And that solution might be: give music away legally and find another way _ such as advertising _ to make money.Participation was down at the annual MIDEM music business conference at the seaside resort of Cannes, reflecting the failure of digital music sales to make up for crumbling revenues and the billions of dollars being lost to music piracy _ illegal downloads outnumber the number of tracks sold by a factor of 20 to 1 according to industry body IFPI.Yet the theater was packed when Janus Friis _ co-founder of Kazaa, the music-sharing service once reviled by record levels _ addressed participants.Friis, who was presented as an Internet entrepreneur and a grandfather of digital music distribution, gave his backing to the latest venture making a lot of noise at MIDEM: Qtrax, which shows both the interest in making giveaways pay _ and the difficult of putting the deals together.A revamped online ad-supported file-sharing service, Qtrax promises to offer unlimited, free music downloads. It was launched amid a blizzard of publicity in Cannes, including champagne, snazzy slogans and invite-only concerts from celebrities including James Blunt and LL Cool J.After lunch with Qtrax CEO Allan Klepfisz on Saturday, Friis said he would have liked to create “an advertising supported service” for Kazaa _ if only the record labels had given their blessing.”We were trying to do the same things,” he told delegates.”But we couldn’t do it. The timing was just like, so off.”Yet even as record labels start embracing new technologies _ Sony BMG Music Entertainment became the last major music label to start selling music online without copy protection this month _ Qtrax showed Cannes the birthing process can be extremely difficult.The website service had not even gone live when Warner Music Group Corp. issued a statement denying Qtrax’s claims it had given the service permission to give away its music.Two other major recording companies, Universal Music Group and EMI Group PLC, later confirmed they did not have licensing deals in place with Qtrax, noting discussions were still ongoing.
After years of fighting the Wild West of freely downloaded music, the mainstream music industry welcomed a former desperado to their annual schmoozefest Monday, highlighting the difficulty of their search for a solution to plunging CD sales.
Adnan Ghalib, the on and off boyfriend of troubled pop superstar Britney Spears, has compared their relationship to Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed, who died in a car crash Aug 31, 1997, in Paris.Ghalib had dared to speak of his relationship with Spears just after a month, though he’s not sure how long the relationship could last, thesun.co.uk reports.He said that there are similarities between Spears and the late Princess Diana. When the fact about media attention was mentioned as a similarity between Spears and Diana during the interview, Ghalib added, “Or dating an Arab”.
Kiwee, the online social expressions outlet, announced extraordinary growth in its first six months out of beta, attracting one million members since July 2007. In December, Kiwee hit another milestone; delivering 500 million IM graphics downloads. This exceptional growth has been bolstered by the Kiwee IM Toolbar, recently out of beta, which provides thousands of unique 2D and 3D expressions for the AOL, MSN and Yahoo! instant messaging platforms.
Kiwee currently adds an estimated 14,000 new members every day, and has tripled its number of unique visitors and page views from December to January. Also, Kiwee features a vast amount of original content for social expressions on the web — more than 6,000 items, many of which can be completely customized by adding text, color and even photographs.
Kiwee’s social expression content is all free and includes postCards, graphics, emoticons, winks, display pictures, widgets and backgrounds for all major online communications platforms including Facebook, MySpace, Piczo, Multiply, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and AOL Instant Messenger.
“The teen and twenty-something demographic communicates with friends and family immediately on whatever platform reaches them fastest, and we provide expressive content that isn’t available anywhere else on the Internet today,” said Rajiv Jain, SVP and General Manager, Kiwee. “We know how people connect with one another based on our 101-year American Greetings heritage and our deep psychographic knowledge of this market, and these exciting growth numbers illustrate how our content resonates with young people all over the world.”
As an innovative leader in social expressions, Kiwee speaks to the MySpace generation by creating new content to match their changing moods, and developing new applications for all the major social networking platforms. In the past two months, Kiwee launched a Facebook application, added postCards, and released a line of customizable widgets.
In addition to the social expressions at Kiwee.com and on the IM toolbar, Kiwee manages a relationship with Microsoft for delivery of content to their Windows Live Messenger product in 15 countries and 11 languages.
For more information on Kiwee, Kiwee branded content or the growth of the service (including graphs of recent growth) please visit http://www.kiwee.com/press.
About Kiwee
Kiwee, the youth-focused online social expressions division of AG Interactive — a subsidiary of American Greetings Corp — is one of the fastest growing social expressions companies on the web today. It is committed to providing an easy, fun, and personal way for teens and twenty- somethings to express themselves on today’s most popular online communications platforms. Kiwee closely monitors Generation Y to constantly deliver content that is relevant to their moods, lifestyles, current interests, and online personalities.
Kiwee works across all major social networking and instant messaging services including Facebook, MySpace, Piczo, Multiply, Yahoo! 360, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger. Headquartered in Cleveland, Kiwee has a dedicated creative studio in Los Angeles, and operates in 15 countries around the world. For more information please visit: www.kiwee.com.
About American Greetings Corporation
American Greetings Corporation is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of social expression products. Along with greeting cards, its product lines include gift wrap, party goods, stationery, calendars, ornaments and electronic greetings. Located in Cleveland, Ohio, American Greetings generates annual revenue of approximately $1.7 billion. For more information on the Company, visit http://corporate.americangreetings.com.
Last.fm (www.last.fm) today announced that it is launching a service to allow anyone to listen to music on the site for free.
Last.fm has become one of the leading places in the world where people can go to listen to music online. Its vast library has attracted a community of more than 20 million unique monthly users in 240 countries around the globe. The heart of Last.fm is a powerful recommendation engine that guides listeners to music they are likely to enjoy based on prior selections, connecting them with the music they love and with others who share their tastes.
In launching this service, Last.fm becomes the first music website to offer free, global, on-demand access to the largest licensed catalogue of music built on partnerships with all four major record labels - including Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI - as well as CD Baby, IODA, the Orchard, Naxos and more than 150,000 independent labels and artists.
Last.fm’s free-on-demand service will be advertiser supported, allowing clients many unique opportunities to reach a highly targeted and engaged audience.
Last.fm was acquired by the CBS Corporation on May 30, 2007.
“It is clear to us that communities built around great content are increasingly driving traffic and revenue online,” said Leslie Moonves, President and CEO of the CBS Corporation. “We acquired Last.fm because music is one of the best ways to build communities on the internet. Adding such a tremendous collection of content to Last.fm will help it grow by leaps and bounds. The skill set that we’re learning along the way will be very important as we build additional online communities around our other world-class content as well.”
Martin Stiksel, Last.fm co-founder, said: “We’re giving the listener free access to what is basically the best jukebox in the world. The ability to dip into such a uniquely broad catalogue from your laptop, home or office computer, and listen to whatever you want for free represents a new way of consuming music that in turn might change the way you listen to music. In that respect, nobody else can currently offer what Last.fm is offering right now.”
In a grainy video that circulated online Tuesday Amy Winehouse, 24, left, appears to smoke crack and claims to have taken “about six Valium.” It was posted on the Web site for The Sun, a British tabloid (thesun.co.uk), and an accompanying article, inset, said the video was taken early Friday morning at Ms. Winehouse’s London home, and that the two-minute clip follows “a 19-minute binge in which she snorted powdered ecstasy and cocaine.” Her record label, Universal, said in a statement: “We are deeply disappointed and upset by these latest revelations and are doing everything we can to offer Amy our full support in dealing with her problems.” Contradictory reports circulated online on Tuesday about whether Ms. Winehouse had been taken to a rehab clinic. (She had a hit with “Rehab,” in which she sings about refusing treatment.) A spokeswoman for her label declined to comment on that issue.
