burocráticas e subverter valores estabelecidos no processo de inaugurar um mundo novo. Reforça também a idéia de que a cooperação e a liberdade de informação podem ser mais propícias à inovação do que a competição e os direitos de propriedade» Não é mais possível pensar o rádio como antes, Mágda Cunha, 30/09/06, pág 4

Até onde poderá ir a interactividade na rádio?

de acordo com diversas definições, podemos considerar aquilo que aqui designámos por «controlo», «personalização», «produção», «partilha» ou «socialização» como interactividade.

Ora se o fizéssemos teríamos, posteriormente, de afirmar que não existe interactividade na rádio (mesmo na de consumo passivo). Como se verá, contudo, tem sido esta interactividade uma das áreas mais exploradas pela rádio quando evolui para a Internet.

Optámos, portanto, por considerar, a partir de . Também as conclusões de Rafaeli se enquadram nesta preocupação: «a interactividade corresponde à sequência entre a relação de resposta e o contexto em que a mesma se processa, de transacções que reflectem estádios anteriores do processo de troca de mensagens» (Cordeiro, 2007: 106).

Ou seja, entendemos a ideia de interactividade (ou de interacção, uma vez que, neste contexto, entendemos não fazer sentido a sua separação) com um «diálogo», como troca de mensagens, como o desejo de manifestar, influenciar, de intervir, a partir da tecnologia digital, com mediação feita por computadores, que são efectivamente potenciadores desta realidade. Embora saibamos que as perspectivas mais tecnológicas sejam muito mais ambiciosas.

A questão, mais uma vez, é que não podemos ignorar, num trabalho como este, que «todo parece indicar, que la interactividad se erige como el gran valedor del éxito que pueda tener la radio en Internet» (Toral e Murelaga, 2007: 57). O mesmo pensa Herrera: «No cabe duda de que los últimos avances en este terreno han hecho de la interactividad un elemento fundamental en el surgimiento de una nueva forma de entender la comunicación, el ocio y las relaciones interpersonales» (Herrera, 2004b: 12). Lind, Medoff e Rarick avançam com dados de um estudo realizado em 2001: «one of the factors for visiting web radio stations is the possibility of interaction with others» (apud van Selm et al, 2006: 275). Isto não significa que a rádio esteja pronta para aproveitar esta interactividade, nomeadamente se ela significar mexer com o estatuto do «gatekeeper». No estudo de van Selm et al junto de responsáveis e públicos de uma rádio online holandesa, verificou-se uma «discrepancy between radio programme hosts and 'chatters' regarding the value assigned to interactions during the web shows» (idem, 274), sendo que «this lack of enthusiasm for the contribution of chat box by programme hosts did not go unnoticed by listeners» (idem, 275). Estes autores citam um estudo de Lind e Medoff (2000) em que se faz uma análise dos conteúdos das páginas online de diversas rádios dos Estados Unidos e em que se percebe que «no more than 15 percent of the sites examined (…) provide chat opportunities for listeners» (van Selm et al, 2006: 267). E se «The BuZz web radio staff, on the other hand, showed a reluctance to provide listeners with too much influence over programme content» (idem, 279-280), percebe-se que será apenas uma questão de tempo e de vencer as resistências iniciais, uma vez que «estas posibilidades - que se prevé se consoliden en un futuro cercano - ofrecen ventajas tanto para los oyentes como para los profesionales» (Herrera, 2006). 

Ou seja, a rádio convencional, evoluindo para a realidade do consumo passivo-activo, está obrigada a aumentar os níveis de interactividade com os seus públicos. Serão cada vez mais interactivas, pode afirmar-se com segurança. Mas enquanto não deixarem que esses mesmo ouvintes influenciem directamente as escolhas, estaremos a falar no tal nível porventura mais baixo de interacção

TOFLER, Heidi e Alvin (2007), A Revolução da Riqueza. Lisboa: Actual Editora (3ª ed)

WELLS, Amy Tracy (2008), «A Portrait of Early Internet Adopters: Why People First Went Online --and Why They Stayed», Pew Internet & American Life Project 20/02/08

WELLS, Amy Tracy (2008), «A Portrait of Early Internet Adopters: Why People First Went Online --and Why They Stayed», Pew Internet & American Life Project 20/02/08 [http://pewresearch.org/pubs/739/early-internet-adopters]

Audiencias crescem

«According to recent industry figures, the number of radio listeners on the Internet has jumped-up drastically.

A recent report conducted by industry's audience research body, known as Rajar, has revealed that listening to radio through the Internet has become quite popular in the UK with over 14million people who regularly tune-in to the Internet based radio programs.

It is an online survey that sampled approximately 863 people; the report clearly indicates that the number of people listening to internet radio online had increased by 2.5 million in the last six months.

The survey also revealed that around 6 million people in UK have downloaded a podcast and it was also found that music and comedy are the two hot favourite genres among the UK audience.

The report also revealed that the growing number of listeners is due to the "get back" or "listen again" services provided by the radio operators that have compelled the listeners to tune-in to the programs which they have never listened before.  

The survey also provides an insight into the online/offline behaviour of audio community as well as the influence of latest audio delivery formats on the conventional radio listening.»

Internet Radio and Podcasts Draw Massive Audience

Author: Desire Athow| Date: 03 July 2008

 

SMITH, J. Walker, CLURMAN, Ann e WOOD, Craig (2005), Coming to Concurrence: Addressable Attitudes and the New Model for Marketing Productivity. Chicago: Racom

O que fazer para 'combater' a net nos carros

«the WiMax car radio of the future that would make every station stream in the world available to motorists. (...) So what then can radio as a whole do to take control of the Infinite Dial?

1) Radio, as an industry, must assert itself into any dialogue now taking place on the architecture of the WiMax car radio of the future or any of the devices that precede it to ensure both ease of use and representation of as many voices as possible. 2) Radio, as an industry, needs to redirect the effort that has gone into interesting Detroit in HD Radio into selling the value of 12,000 stations with an established listener base -- not merely a less developed handful of "stations between the stations."

3) Radio is already in the business of providing news, traffic, weather, and (in the case of most Rock radio websites) adult content. If streaming audio is going to be one of multiple applications offered by an in-car or tabletop device, radio should be offering one-stop-shopping. The only thing wrong with the multi-group initiative to offer traffic through HD Radio is its apparently limited scope.

4) To that effect, more broadcasters need to stay in the business of providing other services. Broadcasters' willingness to let news, traffic and weather come through a relatively small number of pipes has given the advantage to the major groups to whom broadcasters already handed those functions on a local level.

5) Part of the job of every marketing director in radio should today become the on-line presentation and search optimization of their stream. Radio people know that Chicago's Jack-FM rocks harder and L.A.'s Jack-FM plays more '80s alternative. Nothing on the good-looking CBS Play.It tuner would yet convey that to a listener.

6) Part of the job of every program director must be honing a station into a franchise that has a reason to exist among thousands of others. Broadcasters cannot count indefinitely on the affinity that listeners currently show to their local stations, even on-line. (That said, the franchise for a station among thousands of others may indeed lie in being "New Jersey 101.5" for their market, and broadcasters who want to own that franchise must now reassert their sense-of-place among hours of jockless content and syndicated shows that may not even be available on their own stream.)

fonte: Taking Control Of The Infinite Dial, Sean Ross, Edison Media Research Junho 08

Incluir a participação do ouvinte na estratégia

«They want to be your program director. In the past year I’ve observed how much this generation wants to "mash-up" or contribute to the entertainment they listen to. Hell, YouTube is the "mash-up" capital of their world. You can shoot it, add music, collaborate, stage it, fake it, steal it -- and you never need a PD (As a former PD this hurts me to write that line). Any radio strategy that doesn’t include listener participation and active input will fail. Back in the 60’s when stations first started playing "Instant Gold requests" on-air, listeners burned up the phone lines to call in a request. Radio hasn’t gone very far beyond that.»
COLLIANO, Jerry del, Gen Y Consults Radio Inside Music Media, 14/04/08

A rádio será o «google» da oferta musical na net?

 Falta saber como sairá desta nova realidade digital marcada pelo fim da, como se disse antes, lua de mel com a música. Mas, como desenvolveremos em alínea própria neste capítulo, a rádio pode fazer da crise oportunidade, transformando-se numa espécie de «google» da desregulamentação musical (com a música a chegar de tantas fontes, quem é que estará em melhor posição para controlar o excesso de oferta?).

Os canais de streaming têm muito mais do que música

É que o elemento sonoro, o áudio, não tem competências suficientes para ser – por si só – um conteúdo primário. E a música, elemento-chave, é quase sempre sinónimo de companhia, de acumulação.

A herança do modelo pós televisão (passividade e conveniência)

O modelo herdado /construido a partir da herança televisiva deixou a rádio sobreviver mas amarrou-a a um esquema de consumo secundário extremamente passivo. Por isso há apenas ouvintes (e não os que escutam)?

A rádio é o meio mais passivo de todos; de tal maneira passivo que não precisa de atenção, deixa que quem ouve faça outras coisas em primeiro lugar;

esta é a conveniência da rádio actual, dos ultimos 50 anos. Ora ouvir (usar) por conveniencia não é um bom atributo, um bom trunfo (é pouco...), quando a rádio, continuando a ser conveniente, tiver a concorrência de meios mais convenientesm, deixa de ser conveniente? É o que acontece no presente (e tenderá a acontecer no futuro). Quando houver terminais multimédia operados por voz no carro, quando os leitores de m+úsica já vierem com milhoes de musicas por um baixo preço, a rádio deixa de ser tão conveniente

Passivos porque não tinham alternativa

«Cresci no auge da era da cultura de massas - os anos 70 e 80. Os adolescentes dessa época tinham acesso a meia dúzia de canais de TV e praticamente todas as pessoas assistiam à mesma mão-cheia de programas televisivos. Havia três ou quatro estações de rádio em qualquer cidade, que ditavam em grande medida o tipo de música que ouvíamos; apenas alguns miúdos ricos com mais sorte faziam colecções de discos um pouco mais ousadas. Todos nós víamos no cinema os mesmos êxitos de bilheteira no Verão e as notícias que recebíamos tinham origem nos mesmos jornais e emissoras. Os poucos lugares onde podíamos explorar o que estava fora da corrente dominante eram a biblioteca e a loja de livros de banda desenhada. Tanto quanto me recordo, a única cultura disponível sem ser a cultura de massas era a dos livros e aquilo que eu e os meus amigos inventávamos, e isso não ía além dos nossos próprios quintais» (Anderson, 2007: 3)