Archive for January, 2008
What’s with Yahoo?
Jan 31st
Yahoo! is sending me mixed signals and it makes me very nervous about the state of our “relationship.” You see, Yahoo! and I have had an on again, off again relationship since back in the 90′s. First there was my very first Yahoo email address, then Chat rooms (where nothing good or productive ever happened)… then later on I discovered a beautiful part of Yahoo’s personality: Yahoo Music. Oh, we had a great run. There was of course some give and take.. I would listen for hours to my favorite music picked for me by my great friend (Yahoo!) only to put up with a few random commercials every now and then. It was a very nice symbiotic relationship. A little give and take if you will…
Fast forward to now.
Accoring to ABC News, Yahoo is in shambles. Operating like a 90′s dot commer apparently doesn’t cut it in 2008. There is a glimmer of hope though… a possibility that our relationship may not be totally over. This great white hope falls in the possibility of Yahoo becoming yet another distributor of digital music…. not any digital music now… DRM FREE digital music! I am all about fair competition and as it stands right now, there are only two real players in DRM free music… Amazon, and Emusic (iTunes tries to play the game, but Apple is still in love with the AAC file).
I welcome this concept with open arms. Bring on the competition I say! Maybe, just maybe some positive press and cash flow from their music arm might just be the catalyst Yahoo! needed to right their ship.
Guess Who’s Back
Jan 29th
Okay, Okay, Okay…
I am a BAD BLOGGER… I realize that I may have not given this quite the college try initially… so I am back.
Much has changed in the world of music, yet my opinions by and large remain the same. In order to catch you all up, I will summarize the past 6 or so months;
DRM is dead… Amazon assured that. Thank god! I was getting tired of defending my stance (and that of the general population) on that issue.
Apple Launched the iPhone… This was of course supposed to revolutionize the phone industry and I must admit, it is pretty damned cool, but the exclusive deal with Cingular (Now AT&T [oh yeah, that happened too]) makes it incredibly unattractive to those of us who actually like to use our cell phones for talking.
<Insert Cheesy Verizon Ad Here>
All of the major labels are in shambles… EMI is laying off 2500 people. Let me say this again, EMI is laying off 2500 people. That is like 55 Naxos’. Amazing…. I am so glad I came to work for an independent label!
And I still don’t like the RIAA!
Okay… so that pretty much catches us up.
More to come… stay tuned 