iTunes Says Its Customers Top 50 Million.

February 26, 2008—Apple® today announced that iTunes® (www.itunes.com) is now the number two music retailer in the US, behind only Wal-Mart, based on the latest data from the NPD Group*. Apple also announced that there are now over 50 million iTunes Store customers. iTunes has sold over four billion songs, with an incredible 20 million songs sold on Christmas Day 2007 alone, and offers the world’s largest music catalog of over six million songs from all of the major and thousands of independent labels.

“We’d like to thank the over 50 million music lovers who have helped the iTunes Store reach this incredible milestone,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We continue to add great new features like iTunes Movie Rentals to give our customers even more reason to love iTunes.”

Last month, Apple launched iTunes Movie Rentals featuring movies from all of the major movie studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema. Users can rent movies and watch them on their PCs or Macs, all current generation iPods**, iPhone™ and on a widescreen TV with Apple TV®. iTunes Movie Rentals will offer over 1,000 titles by the end of this month, including over 100 titles in stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound which users can rent directly from their widescreen TV using Apple TV.

iTunes 7.6 is available as a free download at www.itunes.com. iTunes Movie Rentals are available in the US only and are $2.99 (US) for library titles and $3.99 (US) for new releases, and high definition versions are priced just one dollar more with library titles at $3.99 (US) and new releases at $4.99 (US). Movie rentals from the iTunes Store for Mac® or Windows require iTunes 7.6. iTunes Movie Rentals require a valid credit card with a billing address in the country of purchase.

*Based on data from market research firm the NPD Group’s MusicWatch survey that captures consumer reported past week unit purchases and counts one CD representing 12 tracks, excluding wireless transactions. The iTunes Music Store became the second-largest music retailer in the US after Wal-Mart, based on the amount of music sold during 2007.

**Movie rentals work on iPod® classic, iPod nano with video and iPod touch.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

Teenagers listen to an average of nearly 2.5 hours of music per day. Guess what they’re hearing about?

One in three popular songs contains explicit references to drug or alcohol use, according to a new report in The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. That means kids are receiving about 35 references to substance abuse for every hour of music they listen to, the authors determined.

While songs about drugs and excess are nothing new, the issue is getting more attention because so many children now have regular access to music out of the earshot of parents. Nearly 9 out of 10 adolescents and teens have an MP3 player or a compact disc player in their bedrooms.

Studies have long shown that media messages have a pronounced impact on childhood risk behaviors. Exposure to images of smoking in movies influences a child’s risk for picking up the habit. Alcohol use in movies and promotions is also linked to actual alcohol use.

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine studied the 279 most popular songs from 2005, based on reports from Billboard magazine, which tracks popular music. Whether a song contained a reference to drugs or alcohol varied by genre. Only 9 percent of pop songs had lyrics relating to drugs or alcohol. The number jumped to 14 percent for rock songs, 20 percent for R&B and hip-hop songs, 36 percent for country songs and 77 percent for rap songs.

Notably, smoking references aren’t that common in music today, with only 3 percent of the songs portraying tobacco use. About 14 percent of songs spoke of marijuana use, 24 percent depicted alcohol use, and another 12 percent included reference to other substances. About 4 percent of the songs contained “anti” drug and alcohol messages.

The study authors noted that music represents a pervasive source of exposure to positive images of substance use. The average adolescent is exposed to approximately 84 references to explicit substance use per day and 591 references per week, or 30,732 references per year. The average adolescent listening only to pop would be exposed to 5 references per day, whereas the average adolescent who listens just to rap would be exposed to 251 references per day.

Whether any of this matters remains an open question. While the impact of exposure to images of smoking and alcohol in film has been well documented, less is known about the effect of music on childhood risk behaviors.

Although music lacks the visual element of film, adolescent exposure to music is much more frequent, accounting for an average of 16 hours each week for music compared with about 6 hours each week for movie images, according to the study authors. But frequency of exposure is not the only factor. Unlike visual media, music is a powerful social force that also taps into an individual’s personal identity, memories and mood.

“Music is well-known to connect deeply with adolescents and to influence identity development, perhaps more than any other entertainment medium,’’ said the study authors.

Feist continues to win recognition from her peers, collecting four Grammy nominations — and now, winning the Shortlist Music Prize for her album “The Reminder.”

The Shortlist, in its seventh year, pays tribute to artists who haven’t hit the mainstream yet. Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol and Ronnie Vannucci of the Killers were among this year’s panel of judges.

Feist’s “The Reminder” is “the album of the year for 2007 or any year I can think of: It’s modern and classic all at once,” Lightbody said in a statement released Monday. “There are so many kinds of beauty in this record.”

Leslie Feist, who uses only her last name professionally, hails from Canada. She grew up in Calgary and spent her teenage years as lead singer for a hardcore punk band.

Her Grammy nominations include best new artist and best pop vocal album. The Grammys will be presented Sunday in Los Angeles.

Finalists for the 2007 Shortlist Music Prize also included Arcade Fire, Burial, Justice, LCD Soundsystem, M.I.A., Spoon, Stars, Wilco and Working for a Nuclear Free City.

Feist, 31, is the second woman to snag the prize, following Cat Power’s win last year. Past winners also include Damien Rice, N.E.R.D., TV on the Radio and Sufjan Stevens.

On the Net:

• Shortlist: http://www.shortlistofmusic.com/
• Feist: http://www.listentofeist.com/

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.

By Doug Caverly

Defends against onslaught of “croak” jokes

SpiralFrog hasn’t been doing so well, but $2 million can heal a lot of wounds, and the ad-supported, Web-based music service has raised this amount in funding.

SpiralFrog is the company that intended to serve both consumers’ desire to get free songs and the music industry’s interest in making money.  “Listen to a tune, then watch a commercial” is the basic idea.  As Marshall Kirkpatrick recently noted, this approach lost the company $3.4 million in the third quarter.

So, on to the fresh infusion.  SpiralFrog received $2 million “through the private placement of Senior Secured Exchangeable Notes,” according to a formal release.  “The Notes bear interest at 12 percent per annum, with interest payable quarterly, commencing January 1, 2008.  The entire principal amount is due on April 19, 2008.  The Notes are exchangeable into 2,325,582 common shares at the Exchange Price of $0.86, subject to certain adjustments.”

Fascinating stuff, right?  Or not.  Either way, this isn’t the same thing as a well-known venture capital firm stepping up to support SpiralFrog.  The company plans to expand its operations and acquire “additional content for the site,” however, so we’ll see how things pan out in the first quarter of 2008.