Alfie Boe is a bit of an asshat

Okay, it's a pain when people go to a gig, don't switch their phones off, and they ring during the event.

But should the price for this should be public humiliation?:

The singer told the newspaper he was halfway through a concert in Cardiff when he heard a “loud ringing noise and spotted a woman trying to switch of her phone”.

So I walked down into the audience, made my way along her row, and introduced myself,” he said. “I asked if I could have a look at her phone and pressed the redial button. It started buzzing at the other end. Then someone picked up, and it was the woman’s mother.”

He added he had put the phone onto its loudspeaker, asking the audience to shout out his name to convince her he was mid-concert.

Apparently Boe does this a lot.

I think we're meant to be applauding his actions.

But hang on a moment.

Fair enough, this woman made a mistake, but even as Boe tells the story, she was always embarrassed and trying to switch the phone off when he did his little stunt. And he knows nothing about the context - maybe the mother was lying on the floor with a broken hip, or ringing because she was babysitting and the child had swallowed a gallon of bleach.

Boe made the disclosure in an interview with the Yorkshire Post, saying: “The lady with the phone was so incredibly embarrassed that I don’t think she’ll ever take a phone to a concert again.”

Or possibly, thanks to you giving her an public dressing down for having forgotten to switch the phone to silent, she might now suffer from crippling social anxiety and never go to an event again.

Boe's manager is keen to stress it's all a bit fun:

“People think he’s really angry and go bright red with real embarrassment, but it’s just his sense of humour. He always gets a massive round of applause for doing it and gives it back with a hug.”

He added: “I think people forget to turn their mobiles off, and then when it rings they can never find it in time to answer it or switch it off and get brighter and brighter red.”

I imagine some people might take it on the chin, but for other people, suddenly being treated this way in front of 10,000 people might not be such big yuks.

Maybe if someone answers the phone, it's a proportionate response. But for forgetting silent? Seems a bit much.

Transmitting now: Gil Scott-Heron and the Jamie XX

If you have a new-ish phone, and somehow manage to get in the range of a transmitter, you can listen to We're New Here.

Which is this:

Welcome to the Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx "We're New Here" Album Transmitter.

We are transmitting the album from several locations across the globe. To be able to listen, all you need to do is go to werenewhere.com/radio from your smartphone when you're within range of one of the transmitters.

This receiver relies on HTML5 technologies, so will only work on recent smartphones (including iPhones, iPods, iPads and Android phones running OS 2.3).

If you are having issues please contact webeditor@beggars.com.

"We're New Here" by Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx is released 21st February on XL Recordings.

It looks like you'll struggle to hear it if you're in Colchester. Until it's out to buy, of course.

Cricket approach wicket with all you can eat download service

Cricket, the US mobile operator whose popularity is roughly on par with that of the game of cricket in the states, is plotting a ComesWithMusic style all-you-can-eat download service.

It looks like it's only going to be available as part of a bundle with unlimited voice, text and data, which might help with apparent take-up figures, as on its own it's not much of a service: DRM-wrapped music files that you can apparently only store on your phone. So unlimited by number, but severely limited as to how you can use them.

Oh, by the way: it's called Muve Music. Yes, but what do you expect?

Spotify's music now follows you wherever your roaming fees will allow

Spotify has just done this:



They stress that it's a work in progress, but also hint at other mobile apps in development (i.e. for phones which, unlike the Android, people actually own.)

It's something that's been threatened for quite a while, and clearly there's still quite a way to go before almost-free music on-demand from the cloud. But paying a premium for Comes With Music suddenly looks a lot less attractive, doesn't it?

[Thanks to Michael M for the link]

Gennaro Castaldo watch: Hung up

Another day, another HMV announcement that comes without the Knowledge-Stick of Castaldo. The poor guy is probably struggling to keep up as HMV mutates its business seven or eight times a day.

Earlier in the week, you'll recall, it was suddenly going to be a cinema. Now, though, it's decided to be a mobile phone store instead:

The deal puts what Orange calls "show and sell" spaces into HMV shops, where Orange staff can demonstrate to punters why they don't need a dedicated MP3 player or portable video device when a high-end telephone will do both jobs almost as well. Glasgow, Plymouth and Teesside will be the first of a hundred such spaces to be created in time for Christmas.

Because, of course, the natural place to go if you want a telephone would be a record shop.

The idea seems to be in allowing Orange staff to persuade HMV customers to buy something they didn't want. They could try this with their music offerings, too, I suppose - inviting people to tell customers trying to buy Westlife that, actually, they might think about buying something better instead.

I'm not sure that this is quite going to work, though - it assumes that there are a large number of people who go to HMV to buy mp3 players in the first place, and that they're going to be persuadable that they don't know their own minds in large enough numbers to make it worthwhile. Have they done any testing on this? Because my guess would be that the sort of people who buy mp3 players at HMV are going to be either impulse-buying or else purchasing as a gift for other people - neither of which categories would obviously scream as being easy targets to lock in to a contract.

If only Gennaro was able to shed some light into this curious development. Perhaps he's preparing to issue guidance to editors if HMV announce plans to sell kitchenware some time tomorrow.

U2: Choice of middle management layers everywhere

U2 are on the rim of launching a special mobile phone application. For, um, the Blackberry.

It's probably no surprise that Bono has embraced the device favoured by travelling salespeople; I bet he's one of those people who start clackety-clacking through their email in box as soon as the plane sniffs the terminal building. Why are you so urgently looking through your email? Can't it wait five minutes until you're actually off the plane? Is selling briquettes really so time-sensitive?

The other reason for U2 choosing Blackberry was - again, unsurprisingly - RIM were prepared to cover the costs:

"I'm very excited about this," Bono told [Toronto-based radio DJ Alan] Cross about the RIM deal. "Research In Motion is going to give us what Apple wouldn't — access to their labs and their people so we can do something really spectacular."

In other words: Apple wanted U2 to spend some of their millions making their own app; RIM offered to underwrite costs.

So the U2 world tour will be full of people clickety-clacking away on Blackberries. It'll be like being in a business class lounge at an airport. Only you won't even be able to ask them to turn the music down.

You get a free gift and your Nickelback

If you wanted to give away a free Nickelback video, you'd probably be hard put to find anyone who'd want it. You'd need to find some way of identifying those odd souls who might actually think it delightful. Luckily, though, US phone company Sprint have come up with a foolproof way of finding Nickelback fans. Actually, you wouldn't want foolproof, would you? It'd be like make a butchers carnivore-proof.

What Sprint are going to do is tickle Nickelback fans' mobiles as they arrive at gigs, using wifi and bluetooth to offer the download, and to slap it on if they say yes.

Not quite sure how the bandwidth would cope if everyone said 'yes' at the same time - I have a happy fantasy of Chad Ogre trying to start the gig while the audience are saying "hang on, mate... the download is only 3% completed..."

The technology has been used at Def Leppard gigs, too, but the interesting point is that is could also be used for good purposes.

Last FM summons whine: Switches off services

For a moment, our gaze is directed away from PRS attacks on Google to the trouble over at Last FM this morning, as the service owners take steps to make it less useful to as many people as possible.

In what we're taking as the largest marketing campaign yet embarked upon on behalf of Spotify, Last FM has thrown up a pay wall around most of its music streams. If you're in Germany, the US or the UK, you can still stream music for free; elsewhere - I haven't had a chance to consult a Gazetteer, but I believe that's 'elsewhere' as in 'nearly all the world' - you'll have to hand over EUR3 a month to hear Last FM radio.

Sorry, I'll read that again: outside those three countries, you'll go elsewhere for your music.

The reason for the paywall is to try and summon some money to pay royalties and return some cash to owners CBS. It's almost as if everyone involved has this far been working on a mistaken assumption of what the financial value of recorded music is online, and is trying to shape their service to match that, rather than finding out where the value point is and building around that. Why does that sound familiar?

But it's not just by closing out the French, the Candians, the French Canadians, the good people of the Gabon and the Leeward Islanders by which Last FM is attempting to scupper itself. Oh, no. Last FM isn't merely getting in the bath with an electric toaster, it's going to take two catering size jars of paracetamol, washed down with a bottle of whisky:

Last.fm has said that all non-official mobile clients will be banned. This isn't going over well.

The change comes with a new developer API that will actually make things much easier for other developers, who've had to rely on a few undocumented calls up until now. Current licensing agreements with labels—who Last.fm is in no position to alienate—prohibit mobile streaming, though the company's official mobile radio apps—right now just on the iPhone and Android—will still work fine.

Oh, yes. People love the stuff we do so much they build services to help us reach new audiences and move across platforms. Let's stop that happening, then.

Now, of course, there would be objections from the labels - who have never seen a digital development they didn't want blocked by an act of Congress - but surely Last FM could try and win them round? And, if they're really so keen to have 'official' apps for mobile, why not talk to the unofficial guys and see if they can't be brought in-house, or at least given a blessing?

Instead, plugs are pulled. Services are yanked. And a happy web community are happy no more:

That really sucks
I renewed my subscription (I have been a subscriber for a few years) but now regret it as I will no longer be able to listen to the radios in my usual music player, so I paid for nothing.
[...]
How sad and dissappointing
You are throwing to the waste bin thousand of free development hours (including many of my own) that directly benefited Last.fm.

I'm sorry that it has come to this. Don't forget that the main value of Last.fm has been created by its users scrobbling songs, writing the wiki, uploading music, writing software...
[...]
Let me tell you something
The Future of Last.fm is... well, you just have no future. You should be ashamed of this move. You are what you are because of the community (artists, listeners, developers...) and these things are against the community. It's kind of suicidal. You're dead.
R.I.P. Last FM

P.S.
Russ said: Scrobbling will always be free.
Well, it would be surrealistic to charge us for giving you our data... that's what feeds last.fm

Still, I'm sure that Last FM's current userbase will sit tight, and wait until they're allowed to listen to music on their "mobile devices". I'm sure. The internet user base is known for its patience.

Incidentally, tucked in the debate is how, precisely, Last FM defines a mobile device. This is Last FM staffer Russ's response to a question about that:

Re: Re: The Future of Last.fm Radio APIs

achitnis said:
What defines a "mobile phone" in this case? What about, say, a Nokia N810, which is an Internet tablet/MID, NOT A PHONE. Would this be barred from using the API in an application such as Vagalume to stream music? What about dedicated internet radios? These are all "portable" devices that are not phones, but are certainly mobile.

The N810 doesn't connect to a cellular data network, so it's not a phone.

So, that's the important distinction, is it? So... an iPod Touch connects via WiFI - presumably the apps are fine there, then; while the same app running on the same operating system on an iPhone suddenly becomes invalid because there's an extra antennae in the back of the device? When was this phone/not phone distinction made, precisely? 1803? If you unplug your laptop from an ethernet connection and stick in a 3 dongle, should you stop using Last FM as you're now connecting via a cellular network?

It would be funny if the internet wasn't going to lose a valuable, lovely resource as a result of it all.

MySpace take your name - for a redirect

Mobile, the band, have been building a fan base through their carefully-nurtured MySpace for the last two years. They're just about to head out on their biggest tour ever. So, they're a little annoyed - to say the least - that MySpace have stolen their URL. Hypebot quotes Don Affleck, the band's manager:

This is a fucking joke right?!?! Nope, apparently Team-Myspace (fuck
ya!) came down and rained fire on Mobile's myspace url because they are launching their "mobile" platform whose url is:
www.myspace.com/myspacemobile

The band's url WAS: www.myspace.com/mobile --- so they're not even
using the band's actual url!! They just couldn't stand to lose any
eyeballs during their marketing roll-out of their wonderful new service!!!

So now, after 2 years of the band authentically building and nurturing relationships online, Team-Myspace click-fucks the band out of their url.

NOW I understand why music lovers AND musicians are migrating away from Myspace and onto Facebook, Bebo etc. -- TRUST -- there can be no trust in a place that can takeover one's address at will -- how would a community service survive if users knew that at any moment their little plot of cyberspace could be stripped away?!? I can understand if you threatened to kill the president or suggested that your big black van was a sweet innocent candy store....but isn't Myspace all about the music?? Didn't they just launch their music service in the USA??? But Myspace isn't about the music.....never has been....this is about generating advertising revenue. Funny thing is, shit like this proves Team-Myspace only knows how to beat a dead horse; and who the fuck is gonna' be friends with a dead horse when the alternatives are active communities which users can trust?

A small, pointless move - if they really were worried about people getting confused, they could at least have offered the band the opportunity to keep their URL in return for a 'looking for MySpace's mobile service? Really? It's here' banner - or at least to put a banner to the new URL on the mobile site.

What makes it worse is the random URL that was going to be given to the band - so they've not only got one change, there's going to be another change when they finally get to choose another URL. Given that this is one member, could someone - perhaps "Tom" - at least have given them the chance to choose the new URL before shunting them away?

Not engaged: Mobile music revenues fall

The hopes of the music industry that selling tunes to people with mobile phones might save their hides are starting to fade as the amount of cash raised from mobile sales starts to fall:

Sony BMG’s EMEA digital VP Ian Henderson was predictably pessimistic: ”If you look at the money we’re making from mobile music, it’s going down - mobile music was a lot bigger proportionally a year or two years ago. But, at the same time, we are really excited about what Nokia and SonyEricsson and Omnifone are doing. There’s a lot of hope but, right now, mobile music is in decline

Part of the trouble - and it's not just music companies who are making this mistake, it's prevalent in virtually any company that has a computer connected to a modem - is the mistaken belief that "mobile" is a platform in itself; as the iPhone and other smartphones have raised the game in displaying the full internet on a handheld device, talking about doing stuff for mobile is starting to look a little like talking about making programmes for car radios or creating shows for portable televisions. The market doesn't want to have a cut-down experience and doesn't thank you for spending time trying to create special stuff for a smaller screen; the sales come when you demonstrate how you can have the full experience on your pocket device.

Zutons otherwise engaged

Dave McCabe out the Zutons is setting his phone to vibrate:

"She's an older lady," McCabe told the Daily Star. "In her late 40s, I think - and she won't leave me alone.

"She’s got my mobile number and keeps sending me pictures of herself with her tits out."

Meanwhile, somewhere in the country, a couple are reunited after one of them has spent some time on a business trip. She is blanching.

-"o-nine-seven- three?"
-"Yes, three. Not eight. I thought it was funny I didn't hear from you while I was away. Did you send me any interesting texts?... Honey? Are you alright?"

Mobile hang-up: The market is currently unavailable. Please try again later.

Mobile phone music figures are disappointing two, possibly three, industries at once with the announcement of how tiny a portion of the total download market they hold is:

According to Forrester Research, U.S. music fans purchased $1.7 billion worth of music downloads in 2007 (singles and albums combined) but spent only $249 million on subscription services. While the firm projects download revenue to surge 65 percent this year to $2.8 billion, it expects subscription revenue to climb a far more modest 15 percent to $287 million.

There's a lot of humming and hawing and heads being scratched with industrial-sized consultant nails trying to figure out this surprising conundrum. Yes, yes, we know that the answer - people aren't that keen on the subscription model and want to use the tracks they already own on their PC on their phone, and aren't so dumb as to buy the same file twice - is as obvious as a punchline on My Family, but this is the music industry we're talking about.

Cliq... off... gone

Cliq, the much-trumpeted system which would allow digital radio listeners buy the tracks they were listening to, has been dumped by Unique. They're blaming a shortage of DAB-enabled mobile phones.

It might also be that the radio stations they were embedded into - Heart and Heat and Smooth - just weren't playing music compelling or surprising enough to persuade people to buy on the spot. It was on Magic, for example. If you hear a song you like on Magic, you don't have to enter into a transaction with a mobiel device; you just pick up a compilation CD at the petrol station.

And the system itself was a little more complex than the promised 'one click to buy' proposition:

Listeners can access the CLIQ service by texting CLIQ or the name of the radio station to 78901. Once they have installed the free application on their mobile phone they can then select their chosen station and song they wish to purchase. A confirmation message will direct them to cliqradio.co.uk where, once registered, they will be able to download their first track for FREE. To buy more songs, they will need to top up their personal CLIQ account – this can be done both online and on their mobile phone. Tracks will cost £1.25.

It's probably no more complex than it had to be, with its dream of distributing on mobiles via java applets, but assuming the sort of person who'd be interested in the service would have online music store access already, why would they go through the fiddly stuff just to buy a more expensive version of a song they could find on iTunes? Especially when you have to pay in advance for the track?

Having sunk a bunch of cash in developing the system - although nothing on updating the Cliq website since launch - UBC are making noises that they'll keep the technology, with a view to deploying it in a disappointing way in the future. Closure is a £1.1million hit; they're saving themselves £1.2m annual losses, according to figures in the FT.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: HMV takes on Carphone Warehouse

With the wafer-thin excuse that 'you can play music on phones nowadays, you know...', HMV decides that it's actually a telephone business:

HMV spokesperson, Gennaro Castaldo, said: ‘We’ve had so much interest in the music mobile area and are expanding our range. It has engaged with our customers and we feel that it’s an opportunity to build on. Mobile will be one of the technological areas within our Next Generation stores.’

Translation: We've managed to sell some phones, so we're going to try and sell a lot more.

There will still be room for music sales in larger branches of HMV, we're given to understand, with as many as five CDs being available in the flagship London store.

Warners: The figures don't look good

There's some good news amongst the gloom in the latest quarter results from Warners - their international revenues have increased by nearly 20%. Unfortunately, what with the way the dollar is, and a massive drop in US revenues, that couldn't help them avoid losing USD28m. Oh, and abandoning their already tiny shareholder dividend altogether.

Edgar Bronfman was bullish about digital sales, although Silicon Valley Insider points out that 30% of digital income comes from mobile phone ringtones - a market which, at best, has peaked; at worst, is on the edge of vanishing altogether.

The gloss on the Madonna album is interesting:

Pushing Madonna's last WMG album with digital deals with Vodafone, Samsung, etc. "Tens of millions" of ad dollars spent by partners to promote album. $13.99 premium CD outsold $11.99 version 8 to 1.

Arguably, persuading other people to fund much of the Madonna marketing campaign is a hollow victory - doesn't her profile deliver much more ad-spend equivalent anyway? - but the much, much higher sales of the more expensive album is fascinating. If nothing, proving again, there are customers who will pay for music, and pay a premium for what isn't even very much of a premium product. Of course, it's not clear how much of the USD2 extra sales price is pure profit, and how much was spent creating the extra material for the record - it might be a bit of a Blue Monday style own-goal if you manage to sell eight times as many copies of an album you're making less money on.

And the question is: How many Madonnas does Warners have? It doesn't even have a Madonna after this record, does it?

Greed, locks strangle US mobile music market

Another victory for the RIAA: As more and more phones and mobile devices become capable of playing back music, the industry has a chance to make a little money before the iPhone-style model of the proper internet on mobile devices becomes the norm and makes the walled-garden obsolete.

But what are they doing? managing to strangle the market at birth. Only 14% of Americans surveyed by Jupiter research want to buy music on their phones; the rest are put off by high prices and complicated DRM rules.

Ringbacks: Mobile and music industries clash over cash

As the ringtone market gravytrain starts to disappear, mobile and the music companies are hoping that the next cash cow will be ringback tones.

This is what the person who rings you hears while they're waiting for you to answer - the hope is that you'll pay two bucks a go for music that you'll never hear and that will probably drive the person calling you batty. Will your gran know that she's actually waiting for you to pick up if she hears WASP blaring out her telephone?

The trouble (or possibly lucky thing) is, though, that any hopes of growing this market is falling apart as the record companies and mobile operators in the US have spats over money.

The product is a confusing sell, but neither side is that keen to underwrite the marketing; meanwhile, the record companies are grumpy because they only make money on the music part of the deal, not on the network charges. The mobile companies aren't keen to share revenue from the money made delivering the tones, on the grounds that the copyright holders don't actually do anything connected to the delivery. It's part of the new music industry that they seem to think they have a right to cash not just for signing over copyrights, but also for anything that's done with the music - like a tomato farmer turning up and demanding cash from Pizza Hut as they've used his tomatoes in their sauce.

Then there's the problem of, even if you do try to market the concept, no two operators use the same branding:

"Everybody calls it something different, and the only way to get it is on the deck," RCA Records director of mobile marketing Sean Rosenberg says. "How do we message this to our fans?"

For a moment, you almost wonder if RCA Records is suggesting that their mobile marketing department has its own fanbase, until you realise that anyone who uses the phrase "how do we message this" instead of "how do we tell people" is unlikely to be using English in any way recognisable to normal people.

The story of ringback tones is instructive, demonstrating the problems of the music industry in getting to grips with new markets. It's going to be similar in all the areas of handset based sales. Of course, in time, these problems will be sorted out - but since "mobile" as a distinct, wall-gardened concept is already a market for which time is running out, by the time the majors work out they shouldn't kill it through greed, everyone will have proper full internet anyway, and be enjoying bitorrent on the streets.

Talking with a mouth full: Warners in all you can eat talks

The music industry looks dead set on adopting a potentially calamitous piecemeal approach to all-you-can-eat pricing, with one label talking to a single ISP here, another cutting a deal with a mobile outfit there.

Warners, the Times is reporting, is talking to British mobile companies to bring a compelling 'as much music as you want, on tap, providing the artists were on Warners at the time they recorded it' proposition to the table.

Can anyone suggest if £3 a month for all of Sony-BMG's back-catalogue is a better deal than, say, £1.50 a week for EMI and Warners?

All the Apples you can eat

Reports over on The Register and the FT suggests that the long-expected iTunes killer might be... iTunes itself.

Apple are in talks with labels about introducing an all-you-can-eat subscription service - of the sort where you keep paying for music and own nothing at all - and it could be as close as just debating about how large the figure will be.

Obviously, the tracks under such a service would have to be wrapped in something to stop the (for the music industry) nightmare of people sucking down the lot in month one and unsubscribing.

God alone knows why Apple would want to get into such an unsatisfying deal - presumably it's a bid to offer the same sort of deal as Nokia are lining up for their customers.

[Thanks to Michael M]

Candy nobody wants

Depending on if you're a Madonna is half-naked, or a Madonna is half-dressed sort of person, you might choose to react to the news that Vodaphone has got the rights to launch Madonna's new album a week early as an indication that Vodaphone has got more money than sense, or there wasn't much of a battle for the rights.

Vodaphone is creating a special portal on its Vodaphone Live mobile site (no, us neither) to host the track-by-track reveal:

Beginning on 21 April, one track will be released each day of the week and will remain live for 24 hours for download before it is replaced by the next track.

Again, you could see this as a way of building excitement across the week, or you could see it as a dribbly, ill-conceived idea that puts too much weight on some of the flabbier album tracks (and there will be some, we're sure). This is probably supposed to somehow frustrate piracy of the tracks, although removing all legal existence of track one on day two seems designed to create more, not less, illegal rummaging.