☭ marselip0910 叶俊华™

02/25/2010
本週三也就是2010年2月24日，iTunes迎來了第100億次下載！回顧iTunes的歷史，可以找個一些對iTunes來說意義重大的時刻：

2003年4月28日：蘋果正式推出iTunes音樂商店
2003年5月5日：在推出iTunes1周後，其下載量達到了100萬！蘋果CEO Steve Jobs說“在不到一周的時間裡，我們打破了之前所有的記錄，使蘋果變成了全世界最大的音樂公司”
2003年5月14日：歌曲下載量達到200萬
2003年6月23日：歌曲下載量達到500萬
2003年9月8日：歌曲下載量達到1000萬
2003年10月16日：蘋果推出基於Windows作業系統的iTunes並在3天半的時間裡被下載了100萬次
2003年12月15日：歌曲下載量達到2500萬

2004年6月15日：iTunes登陸英國，德國及法國，在歐洲的歌曲下載量在第一周達到了80萬
2004年7月12日：全球歌曲下載量達到1000萬
2004年12月16日：全球歌曲下載量達到2000萬

2005年7月18日：全球歌曲下載量達到5億
2005年8月4日：蘋果最終說服了日本的唱片公司加入iTunes,iTunes進入日本市場並在服務開始後的4天內賣掉了100萬首歌曲

ITunes: Over 10 Billion Songs Served
Apple has passed the 10 billion songs sold mark on iTunes. The 10 billionth song, “Guess Things Happen That Way” by Johnny Cash, was purchased by Louie Sulcer of Woodstock, Georgia.

As the winner of the iTunes Countdown to 10 Billion Songs, Louie will receive a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card. iTunes is the number one music retailer in the world and features the world’s largest music catalog with over 12 million songs. The iTunes Store has a catalog of over 12 million songs, 55,000 TV episodes and over 8,500 movies.



可升級音樂格式MusicDNA誕生 欲取代MP3　　
　　挪威科技公司Bach Technology今天發布了一種新型數字音樂格式“MusicDNA”，相比流行多年、深入人心的MP3可以升級歌詞、封面、演奏時間、視頻等諸多內容，也再次吹響了取代MP3的號角。

　　其實聲稱要取代MP3的音樂格式已經出現了很多，結果都如同蚍蜉撼樹，但是MusicDNA得到了MP3格式之父德國人Karlheinz Brandenburg的支持，還拉上了前索尼音樂CEO丸山茂夫(Shigeo Maruyama)成立的247 Inc.公司。

　　據悉，MusicDNA增加的額外內容會在免費播放軟件播放音樂文件的時候出現，而且在聯網狀態下能夠根據唱片公司、藝術家信息來升級新內容，比如未來演出計劃、社交網絡更新等等。最重要的是，MusicDNA可以向下兼容MP3，現在的各種MP3音樂播放器都能支持MusicDNA，只不過可能無法實現其新特性。

　　Bach Technology表示正在和各大唱片公司談判，目前已經獲得了Beggars Group、Tommy Boy、Delta Records、Amiata Records的支持，還有不少數字音樂零售商和經銷商，諸如中國源泉(R2G)、瑞典InProdicon、德國Rebeat Digital、英國PeoplesMusicStore、美國CatchMedia.

　　Bach Technology計劃與其合作伙伴在今年春天開始MusicDNA格式的Beta測試，夏天全面投入商業運營。

　　蘋果也在不久前推出了自己的音樂加數據文件格式iTunes LP，把音樂文件和音樂視頻MV、藝術家照片、視頻/音頻訪談等附加內容打包在一起，使用iTunes軟件播放。


The Fate of a Format: Will MusicDNA Catch On? 音樂格式的命運,MusicDNA會流行嗎?
2010/2/24
Kyle Bylin (@kbylin), Associate Editor



Twenty-seven and a half years ago, the manufacturing of the world’s first compact disc took place at a Philips factory in Langenhagen, Germany.  Upon its introduction, the CD was marketed to music fans with regards to its superior sound quality and scratch free durability.  But, as time when on, those claims were both highly debated among audiophiles, and, in the case of durability, or “Perfect Sound Forever” as they called it, even refuted completely.  When compared to the record in terms of the trade-off between fidelity and convenience that music fans made when choosing formats, it’s clear that the CD offered up far more convenience than records did at the time.  Their higher portability and capacity to allow effortless skipping between songs gave the CD a definite edge.

In contrast, the record tended to resonate more deeply with music fans for the reason that it offered a considerably higher degree of fidelity.  It has been passionately argued that the record contained more natural sounding music — where the warmness of the instruments and voices hadn’t been lost.  Nor had the much finer nuances — such as background noise, minor mistakes, or even the slightest cough — been removed, adding an essence of human touch and imperfection to the format.  There was this distinctive, yet intangible quality surrounding records — that seemed representative of the culmination of artistry and musicianship that bleed into their production.  Their artwork and liner notes garnered identity not only to the music, but to the music fans themselves who preeminently displayed their vast collections.

Despite the presence of these two subtle components: aura and identity, records were replaced by CDs because their inconvenience trumped their fidelity.  This trade-off would happen again once MP3s became widely available, as their ease of use, in the minds of many people, made up for their sheer lack of quality.  Not to mention the fact that for several critical years they could be downloaded for free at a time when most CDs, regardless of the pricing war that occurred, were still considered a relatively expensive commitment for the fans who only wanted access to a couple radio singles.  Then, iTunes and the social phenomenon of the iPod ignited the penchant for the MP3 over the CD among fans and pushed the format back into what technology writer Kevin Manley calls the fidelity belly.

Almost always, he argues, new technologies start out there, and, at the end of their lifecycle, old ones inevitably fall below this threshold.  Once a product or service possesses so little of either convenience or fidelity that consumers are no longer motivated to act, they have fallen into the fidelity belly — where people are no longer excited about them, because, like CDs, they are no longer perceived as needed nor are they deeply loved by fans.  This is the place that Manley, after nearly two decades of writing about the technology sector, named “the no-man’s-land of consumer experience,” once he observed that products or services that only offered so-so fidelity, and were only somewhat convenient, didn’t catch on.  It’s this problem, he argues, that’s drastically hurting CD sales.

MusicDNA, said to be “the successor to the MP3,” is hoped to amend this disconnect between the desires of fans and the record industry’s current offerings by granting owners of the format access to “additional updated content, including lyrics, artwork, tour dates, blog posts, videos, and Twitter feeds.”  Much like the format advancements made by the CD and MP3, the appeal of MusicDNA is based entirely on higher convenience, seeing as all the content that it seeks to make available to fans already exists online, elsewhere.  The idea is that by only allowing purchased versions of the format to be updated, while pirated versions remain static, fans will feel more encouraged to purchase these songs and curb their file-sharing habits.  But, is locking out “pirates” the right strategy to adopt?

Currently, the record industry is structured around a top-down, highly centralized “push” marketing model — where a few key gatekeepers anticipate the demand for their product in the marketplace and finance the production of music from a small number of artists — based upon what they want to sell to music fans, not on what music fans want to buy.  The problem that arises here — if music fans become unsatisfied not only with the product being distributed, but the means through which it is distributed — is that, in times of change, the highly specified, centralized, and restrictive nature of the record industry, and their push systems, prevent them from adapting.  It prevents them from experimenting, improvising, and learning as quickly as possible about the changes in consumer behavior.

In From Push to Pull, John Seely Brown argues that, “Push systems not only inhibit product innovation but — even more important — make it much harder to implement incremental process innovations rapidly.”  He believes, “The next frontier of innovation will require the broader adoption of pull capabilities as well as less reliance on traditional push systems, which, as demand becomes more and more difficult to forecast, increasingly fail to even deliver the efficiency they were designed to promote.”  Over the course of a decade, the record industry’s “push” marketing model, the CD-Release Complex, has severely weakened.  Once fans migrated to the Internet and began discovering music outside of the mediums that major labels used to promote new music, the record industry began to decline.

“For as long as anybody in the business could remember, labels relied on MTV, radio, and record stores for exposure,” Steve Knopper writes in Appetite for Self-Destruction.  “Push the gatekeepers at those place aggressively enough — in some cases, bribe them — and you’ve got a hit.”  But, the “push” mentality of the record industry could not be extended into the digital realm, because all three of these institutions — that they built themselves on the back of — deteriorated in the face of the societal and technological shifts that the Internet brought forth.  With that, the media landscape fractured into niches and it rendered push marketing nearly impossible.  In its place, what the web, the proliferation of digital technologies, and the rise of the networked audience leads to is "pull" marketing.

“Rather than treating producers as passive consumers whose needs can be anticipated and shaped by centralized decision makers, pull models treat people as networked creators even when they actually are customers purchasing goods and services,” Brown explains.  “Pull platforms harness their participants’ passion, commitment, and desire to learn, thereby creating communities that improvise and innovate rapidly.”  Prior to the Internet, music was pushed out through specific delivery mechanisms like radio and MTV wherein the fans on the other end were regarded as passive participants in the process.  Push marketing was something that you did to fans, but it didn’t involve them.  Today, music fans are actively engaged, have the choice to participate, and are “pulled” in directly.

What’s unique about MusicDNA in this respect and the true opportunity that it embodies is that the format’s updatable nature enables “pull mechanisms” to be built within the music itself, rather than existing outside of it.  All of the media surrounding an artist can be leveraged at the point of interaction with the music to encourage the participation of audiences.  It is in this instance that a commercial culture defined by passivity converges with a participatory culture that promotes activity — where all of the conversations that once occurred in the absence of the music become a vital part of its identity and further evolve it as a social object.  In theory, then, the record industry should want to have as many MusicDNA tracks in circulation as possible, to ensure engaged and well-informed fan bases.

So, by only allowing legitimately purchased MusicDNA tracks to be dynamically updated, while unauthorized versions remain static files, what the  record industry is denying itself the is ability to engage with “pirates,” to use these songs as “pull mechanisms,” and to leverage this additional media as marketing designed to convert them into paying customers.  In denying “pirates” convenient access points to their artists marketing efforts all the record industry ensures by doing this is that these fans will remain as passive consumers of music. When instead they could be cultivated into active participants – those more deeply involved in the career of an artist — who are the most likely to want to buy stuff from them.  Even if in the end what they buy is not digital files, but higher priced rarities.

III.

Making the MusicDNA format widely accessible, low-cost, and dynamically updateable by anyone, of course, is not likely the approach that the record industry will take.  It is intended to be a scarcity in the face of radical abundance – one that is “hoped” to deter piracy and get fans excited about buying music again.  The problem with those claims, though, as author Pip Coburn pointed out in The Change Function, is that, “Sometimes technologists forget just how vast the chasm is between them and real people.”  Further arguing that, “it is real people and not technologists who determine the fate of technologies.”  In that case, what will be a more realistic fate of MusicDNA?  There’s no doubt that it offers convenience, but whether or not is high enough is the big question looming.

Since the MP3 file by default already offers relatively low-fidelity, MusicDNA’s only shot is to be super-convenient, of which digital distribution takes care of in terms of ease of use, but another huge aspect of convenience happens to be cost.  If MusicDNA is more expensive than the standard MP3 by too much than the labels risk putting up a barrier that may leave fans thinking that the added value just isn’t worth the extra cost.  Seeing as most savvy and diehard fans will have taken the effort to seek out the additional content that’s being tied in with MusicDNA, how the format rates in the eyes of casual fans is what matters.  If the appeal isn’t there, it may never leave the fidelity belly, “where neither the convenience nor fidelity is good enough to attract a mass-market audience.”

If that’s the result, a huge opportunity will be lost, and unfortunately, MusicDNA would only serve as an example of how out of touch the record industry is in terms of knowing who their listeners are, let alone knowing what they want.  For far too long, fans have been regarded as passive participants and denied access to the experiences they want, and file-sharers have been ignored and litigated.  When in fact, as William Patry argues, “Copyright owner’s problems are market problems, and they can only be solved by responding to market demands: strong copyright protection cannot make consumers buy things they do not want to buy and, as the RIAA’s ill-conceived, ill-executed, and ill-fated campaign of suing individuals demonstrates, laws cannot stop individuals from file-sharing.”      

This is where the record industry went wrong, in thinking that all “pirates” are created equal and are solely motivated to file-share music because it’s free, not because they are in some way, shape, or form left unsatisfied by the current system.  The means through which fans discover, acquire, and consume have evolved so prominently over the course of the last decade; to the point where it’s hard to imagine that our largely unchanged ecosystem still reflects upon the needs of the fans whose obligation it is to service.  What MusicDNA presents is the chance for the record industry to reach out to file-sharers, engage them with the content surrounding their artists, acquire their e-mails and permission to market, and to finally propose unique propositions and monetize “pirates” as fans.

At present, though, there is no sober reason to think that fans and file-sharers will be motivated to adopt MusicDNA outright, unless the offering is realistically positioned in terms of price and ease of use.  Otherwise, in the fidelity belly it will stay.  In order to avoid this fate, an alternate strategy should be considered: flood the networks.  Make it so file-sharers ought to want MusicDNA — that they go out of their way to ensure they replace their MP3s with it.  Then, activate these files and begin dynamically updating them.  From there on out, connect with pirates and give them reasons to buy.  In 2008 alone, there were 40 billion chances to do just that.  This approach may not ‘save’ the record industry per se, but at least it's better than what they've been doing since the rise of file-sharing.

Additional Reading:
        Trapped In Cognition: The Plight of the Digital Age

        kyledot bylin at gmail dot com

All thinking and writing on the fidelity swap should be rightfully credited to Kevin Manely's fantasic and highly insightful book: Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don't.  If you haven't looked at the interview that's tied to this essay, do so. 

調查稱09年網路音樂購買者減少100萬
02/25/2010

北京時間2月25日上午消息，據國外媒體報導，美國市場研究公司NPD週三發佈的資料顯示，2009年的網路音樂購買者比前一年減少100萬人。

　　NPD高級分析師拉斯•克拉普尼克(Russ Crupnick)表示，減少的用戶多數都是2007年和2008年首次通過網路購買音樂但現在已經對此失去興趣的用戶。但他也表示，使用者對於網路音樂下載服務的熱情仍然非常高，平均每名使用者每年用於購買網路音樂的資金從去年的33美元增加到50美元。

　　克拉普尼克說：“該市場開始走向成熟。如果讓我運營一家唱片公司，我要做的第一件事情就是從卡夫或高露潔那裡挖一名促銷人員。消費者願意看到廠商通過促銷吸引他們嘗試服務。”他表示，通心粉和牙膏都是非常成熟的領域，卡夫和高露潔的行銷人員是這些領域的促銷專家。NPD的研究表明，消費者需要更多的刺激才能夠購買網路音樂。

　　克拉普尼克建議唱片公司將多首歌曲捆綁在一起，以1美元的價格進行促銷。


微軟欲借WP7系統重振數位音樂戰略
02/21/2010
收復失地

　　最近披露的內部郵件顯示，早在6年前，時任微軟CEO的比爾•蓋茨(Bill Gates)就承認，蘋果在數位音樂市場領先微軟，與此同時，他還開始組建團隊收復失地。

　　但迄今為止，微軟的數位音樂戰略仍然主要集中在Zune播放機和Zune Pass註冊服務上。這兩款產品雖然都獲得業界的好評，但用戶卻寥寥無幾。但是借助在巴賽隆納移動世界大會上最新發佈的Windows Phone 7 Series作業系統，微軟希望使處於困境中的數位音樂戰略重振旗鼓。

　　儘管去年秋天發佈的Zune HD獲得了不小的反響，但卻不足以吸引音樂迷使用Zune Pass。微軟稱，自從2006年以來，Zune音樂播放機銷量總計僅為380萬部。美國市場研究公司NPD去年11月稱，Zune在美國便攜媒體播放機市場僅占2%的份額，而蘋果iPod的份額則高達70%。

　　所以微軟便將Zune服務優先拓展到其他平臺中。去年11月，微軟將Zune視頻服務添加到Xbox Live網路中，希望借助Xbox 360遊戲機在全球範圍內的2000多萬名用戶推廣Zune。Zune公關總監約瑟•皮尼祿(Jose Pinero)稱，自那以後，Zune服務每天的高清視頻下載量和流媒體視頻播放量翻了一番。如今，微軟則希望借助Windows Phone 7平臺將Zune引入手機市場。

Google 強攻音樂服務
2009/10/30
網路搜尋引擎巨擘Google在28日宣佈與串流音樂服務商Lala和MySpace的iLike合作，推出可供樂迷在網路上搜尋、聆賞和購買樂曲的Music Onebox服務，以期擴大音樂版圖。


網路搜尋引擎巨擘Google在28日宣佈與串流音樂服務商Lala和MySpace的iLike合作，推出可供樂迷在網路上搜尋、聆賞和購買樂曲的Music Onebox服務，以期擴大音樂版圖。
Google 28日於洛杉磯Capitol Records總部正式推出這項服務時說，用戶搜尋音樂時，Onebox將簡化搜尋結果，最多顯示四首歌曲，用戶點選後可在彈出式的音樂播放機免費聽到由Lala或iLike提供的完整版樂曲，隨後連結到購買的網頁。

Google也與Pandora、iMeem和Rhapsody結盟，強化Onebox的音樂搜尋服務，用戶只要鍵入曲名、專輯名稱、歌手甚至是歌詞，就能找到想聽的歌。有趣的是，如果用戶鍵入的歌詞有誤，新的Google Suggest功能將列出相似的結果，提升搜尋正確度。目前Onebox僅限美國用戶使用。

近來網路業者不約而同強化音樂服務，社群網站Facebook旗下的禮物商店，日前宣佈Lala合作；Google的影音網站YouTube也與新力音樂和環球音樂結盟，12月將推出影音服務Vevo；MySpace不久前才以2,000萬美元買下iLike。

反觀Google近來受蘋果iTunes等網站影響，銷售節節敗退，投資人希望Google與Lala和iLike結盟後，能藉影音服務挽救流失的用戶，並提高在音樂領域的份量。

Google說：「Google每天音樂搜尋結果高達數百萬筆，音樂和歌詞更是搜尋關鍵字的常勝軍，顯示人們渴望瞭解喜愛的歌手，尋找最新專輯、經典歌曲，或是在腦海中揮之不去的那首歌。」

Google說，並未如先前報導所言與Sony、華納（Warner）或任何唱片公司建立直接的合作關係，但已經獲得業界全力支持。

唱片公司對Google的Onebox寄予厚望，期能讓音樂愛好者以合法的方式聆聽和購買音樂。在此之前，非法的音樂分享網站經常在Google的音樂搜尋結果中名列前茅。

Google也說，推出Onebox的目的不在成為免費的串流音樂業者，而是希望「提供消費者更好的搜尋經驗」。