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The music industry is suffering.  Failures and mistakes ascending into the digital age have led to seven straight years of declining sales.  But when music industry luminaries talk about the need for new business models, it’s hard to believe they imagined one option would be setting out a tip jar. That, however, is more or less, exactly what one of the most critically lauded and influential bands of the past decade has decided to do.

Radiohead,  the British band that gained global fame in the late 90’s, announced today that they will offer a full digital cut of their 7th studio album on their website for whatever price listeners feel like paying.  They’ll become the Priceline of the music industry.

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It seems the only way for the music industry to break Apple’s iTunes monopoly is to sell music in a truly universal format; something that plays on all players.  That’s exactly what Amazon has been planning to do.  And now, after months of seesawing and an extended private beta test, Amazon is live with a public beta of a digital download store called Amazon MP3.

The store features more than 2,000,000 song titles, 180,000 artists and no digital rights management technology.  At most, the only addition to the music will be a discrete watermark that identifies music was purchased at Amazon. 

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Vivendi, owner of Universal Music, has been complaining Apple’s share of digital music revenue is too high.  They’ve canceled their long term contract with iTunes and threatened to walk for good.  But for all the posturing is there anywhere for them to walk to?  It’s starting to look like there isn’t, like there’s only one game in town.  Apple controls more than 70 percent of the digital music market and one by one competitor’s, handcuffed by the record labels insistence on requiring copyright protections that won’t play on iPods, are dropping out.

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So far, web music company Slacker has been living up to its name. Launched in March to high fanfare, and resurfacing again in June with the close of a $40m financing, not much has been heard from them since.  That may soon change.

The company founded by three former CEO’s has been ambitiously trying to marry three  musical delivery channels into a single product.  Part 1 is a Internet radio station that features personalized music streaming similar  Pandora or Last.fm (bought by CBS).  Part 2 is a desktop music management application that marries the personalized radio services with a customer’s own music files – kind of like taking iTunes and giving it radio functionality.  Part 3,  which was scheduled for a summer a release that has not happened,  is a small portable player (like an iPod)  that will sync with the software to update music wirelessly via WiFi.  The player also promises the unique ability to download new tracks via satellite through an accessory car kit.  This satellite feature, which is able to work around the Sirius/XM monopoly by using proprietary technology to move data on unused commercial satellite signals, is truly unique.

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In digital music retail there is Apple in one corner and then there is everybody else.  Apple’s iTunes store accounts for approximately seventy percent of the market.  The runner up, eMusic, has less than ten percent. This week eMusic’s hoping to get a few more customers, especially from older demographics, with the introduction of audiobook downloads starting Tuesday.

eMusic’s book formula will follow the same recipe the company has used for songs.  The books will be sold via subscription in an unrestricted MP3 format (e.g. free of digital rights management encryption) at lower than average prices per title.   The absence of DRM technology will insure their offerings Click to Read More

It’s official. Steve Jobs has taken the stage. He has spoken his gospel. He has pulled back the curtain.  The revelation, the result, the much anticipated Apple announcement:  new iPods.   

As anticipated, and largely predicted (see yesterday’s odds-making) Apple unveiled a reworked iPod product line. They also announced a mobile ring tone store at iTunes and price cuts for the iPhone.

The Nano, long waiting to be re-envisioned, got its makeover.  Leaked pictures of a boxier, wider screened model proved accurate. Click to Read More

Joining a growing pool of “Content recommendation” or “content discovery” services, MyStrands, a music discovery service founded in 2003, today revealed their latest development: a free online music video service MyStrands.TV.

Similar to music services like Last.Fm (acquired by CBS), or newer entrant, the Filter, (or MyStrands own music tools), but geared toward music video, the site blends a mix of social networking features like tagging with behavioral tracking (e.g., reviewing the links generated between songs or videos) to generate recommendations.  It also includes a host of tools for the creation of custom groups and pages.

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