Music file sharing on the up and up

Damien Saunders says -research shows continued growth in file-sharing and downloading of mp3s is now common place. This survey supports the view that prosecuting the mass population is not the right approach by the labels and rights associations.

British Music Rights research shows that file-sharing is done by a large number of people and even more are downloading music.

Music week reports these findings:

42% of those surveyed say they have uploaded files.

63% of people illegally download

48% of tracks on the average MP3 player are not paid for

just 15% of respondents are persuaded not to upload because of the risk of getting caught

95% engage in some form of copying

Source: http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1034563&c=1

Soonr: Your mobile PC application

Up until now getting access to documents, music files or photos or your calendar when you are away from your office or home PC has been limited to a mess of cables, WIFI or datacards. SoonR seems to have hit the nail on the head, with a smooth interface and more features than you can throw a dog at.

While not all the word is as mass mobile as I am, and it could be a long way before many want this service, which Soonr has solved already …

Want to transfer music to your phone from your home pc? Soonr can Transfer pictures? or any file you want … Soonr can do that too

Want to check your outlook calendar at work? or book that meeting with your boss … Soonr can … or read that email you missed before you shut down … yes Soonr can.

And want to check this from your Mobile or from any ol PC? Soonr can … and you have complete control of what files are shared and accessible by you … or you can setup a shared folder for this.

I guess there are many reasons I like this - from the web2.0 styling to the speed in which it was setup. I was up and running in 2 mins - after it asked for my proxy settings on the office firewall … and took no time at all to install on my home PC. Now the little server client is loaded all the time.

So what about the competition - having checked out whats out there, I tried using the client from http://www.orb.com … which according to the blurb lets you watch tv from your phone … groan … why would you want to do that?? when I have a great 3G phone already? Oh and you need a TV Card in your home PC. Put to the test, it failed - when I discovered that you can’t set the web proxy so the server app couldn’t get outside the office network. From my home PC with its tangle of wi-fi, routers with ’solid’ firewalls and NATing I didn’t even try to set it up. Scared off by the first experience.

What I’m convinced is a good feature on Orb is the integrated streaming app - so you can listen to music on your home PC without downloading the full thing to your phone - saves you data and starts playing quicker than a download. If Soonr doesn’t do this soon (sorry for the crap english) then it will do it some time because its users are already requesting this.

Soonr just seems downright friendly, in a Flickr or any web2.0 softwar without the letter ‘e’ seems right. Put to the test, I emailed orb support to find out what I had to do to amend the proxy settings - contact my IT helpdesk and get them to open a port on the firewall … now why would I want that??

Operators to face Adult Content Restrictions

The Australian communications minister Helen Coonan plans to introduce to parliament legislation to extend the current safeguards that apply to content delivered over the internet or television to content delivered over convergent devices such as mobile phones.

This will include prohibition of content rated X18+ and above, as well as requirements for consumer advice and age-restrictions on access to content suited only to adults. This has impact across the board as for most people the internet is seen to be ‘open’ and attempts to block porn are like trying to plug holes in a leaking dam. Operators have also argued they should be treated like ISP’s and can’t be held responsible for what customers do with their phones

Advertising on your mobile

Summary: We still have a long way to go to accept adverts on your mobile. While Europeans have said yes to Mobile TV and no to paid for advertising, the US is talking up one-second adverts called 'Blinks'.

Clear Communications is talking to media buyers and agenices about blinks - one-second adverts that allow just enought time to recognise the brand by its gingle. You can imagine that two syllable Danone  or perhaps the McDonalds 'I'm Loving it' … or maybe you'll hear someone shout out 'Drink Pepsi' in a sudden and startling manner.

"You can't use a one-second campaign for something that generally has not been advertised before." says Jim Gaither, director-broadcast at Richards Group. But if 3-4 second ads work on Radio - could a one second image/jingle work on your mobile?

European mobile customers are interested in mobile TV and video calling, but are not interested in receiving advertisements on their mobiles, says a study released by Portio Research.  Advertising was considered particularly unacceptable if it intruded on paid-for time while watching mobile TV. 

This has big implications for all the operators and broadcasters who want to get a slice of the annual global advertising spend. Right now including ads while someone is watching live streaming TV is both questionable and difficult to control - with operators sometimes stuck with a choice of blank screens or showing the ads to their customers. Impressions are high right now, and a customer will turn off TV if its showing nothing.

Some standard has to be set for signalling breaks in adverts to the streaming servers so that they can push a 4, 30, or 60 second advert during a channel break. Operators may need to offer two styles of advertising depending on the markets - uninteruppted shows with 5min ad breaks or 2mins of ads every 15 mins. 

Some thoughts on the BBC Creative Future

So the BBC have released their Creative Futures report yesterday looking at the future of the Beeb. While it will take some time to digest and come to comprehend what this means to our viewing and reading habits, take a minute to think about how this impacts our industry??

1. All content made '''FREELY''' available on a website starting today going back to 1937

and other recommendations include:

• Relaunching the BBC's website to include more personalisation, richer audio-visual and user generated content

• Create a new teen brand delivered via existing broadband, TV and radio services, including a new long-running drama and comedy, factual and music content

• Create easy access points for audiences via broadband portals around key content areas like Sport, Music, Knowledge Building, Health and Science

• Start commissioning more 360 degree cross-platform content

• Shift energy and resource into '''continuous news on TV, radio, broadband and mobile''', making News 24 the centre of the TV offering, moving talent to it and breaking stories on it

• Improve the quality of Sports and Entertainment journalism and appoint a specialist Sports Editor

• Create one single, pan-platform BBC Music Strategy and develop big events like this Autumn's first BBC Electric Proms as well as more personalisation enabling people to create the equivalent of their own radio station

• Take entertainment seriously, learn from the world of video games and experiment with commissioning for new platforms

• In Drama – create fewer titles with longer runs, find creative space for outstanding writers and cherish the programmes audience love best like EastEnders, Casualty and Holby City

• In Comedy – improve the creative pipeline across all platforms, pilot more shows, find new talent and build the big hits for BBC ONE

• Give sharper age targets to the CBeebies and CBBC brands and integrate all children's content – including online and radio - under these brands

• Pilot a Knowledge Building online project called Eyewitness – History enabling people to record and share their memories and experiences of any day over the last 100 years

Press Release: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2006/04_april/25/creative.shtml

Gmail for your mobile

Google has created a special version of its Gmail e-mail service that provides mobile phone users with quick access to their e-mail. Point your mobile to http://m.gmail.com.

The service allows you to view attached files such as images or download documents if supported by your handset.

What’s the problem with depth of catalogue?

It's like trying to sell ice creams to eskimos - do you go for depth and variety of your content catalogue or stick to the sickly seasonal or monthly favourites … you can be damned either way.

What I'm thinking is that most mobile content sales via WAP are dominated by the operator portals, but you invariably find that top downloads page will have the Star Wars March, Axel F and something from Guns n Roses (AC/DC). It's a nightmare … we focus on getting customers access to the best stuff, we focus on improving search and still all they want is Wham - Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart.

I think there is a way around this, the back catalogue is needed to give depth and presence (oh and to make us feel proud that we can select from a possible catalogue of 500,000+ FTMD or Realtones, Videotones, etc), but do we need the Top Download chart to be only 1 click away? Keep the top charts list (like all good record stores), keep the new entries list, but please kill the downloads chart.

But if you want to keep that top download page then you don’t need a deep catalogue, stop and focus on What’s Hot and What’s New. Let other content providers bring their catalogue to market (via your portal or offnet) … what’s it going to be ???

All Operators are looking at their off portal strategy - H3GUK tries to bring focus on one with their Mobile Sites and other operators are looking at how to enable micro payments (other than reverse / premium SMS).

Think about it … kill the download chart or keep the content?

RSS to SMS for your mobile

Think about this carefully - any RSS stream sent free to your mobile by SMS … you’ve got your blackberry, you’ve got your live news alerts and weekly MMS updates - but who tells you about that other stuff you’re really really interested in? Talk about giving away the baby and the bath water - but maybe this is just a crazy idea with some sense behind it.

As part of an update to its alerts feature, Yahoo added a feature that allows users to get RSS results via SMS. The free service will send a message to your phone with every new item posted to an RSS feed.

The feature works with any RSS feed, but is likely most useful for feeds used to connect small groups of people (group projects, clubs, etc) where volume will be lower than on a news site. Since normal text messaging fees apply (though there is no fee from Yahoo) make sure to use this feature wisely.

Source Russell Beattie

Mobile Blogging Reduces Churn

MocoNews.net: mobile content news: "Mobile Blogging generates an immediate reduction of up to 70% in the propensity of a user to churn."

Results of a 12-month survey of two million subscribers on four operators which were using NewBay's Software FoneBlog mobile blogging and multimedia album solution have been released.

According to NewBay the result comes from increased loyalty - based on personal content on the moblog. What is obvious here is if you have personal content and you can't move/download it simply, then there is a barrier to change.

Services such as flickr and myspaces will in the long term prove more popular due to the many and varied options (not just mobloging) for managing personal content.

US findings from Content Survey

interesting global research on mobile phones from a US university.

57% of all users say they're willing to spend no more than $5 per month on mobile data services — including text messages, and the most important factor in choosing a mobile service is cheap voice calls. That's backed up by another piece of research this week that says it's cheap voice plans, not fast data driving 3G.

More than a third of users worldwide have cameraphones, up from 21% last year, and 59% have color screens, up from 44%. The cameraphone figures aren't surprising — there was a research report out last Friday that said two-thirds of all phones sold this year would have cameras.