Wednesday, April 19, 2000
Appetizer-Sized Bites On Musicland, Yahoo, Lou Reed And Other Very Important People
Musicland's Internet sales hit $2 million in the first quarter of this year, up from $1.4 million from the same quarter last year. Overall, the company (which includes
Sam Goody,
Media Play and
Suncoast Video) had sales of $415.8 million for the quarter. The company's earnings were up from last year as well, at 6 cents per diluted share. Buy! Buy! Buy! Wait! Sell! Sell! Sell! No wonder daytraders don't make any money…
Falcon Entertainment's
Independent Music Network has entered into a partnership with
Yahoo. People whocan get on that new-fangled Internet thing will have access to streaming independent music videos on
Yahoo Broadcast.Think of it as
MP3.com for videos. Only nobody is suing them. Yet… Adding to the crowded field of sites providing a forum for unsigned musicians (
Garageband.com,
FarmClub.com, Pleasepleasepleasegivemearecorddeal.com) is new site
ArtistDiscovery.com. Its purpose is to help artists get record deals, in part by letting bands post demos and photos on the site and then "marketing the site to music executives at over 420 record labels." Prepare to be spammed… The not-unsigned
Lou Reed just launched his
Web site with sponsor
Music.com. It has music and pictures and everything. Music.com will also be sponsoring Reed's summer tour in support of his new record "Ecstasy." The company's employees will follow him around selling bracelets in the parking lot before shows… Joining Reed in this wacky dot-com era is
Hollywood Records, which just redesigned its site. All of that
Disney money went to making downloadable music available and removing those pesky rotary-phone connections. "I am extremely pleased with the way this project has developed," said
Ken Bunt, director of digital marketing at Hollywood. "Now check out this
Limp Bizkit "Mission Impossible II" track I got on
Napster…
Xdrive and
Launch.com are partnering up, allowing Launch users to store digital downloads at Xdrive's file access site. As part of the deal, downloadable music pages on Launch's site will include a "Save to My Xdrive" button. There will also be a "Destroy Planet" button, but it doesn't usually work… Because you can't dance without a partner (breakdancing excluded),
Channelfly.com has partnered with DRM maven
Magex. Magex, besides having a cool name, will provide the means for Channelfly to sell and distribute music digitally. Channelfly is a music portal site that grew out of London's Barfly Club. It features lots of British music and a "gimme a pint an' a packet o' salt-n-vinegar crisps" button.