50 Cent to play live, broadcast event

Here's an inappropriate use of the word 'history' from ContactMusic:

50 Cent is set to make history at the South By Southwest festival in Texas next week (11Mar14) by streaming his concert on a mobile app he has invested in.

"Man streams gig over internet using proprietary technology". Remember where you were when you heard the news.

Beats gets going

Overpriced headphone manufacturer Beats has taken a step closer to launching its streaming music service, with an app going live in the Apple app store:

The service, which goes up against the likes of Spotify, Rdio, Pandora and iTunes Radio — as well as Mega CEO Kim Dotcom‘s new music streaming service Baboom – will cost $9.99 per month for unlimited streaming from its catalog of more than 20 million songs.

Besides the ability for journalists to mention Dr Dre in articles about the service, it's not entirely clear what Beats believes makes it different from other streaming services.

The company's business models so far has been to encourage conspicuous consumption - people pay over the odds for oversized headphones so they can wear them on the tube or bus. It's not obvious how this will work for streams of music.

HMV launches plans to defeat iTunes; realises it needs iTunes to be part of the plans

So, although it looked like it wouldn't make it through to offer confused elderly relatives a place to buy not quite the right CDs for the young 'uns this Christmas, HMV has survived in some form. Shrunk down, owned by a group known for restructuring; historical debts erased. Now, at last, the chain can focus on its unique selling point - being the only place you can go to buy recorded entertainment left standing. Right?

Hang on, they've just announced the completion of their image makeover. What did you guys come up with - something about your stores, right?

HMV has overhauled its online presence with a new, more editorially-focused site as it looks to re-exert its brand authority and customer experince through online channels.

Oh. Really? You're still thinking your a business which really has a future in being some sort of chatty webmagazine with some 'buy' buttons attached?

Why would you think that?

HMV chairman Paul McGowan said: “Everything we’re doing with HMV is focused on engagement, content and curation – all the things that HMV lost sight of in recent years.

“The passion within the business for the products we sell, the specialist knowledge and ability to recommend and guide our customers – from store staff to the team in head office – is second to none and the new hmv.com. brings that to the forefront.”

Did you ever go into an HMV before you bought the company, Paul? With all the best will in the world, nobody would ever have gone into an HMV store to ask musical advice from the staff, any more than you'd expect to get agricultural advice from the people who restock the dairy counters in Tesco. That's not to say that there weren't some HMV assistants who weren't passionate about music, but those that wee generally would have advised you to shop elsewhere.

The brand has recruited an editorial team to manage the site, while staff across the company’s chain of 142 UK stores will also be encouraged to contribute with content.

Given the PR disaster which followed HMV staff retaining access to official HMV channels that's quite a brave move.

However, at least this is something that you've fully thought through, right? It's not in any way a ragbag of half-formed ideas with a promise of better things to come, is it?

HMV general manager Caroline Pesch said: “As a hub for entertainment, a key element of the site is the sense of community and ease of use for finding local and relevant information. In addition to editorial features and reviews store staff can post their own picks and tips based on what’s happening on a local level. This is just phase one of the new site; as it develops we will be introducing lots more new and exciting functionality. The volume of content available will grow daily.”

Oh. Nothing says 'some stuff got written on a white board, and we think someone took a photo, and we're pretty certain there's something there we might be able to turn into some sort of web feature when we work out what the bloody thing says' like a vague suggestion that something "new and exciting" is coming in the future.

There's also an app, which Wired has heard all about:

[James] Coughlan, who was previously involved in building up Vodafone's digital music business, is first to admit that HMV has in the past "not really embraced the digital world in the way it should have done".

Yeah, that was Vodafone's digital music business that he built up. Because music is the first thing you think of when you hear Vodafone's name. Well, first thing after you've thought 'oh, the company that pretends its legally obliged to pay as little tax as possible'. And 'irritating bee commercials'. And 'spun off a military business'. But then, surely, you'd start to think about Vodafone's music.

There is, to be fair, a Vodafone Music twitter feed, which hasn't had a message since October 2nd. Erm, October 2nd, 2009. And vodafone.com/music just redirects to the Vodafone homepage. You can find out about Vodafone music, though, by searching on the site:

Vodafone Music has now closed
Vodafone Music is now closed, so you won’t be able to download any music from us anymore.

That's a pretty solid business built up there, then.

Never mind, though, James is now bringing his magic to HMV:

"What we're doing here by bringing a digital offering to market is we're amplifying what HMV's renowned for," he tells Wired.co.uk. "I see this lifting our physical business as well, because you probably are going to have experiences where you're in store and you're scanning physical products and the digital version may be a couple of quid higher than the physical copy you've got in your hand."

Interesting. The idea of having an app which appears to tell you that HMV's pricing policy is all over the place. Not entirely sure how advertising that your digital downloads are overpriced is really going to help, but you can't fault the honesty.

Still, Coughlan is at least dedicated to the idea of digital music. Isn't he?

Coughlan still believes that nothing really compares to holding a physical record

Oh.

But... he can at least tolerate the digital world, presumably?

"I fully support streaming and I think what it's done for the music business has been good. It's certainly ticked the box for the labels in being seen to act on what was going on over the last ten years with the likes of Napster and illegal downloads and doing their own education with the youth audience as to actually there is a value to music."

I'm not sure that sentence actually contained proper thoughts, so it'd probably be churlish to point out that Napster - the illegal version - closed down well over ten years ago. And that, arguably, streaming has done far more to undermine the traditional music business model by replacing the sense that music is a thing you collect and own than filesharing ever did.

Wired does praise something Coughlan has managed to arrange:

HMV has also managed to strike a deal with Apple that lets users download songs from the app straight into their iPhone's music library -- a first for a service other than iTunes.

Brilliant, right?

Except, almost as soon as the app launched last week, it vanished from the iTunes store. It turned out that if there was a deal with Apple, it fell apart pretty quickly:

Apple confirmed to The Guardian that the app was removed for "violating App Store guidelines", pointing to clause 11.13 in those guidelines: "Apps using IAP to purchase physical goods or goods and services used outside of the application will be rejected".

Early days for the fightback, though. And HMV does still have some stores on the High Street. Apple can't take that away from them.

Although a couple of the shops might be well placed for flogging iPhones from...

Bjork falls short

Bjork was looking to raise £375,000 from her fans through Kickstarter, in order to port the Bioplhilia app to Android and Windows 8.

In a handwritten note, Bjork told fans:

I feel I cannot leave this project before this has been done since this seems to be the area where it can bloom most

It's not going to bloom now, as the campaign has been dropped a third of the way through, with only £15,370 promised.

There's no explanation of why the campaign has been ended, although the slow take-up would seem to be the most likely reason.

There was an educational programme connected with the app, and much of the Kickstarter plea focused on this - but it doesn't disguise the fact that the fabulously wealthy Bjork was seeking other people to fund the porting of an app which retails for thirteen dollars in the iTunes store. While the education programme might be not-for-profit, there's no suggestion that the Kickstarter project is funding a not-for-profit scheme.

The Biophilia educational website is also a little strange - without wanting to impugn either its motivation or value, if this is a "not for profit" scheme, there's nothing on the website which underpins this status - no charity number, no non-profit pledge. And there's not very much detail on who the organisation is. While the app and how it can be used educationally is explored through a series of videos, there's not very much on the 'who are you'.

Yes, you might give to a Kickstarter to get a signed photo or an exclusive t-shirt, but if what's being sold is that you're helping out a not-for-profit educational organisation, you'd be looking for a bit more explanation of how your money actually supports that aim, surely?

Of course, it might just be that she's paused the appeal in order to add porting to the Blackberry Z10.

Gordon in the morning: How are the app sales going, Gordon?

It's not clear how sales of the Bizarre app - it's a monthly subscription - are going, but the competition to win some sort of meeting with JLS suggests a desperate bid to drive take-up.

Still, lovely to see a bit of salesmanship from Gordon:

The Bizarre application is FREE for the first 30 days of subscription and £1.19 per month after that.

It is available for iPhone and Android handsets, which are sold in all good mobile phone retailers across the UK.

Does he really think people are going to be going "blimey, that sounds so good I might go and buy a three hundred quid phone just to get that app... if only I knew where I could find such a thing..."?

Gordon in the morning: Science with the Professor

Given that apps have been around for ages now, you'd have thought that the Sun would have just launched its Bizarre app and started to build its audience. Instead, for some reason, it's dragging out the launch like it's a new album from U2. I'm surprised we didn't have an announcement of the name day as part of the process.

Today, then, there's an essential awkward photo promoting the thing:

Clearly, because he has Professor in his name, Professor Green is some sort of expert in mobile telephone applications, right?

PROFESSOR GREEN is one of the first famous faces to test-drive the new Bizarre app - and he was impressed with what he saw.

... although, for some reason, Gordon runs a picture of him looking confused. I'm imagining Green is asking 'why are you showing me an iPhone? Can't you show me the app itself?"

Gordon in The Matrix: Bizarre goes mobile

Bless Gordon Smart - never one to overstate things:

TODAY I'm announcing the Bizarre App - the most exciting innovation in showbiz news since this column was launched.

Yes, Gordon wants to be popping into your pocket and is very excited.

To be fair, there hasn't been very much exciting innovation demonstrated by Bizarre since the column launched - although we did enjoy the Newton-era innovation of managing to libel people simply by publishing Robbie Williams song lyrics. Interesting that Smart doesn't feel the video sessions were more important for the site than what is, basically, just a different way of accessing the same content.

And wasn't the daily programme on SunTalk exciting for Gordon? Until the whole station was axed as an expensive flop, of course?

He hasn't got Atari Teenage Riot on his Apple iPod...

Missed this during the election week: Apple have apparently turned down an Atari Teenage Riot app lest it be used to create riots. Alongside the songs there was sounds of an actual riot, which, apparently, could be bad:

According to a press release, those sounds include "very low sub basses, square waves, noise sounds which trigger hysteria and panic within the audience." So your iPhone could make a whole lot of people very uncomfortable, if hooked up to big speakers-- which ATR encourages, via press release.

It's not that Apple are worried about the social implications, but 'making a horrible noise which gives people the willies' is covered by a patent that Justin Beiber holds.

Music Week reflects readership's misunderstanding of online pricing

Music Week has launched an iPhone app, inviting you to tap into its music industry reporting wherever you happen to be. And how much does it want for this?

£9.99.

Well, that's a little heavy - a tenner for a single newspaper app, but it is working in a specialist sector, and times are hard, and I guess ten pounds is just about fair... what? What's that you're saying, Gordon Macmillan?

The £9.99 price gives readers access to the music trade title's content for 30 days. Then it is time to renew.

One hundred and twenty pounds a year?

Sure, they're writing for people working in an industry which is desperate to believe that the price of what they sell online should go up, rather than down, but even hardened music executives might spot that this is chronically overpriced.

The Spectator is pushing it, but at least they only try to shake you down for £2.39. Maybe - in the same way record companies have forgotten they don't need to charge for pressing, distribution and warehousing with online deals - Music Week has forgotten to pass the savings in newsprint and ink and vans and retail mark-up onto the consumer.

[via @simonth]

We comes to i

New Media Age is reporting that We7 is about to launch an iPhone client:

Before the end of the year, We7 will offer listeners the option to pay a monthly subscription in return for receiving ad-free streams as well as mobile access via an iPhone app, mirroring Spotify’s premium offering.

So, in other words, you'll have to cough up to get the iPhone streaming, but at least you won't have the ads.

Incidentally, how much must O2 be delighted its all-you-can-eat data plans for the iPhone are going to be put to such use?

NMA also says this:

The ad-funded streaming model is thought to be a strong contender for fighting piracy, with 95% of all digital music estimated to have been shared illegally.

What does that actually mean? It would be nice if there was a source for this high-sounding estimate, at least as a start, but since "digital music" includes stuff encoded on CDs, and paid-for, and legitimately streamed and legally shared tracks, and music on digital relays of radio programmes and instances where the music has been licensed in reverse, and people who've recorded their own works and works in progress in the studio, the entire paragraph seems to be an enormous nonsense.

Spotify opportunity: iTunes app

This, then, might finally drive some business to Spotify's premium sign-up page: The much-rumoured Spotify iPhone app. Premium users only need apply.

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]

Aiden wants to be treated like Nine Inch Nails

Apple's wobble and revision when faced with the Nine Inch Nails iPhone app has now knocked on into being a question of moral relevance, with Aiden demanding to know why, if the NIN app is fine, theirs is being blocked:

What can I really say that Trent Reznor hasn't? "I want to fuck you like an animal?" Oh wait, he said that. "I am a big man and I have a big gun. Got me a big ol’ dick and I like to have fun, held it against your forehead, I'll make you suck it, maybe I'll put a hole in your head, you know, just for the fuck of it." Yeah, he said that, too, all on a record called The Downward Spiral. I have purchased that album five times in my life. I first got it on Cassette when it came out in 1994, I bought it a couple of times on CD and last year I purchased it on iTunes right after I went out and picked up the vinyl. Why? Because it's a great fucking record.

I don't want to go on the same rant as him, although I probably share the exact same feelings.

So what if a crappy punk band from Seattle sings about the deception of religion as a whole? So what if they sing about Catholic priests molesting little boys? Who really cares at all if they wail about a Hungarian Countess that was born in the 1500's and killed over 600 women? Who Cares? The PMRC? Ted Haggard? Congress? Jesus? Oh wait, no… JESUS ISN’T FUCKING REAL.

Yes, maybe we talked a little bit of shit while doing the commentary for the iPhone app about Christianity, about sex and about... Fuck I can't even remember because it's so fucking insignificant. Why don't you be a little clearer in what it was that we need to watch out for? Oh wait... I thought I lived in America where my freedom of speech right was protected by the constitution?

That's right, I forgot. I actually live in Hell. Oops. Remind me to tell someone I have a complaint to submit in the box on the wall.

Aside from the content issue, the app was also rejected because you want to "protect" the value of the iTunes store and having an app with embedded content "competes" with what is ultimately your monopoly. Ironic and hypocritical, no, since Apple owns both channels?

I just want to say thank you Apple for not approving our iPhone app. Thank you so much. To celebrate this great occasion, I'm going to visit your iTunes Music Store and download The Slim Shady LP; I really want to hear that song he sings about killing his wife and dumping her body in the ocean. Awesome!!!

William Control / AIDEN

PS: Any by the way, we have sold over 325,000 albums so far in our career without widespread mainstream media exposure. So, we must be relevant to someone.

There's a point in there somewhere, although it's a little bit lost in the pointless detailing of how many records the band have sold, and the somewhat overwrought writing of the complaint. I guess that's only to be expected, given the band, though.

Nails hammer Apple

To be frank, ranked in the list of Apple embarrassments, the Nine Inch Nails u-turn won't really make the top ten (it's no Newton) but the decision to restore Nine Inch Nails' app to the app store is quite important. It suggests that Apple have managed to get back a bit of perspective after the wobble post-baby shaker.

Curiously, Cupertino have nothing to say about the change of heart:

Apple have refused to explain their change of heart, saying: "It's not something we comment on."

- but they were happy enough to comment on the time they reversed their decision and did ban baby shaker. So, still a small problem with consistency, there.

Apple pulls Nails

The Nine Inch Nails iPhone app was something a triumph for everyone involved - it showed Apple's mobile platform was capable of sexy, alluring, grown-up uses; it gave Trent Reznor reach into a different market. It was wonderful.

Was. Apple have now yanked it because of 'offensive content'. Presumably, in the same way that post-Brand, the BBC have gone compliance crazy, having had its reputation tarnished by the baby shaking monstrosity, Apple are now hitting the delete button as soon as anything that would upset the faintest of maiden aunts is discovered.

BPI charts company tries surprising 'pay to buy' model

Just making its debut on the iTunes app store is a little application from the Official Chart Company which lets you look at the charts. Music Ally is surprised:

But hang on, any savvy iPhone user can simply visit the Radio 1 website every Sunday and get that info...

Ah, but there is a unique selling point:

Well, the OCC is hoping its app’s extra features will make it tempting, with the ability to preview and buy tracks on the iTunes Store, stream videos for some tracks from YouTube, browse that week’s new releases, and click through to artist websites.

Aha - so it's a useful tool to allow people to move from grazing the charts onto buying the music. That's quite savvy. Giving away a nice shiny app to play with charts in the hope of making some sales. Good wo... hang about, what's this?

It costs £1.79 to download the app, although...

Although you get your money back? It's free if you're in the UK? That comes with a free iTunes purchase?

although this will soon rise to £2.99.

Oh. So you want me to give you three quid for a device to sell music to me? You know what else lets me click through to artist websites? Google. You know what that costs me? Nothing.