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Ask a politician and they’ll tell you, consistency in policy and staying on point is essential. Stick to the Message.  If you flip flop from pro to con, then con to pro, credibility will disappear.  Without credibility, there’s little trust.  Without trust there’s won’t be a favorable vote.    In retail, similar maxims apply.  There’s the famous “the customer is always right.” There’s also the old “K.I.S.S.” principle: “keep it simple.”  You can confuse your customer with too many changes, or too many choices.  That’s bad marketing.  Better practice is to offer them value, offer them what they ask for; what they want or need.  Do that and they’ll probably purchase your product.  Don’t and the sale is going to be difficult to close.   

Lately, it seems more and more like Sony (especially the gaming division) has gotten off point, or keeps forgetting the message.  Since launching the PS3 gaming platform in November 2006, they’ve made multiple marketing mistakes and repeatedly juggled their lineup and pricing models to adjust.  I can recall at least three changes in the console’s first year on the market.  Now they’re at it again.

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Last week, news that Sony BMG would soon drop DRM encryption from their music library leaked but details were scarce.   The company confirmed Monday the reports were accurate – more or less. It’s the “less” part that will cause some confusion.

Sony BMG will in fact begin selling unrestricted music January 15th.  The method, however, won’t be as expected (at least initially). It might not make a lot of sense either. Instead of partnering with online music stores and offering their catalog in the portable unencrypted format, Sony BMG has opted to start their DRM-Free experiment by throwing their support behind traditional brick and mortar retailers: the bellwether’s of the labels’ past successes (Only  about 10% of music sold in 2007 was online digital music). 

Sony’s BMG has also opted to support only full album sales and not the more common online practice of ala carte singles with this first foray.

The new service is called the Platinum Music Pass.  It is built around a gift card Click to Read More

It falls short of formal collusion but the world’s big four music labels tend to move in a herd.  Where one tentatively steps, the others follow if the ground proves solid.  Where two go, the rest stampede.  In the digital rights management (DRM) debate, EMI was the first to choose a new path.   Last week, Warner Music was the third to withdraw from a staunch DRM Stance.  Now, Business Week is reporting Sony BMG is on the verge of dropping the copyright encryption programs too.

According to the Business Week report, which sites the famously vague “sources familiar with the matter,” Sony BMG will sell digital music free of burdensome copyright encryption at some point during the first quarter of this year.  The expectation is the DRM-Free music may even appear as early as February.  That would allow Sony BMG to participate in a massive music give-away promotion Pepsi is running for the Super Bowl.

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The music industry’s iron-clad grip on digital rights management (DRM) encryption is starting to loosen.  Today, Warner Music Group announced they will follow the path blazed by EMI, and then adopted by Universal Music.  Effective immediately, they’ll sell their music DRM-Free through certain retailers (e.g. Amazon and not iTunes).

For the better part of the past few years, the Big 4 music labels, which represent the majority of music sold at retail, have embraced a digital encryption strategy for the sale of their music online.   Up until last year, Click to Read More

Just a few weeks ago, hybrid Internet music service Slacker was riding high.  After months of talk, their much anticipated portable was finally ramping up for distribution.  Aimed at making portable music convenient, buzz was building. On their website, they were taking orders.  Shipment of the WiFi enabled net radio device was targeted for December 13.  About a week ago, that quietly changed.  

On December 6th,  popular Wall Street Journal tech writer, Walt Mossberg, published a review after testing two prototypes of the Slacker player.  He noted that while sound was good and the WiFi link worked, his two prototype test units were “hobbled by bugs and glitches.”   One unit often failed to connect to his account.  Both sometimes failed to wake up after going to sleep.

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It’s four in a row for imeem.  After settling a lawsuit signing a deal with Warner Music Group in July, the social music site has won over the rest of the Big 4 music labels. Sony BMG signed up in late September.  EMI inked paper at the end of October.  Now Universal Music Group has crossed over too.

Imeem is a free social networking service built around streaming digital music.  Unlike most music sites which build a library of content to then offer to their users, imeem works partly in the reverse.  Subscribers can upload music which is, in  turn, added to the catalog.  As a member of the site, you can create playlists, upload music, or listen to streams of music already in the catalog.  Members can also use embeddable code to add the stream of a chosen song to a blog posting or a personal webpage (including profiles on some social networks).

The hook for imeem is the songs are not available for download.  To hear the music, or watch equivalent video content, you must access it as a digital stream, either on the imeem site, or through embedded code elsewhere.  Click to Read More

Slacker’s a relatively old word.  It’s been around since at least the 1890’s and had a variety of meanings, most negative in tone.  San Diego based Slacker, a technology company of the same name, is focused on music distribution and hoping to give the word new life and new meaning; something traversing from lazy and laissez faire to easy to use and can’t live without.  Their biggest test is almost here. 

Though recent fanfare and marketing has been limited, on December 13, barely in time for the holidays, Slacker will ship their portable music player. 

The device is modern and slick in appearance.  With a four inch diagonal screen, on-board WiFi and a ten hour battery life, it might be mistaken as another iPod competitor.  It’s not, at least directly.  Slacker’s aiming for something altogether different.   Instead of targeting Apple head on, they’re competing for the same purchasing dollars but going after the radio market, trying to be Radio 2.0. 

The brainchild of three former music company executives, Slacker, the company, launched commercially last March with high hopes for changing music distribution.   Their concept was built around integrating three music delivery channels into a single interconnected product line.

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