Quantcast
“I for one welcome our new computer overlords.”
——Ken Jennings

DOT-DOT-DOT-COM:
SMART OR NOT SMART?

This Just in: Final Proof That Computers Are Smarter Than People
Don’t look now, but Sony has launched its own music subscription service, offering unlimited music for $10 a month. Interestingly, the new service won't work with portable devices. In explanation, Sony Network Entertainment’s Tim Schaaf told All Things D’s Peter Kafka, “We felt the home space was underserved.” Okaaaaaayyyyy… At the New Music Seminar (see story), Tom Silverman stated that CDs accounted for close to three-quarters of U.S. music sales last year. Indeed, the shiny round things account for 93% of the Latin market, 85% of gospel and 84% of country. "CDs aren't doing so bad," Silverman said during opening remarks at the conference in L.A. "People still like CDs."… During last night’s finale of the three-day Jeopardy! Competition pitting past big winners Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter against Watson, the IBM-engineered supercomputer came out on top. Watson finished with $77,147, Jennings came in second with $24,000 and Rutter pulled up the rear with $21,600. The win is not unprecedented for IBM, which built Deep Blue, the chess-playing supercomputer that beat champ Garry Kasparov. Wrote Jennings on his veo screen, quoting from The Simpsons, “I for one welcome our new computer overlords.”… Do not doubt Lady Gaga’s ability—at self-promotion. She goosed “Born This Way,” released Friday, with a 60 Minutes segment and a performance of the song during the first half-hour of the Grammys telecast. Result: a three-day total of 448k paid downloads. That makes Gaga’s Madonna homage the third biggest weekly tally ever, behind only Flo Rida’s “Right Round” with 636k and the Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow” with 465k… One area in which bankrupt Borders has struggled is its online business. Hurt by pressure from Amazon and big-box stores like Wal-Mart, the chain badly lagged behind Barnes & Noble in establishing a viable online business. In 2001, it linked its online store to Amazon, but waited until 2008 to restart its own e-commerce site… Rhapsody has issued a statement slamming Apple's newly announced policy of taking a 30% cut of revenues from sub services generated via iPhone and iPad apps. "An Apple-imposed arrangement that requires us to pay 30% of our revenue to Apple, in addition to content fees that we pay to the music labels, publishers and artists, is economically untenable," the long-struggling company stated. "We will be collaborating with our market peers in determining an appropriate legal and business response to this latest development."… Five out of six Americans who go online—171 million people—watched streaming video in January, according to comScore. YouTube topped the list of providers with 144.1 million unique viewers, followed by Vevo (51 million); Yahoo (48.7 million); Viacom Digital (48.1 million) and AOL (44.5 million). Close to 4.9 billion video viewing sessions were recorded last month; the average clip was 5 minutes in length.


NEAR TRUTHS: SPRING BLOOMS
Here come the big guns. (3/28a)
THE COUNT: COLDPLAY IS HOT, COUNTRY'S COOKIN' IN THE U.K.
The latest tidbits from the bustling live sector (3/28a)
CITY OF HOPE TAPS MARCIANO FOR TOP HONOR
This year's philanthropic model (3/28a)
TRUST IN THE TOP 20
Hip-hop is no longer hibernating. (3/28a)
UMG BROADENS SPOTIFY OFFERINGS
Sir Lucian and Daniel are in harmony. (3/28a)
THE NEW UMG
Gosh, we hope there are more press releases.
TIKTOK BANNED!
Unless the Senate manages to make this whole thing go away, that is.
THE NEW HUGE COUNTRY ACT
No, not that one.
TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN PLAYLIST
Now 100% unlicensed!
 Email

 First Name

 Last Name

 Company

 Country
CAPTCHA code
Captcha: (type the characters above)