It's a generational thing. The moment someone thought up the term '3G', we were in trouble. We started calling GSM 2G and everyone with a new technology started calling it 4G. But it gets worse, as we'll soon find out. But first, proof at last that the music industry can adapt its business model if it wants too and still make money (rather than moaning and wasting millions of dollars in lawyers fees).
'You Little Thief' was a number one for our favourite troubadour turned city gent, Feargal Sharkey, and indeed it sums up the attitude of most of the mighty music industry towards downloaders. But there are musicians out there for whom the music is everything, and are not afraid to change the game plan. So congratulations to Radiohead and their publishers Warner Chappell Music. Last week they finally revealed details of 'In Rainbows' album download licensing experiment.
The Music Ally blog reported that Warner Chappell’s Head of Business Affairs Jane Dyball said that the digital publishing income from the first licence (for the Radiohead pay what you want site) alone dwarfed all the band’s previous digital publishing income and made a “material difference” to Warner Chappell UK’s digital income.
The topline figure, though, is that there were three million purchases of In Rainbows, including physical CDs, box-sets, and all downloads - including those from the band’s own website and from other digital music stores. That’s an incredible number, given that their previous three albums sold in the low hundreds of thousands.
• After being made available for free for 3 months the album was no.1 in the UK and in the US
• The physical CD has sold 1.75 million to date and is still top 200 UK & US
• They sold 100k boxsets via W.A.S.T.E.
• Nearing 17 million plays on last.fm
• 1.2 million fans will see the tour
• The digital income from the experiment made a material difference to WCM’s UK digital revenue this year
More insightful comment from the Techdirt website:
Radiohead has been notoriously quiet about it -- leading some to falsely assume that the experiment was a failure. CNN even called it one of the dumbest moments in business last year. That seemed ridiculous on its face, as it was quite clear that the experiment was a huge success for Radiohead, even if the band was quiet about the numbers. Some will point out that this experiment isn't very representative, because Radiohead got a huge boost by being the first high profile band to do this. And that's absolutely true. But that doesn't mean the business model doesn't work at a more reasonable level. Obviously, Radiohead got a big boost from doing something unique and different, but that just gives other bands reasons to look at not just copying Radiohead, but adding more unique offerings themselves. That's how business models innovate, by trying out new stuff and trying to attract attention. Unfortunately, though, we still have big record labels who think business model innovation is having Congress protect your old business model.
Has The Register spied the world's first' WiMax mobile phone? It thinks so, having spotted some photos of a new HTC handset on the web:
Picture of the handset, said to be called the HTC T829, have leaked out and, unless some good-quality Photoshop trickery’s involved, a series of pictures online show the device connected to a wireless network at 13.8Mb/s. This is a wireless speed that far surpasses the connection capabilities of HSDPA 3G, which top out at no more than 7.2Mb/s. Various icons on the mysterious HTC device also appear to show it connected to a network called Yota, Russia’s 802.16 WiMax network that – as of early October – covered central Moscow.
WiMAX, of course, is one of those technologies that certain dumbos insist on calling 4G, when it most plainly is not. But it is a newer technology than 3G, so why not call it 4G? And hence we get to the heart of the problem; by promoting a generational series of evolving mobile technology, we invite confusion and misdirection. Brough Turner on the NMS Communications blog writes that the GSM Association has flunked 'Branding 101':
If the GSM vendor community had to sell to consumers or enterprise IT directors, they would fall flat on their faces, because neither the GSM vendors nor the GSM Association (GSMA) have any concept of branding! Today's email brought the GSMA's newsletter, Mobile Brandband Weekly Update. Although the newsletter ends with this statement: "Copyright 2008 GSM Association. GSM and the GSM Logo are registered and owned by the GSM", neither the term 'GSM' nor the GSM Logo are used anywhere in this newsletter!
He adds that there are 13 news items, all about 3GSM technology, but that the acronyms GSM and 3GSM never appear. However, HSDPA appears 7 times, HSUPA 4 times, HSPA 6 times, together with EDGE, HSPA Evolved and LTE... He adds:
'3GSM' is a good way to talk about 3rd generation GSM, but why actively promote the use of: UMTS, W-CDMA, HSDPA, HSUPA, HSPA, HSPA+, LTE and so on, without also saying GSM or 3GSM? This is massively confusing. What are they thinking? By comparison, consider the brand recognition achieved by the WiFi Alliance. People may mention 802.11b, a, g or even n, but they always do so in the connection with the name WiFi.
» This story continues on page 2. Please click here to read
please sign in to rate this article
44012