December 13, 2006

Some of Zune's features -- namely the ability to share files wirelessly -- have drawn converts from the iPod. Brian Timm, 17, a high-school student in Northville, Mich., sold his 30-gigabyte video iPod and preordered the Zune last month, so that he and his friends who also bought Zunes could more easily swap their favorite heavy-metal tunes. Sharing music was a hassle with an iPod, Mr. Timm says. "Other than give you one of my headphones, I can't do anything."

Zune has also attracted some disgruntled iPod users. Taylor Krebs, 17, a high-school student in Albuquerque, N.M., bought a Zune player last month after her iPod mini died in October. She says she had lost hundreds of songs that she had deleted from her iTunes library but had kept on her iPod. The Zune caught her eye because of its FM tuner, says Ms. Krebs.

December 11, 2006

Nexhit Phase One: The first phase of Nexhit is a subscription-based digital music service that specializes in independent music. You won't find much (if any) major label stuff here . . . we're seeking to level the playing field in the music industry, if not tilt it in favor of the independent labels and musicians. We aim to accomplish this by offering the largest catalog of independent music on the internet and by eventually offering artists the highest payouts in the industry.

Phase one is a subscription-based model where users pay between $7-10 per month for full access to our music catalog. Once you become a member, you have unlimited access to the Nexhit system - this means you can download all of the music that you want, and you get to keep it . . . forever. No strings attached.

We are estimating an initial offering of somewhere in the neighborhood of 500,000 to 1 million songs when we launch later this year. That's a ton of music!

December 07, 2006

December 06, 2006

I work in a big box CD store, and can tell you that the posted Billboard chart may be illusory. All the Black Friday hype notwithstanding, this year the sudden burst of buying is late. Our Christmas CD sales went from near zero to a significant chunk very abruptly on the evening of Friday, December 1st, and are accelerating. While in previous years the beginning of the Christmas madness got earlier and earlier, starting on about October 15 last year, it's still just coming into existence now. Assuming that everyone is procrastinating for whatever reason (perhaps because the winter weather hasn't yet hit at all where we are), these next three weeks are going to be retail hell.

"Some people swear there's a self-destruct mechanism in it after the warranty is up," says Matthew Bremner, a founder of iRepair.ca, an iPod fix-it service with a store in Toronto and on the Internet. "For a small device that's that expensive it probably should last a little longer."

Blue Note General Manager Zach Hochkeppel called the initiative "an experiment," adding that he doesn't believe it will cut into sales of Ms. Jones's forthcoming album, also called "Thinking About You," which is due out Jan. 30. That's because even if early copies of the song end up widely copied among friends or online, Ms. Jones's mostly adult fan base is thought to be less likely than teenage pop fans to be satisfied with just one song from the album and thus willing to buy the entire album even if they have gotten one song free.

December 05, 2006

December 04, 2006