DOT DOT DOT COM
Tommy Boy and MP3.com announced today (11/20) that the companies had entered into a licensing and marketing agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, Tommy Boy, home to bands such as Everlast and De La Soul, will license its entire catalog for the company's My.MP3.com service. MP3.com will also work with Tommy Boy to market and promote the label's artists online. The financial terms of the deal were not divulged in the announcement, but industry insiders are expecting Tommy Boy to ask for another $25 million in about two months.
FIELDING STREAMS
As if to prove that EMI isn't just thinking merger these days, the British company announced today (11/20) that it signed a non-exclusive, multi-year license agreement with Streamwaves, an online subscription music provider. The agreement will allow North American consumers to stream music on demand for a monthly fee. The service, available through the Streamwaves site, will officially launch at the beginning of 2001. The service will offer music from a variety of genres, customizable playlists and a user-friendly interface. "Music fans have loudly declared that they want music on demand," said Jay Samit, EMI Senior VP of New Media, "and now, a mere 18-24 months later, we're finally offering this."
SCOUR SHUTS DOWN FILE-SHARING FEATURE
As expected, Scour shut down its controversial Scour Exchange file transfer service Thursday in a step the company hopes will end the money-draining lawsuit against it and smooth the way for a sale of its remaining assets (hitsdailydouble.com, 11/15). "All I can say is R.I.P. Scour," commented one online enthusiast. "But it is nice to see a corporation follow through on what it said it would do."
"JUDGING BY THE SMELL, I'D SAY TOE JAM"
Universal Music Group's eLabs today unveiled its Internet music trivia game show. "Name That Jam" combines Flash animation, high quality digital music clips and, get this, interactivity into a witty and irreverent game show in which players test their knowledge of current music, album art, album titles and artists. The show will be hosted by a cyber version of Charles Van Doren.
CAN'T SEE THE FORRESTER FOR THE TREES
The latest polls are in! And they show that the American people no longer give a rat's ass about who ends up in the White House. Aside from that, the latest National Retail Federation/Forrester Online retail survey revealed that total spending of online sales increased from $4.2 billion in September to $4.4 billion in October. Online sales of consumer electronics jumped from $164 million to $246 million in that time. Computer hardware also jumped significantly, from $315 million to $425 million. Sales of videos and toys/videogames also grew in October. Said David M. Cooperstein, research director at Forrester, "All I know is, these numbers sure represent a shitload of Furbys."
TRAGEDY + TIME = COMDEX
Been dreaming of an MP3 Christmas? Last week's COMDEX 2000 convention in Las Vegas saw the unveiling of a few of geekdom's hotly anticipated new toys. Perhaps most notably, e.Digital Corporation took its portable digital music jukebox platform out of beta. The platform—currently being marketed by Hy-Tek Inc. under the name Treo, holds up to 2,000 songs on an embedded 6.4 GB hard drive. Even after dropping some major bucks on its Pentium III ad campaign featuring the Blue Man Group, Intel introduced its Pentium 4, which clocks in at a brisk 1.4-1.5 Ghz. Naturally, this advancement in speed will be a boon to online porn fans…oh yeah, and music fans too. Because, for many of us, downloaded MP3 files remain trapped on our computers, SSI Computer pulled its Neo 35 out of bubble wrap. The device uses docking bays to aid in transferring MP3s from computer to stereo or car. The $600 version of the Neo 35 can store an impressive 81 GB of music files—roughly 34,000 songs. The Neo's docking station can be dash- or trunk-mounted in a car, and simple RCA connections make it simple to hook up to a stereo amplifier. Best of all, though, it's named after Keanu Reeves' character in "The Matrix." And because portable MP3 players are the Pet Rocks of our current generation, there were plenty of those shown at COMDEX, including upgrades to Handspring's Visor and Samsung's cell phones to allow those fun toys to play music. LG Electronics unveiled the Digital Music Eye, a toy that combines an MP3 player, Web cam and digital cam all in one, for a tasty $400 price. Pretec also showed off an MP3 player/digital cam for around $200. And CMC Magnetics chimed in with its $239 combination MP3 player/digital cam. The extra 40 bucks gets you an FM tuner and a bagel slicer. All in all, it appears to be plenty of toys to keep the geeks indoors for at least the first part of 2001. And that's good news for everyone.
