me*dia*or

1 Bit Audio Player is a very simple and lightweight Adobe Flash MP3 player with automatic JavaScript insertion. It’s main purpose is to act as a quick in-page preview for audio files you link to from your website or blog.

The player can be easily installed as a WordPress plugin or used stand-alone in any website. Small audio players will than automatically appear next to any MP3s you link to. There’s also a bookmarklet version of 1 Bit available that can be used to apply 1 Bit to any web page from your browser.

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The formidable triumvirate of Amazon, Dell, and Google is apparently poised to give iTunes the first serious run for its money just as the iPad is about to take Apple’s downloadable media megastore where no computer has gone before.

Engadget has posted two slides that appear to come from a Dell presentation showing that the Google Android-powered Dell Streak tablet will include access to over 300,000 e-books in the Kindle store, everything in the Amazon MP3 download store (over 11 million “songs and extras”), and over 50,000 movies and television shows available for one-day rental or permanent purchase.

Taken together, this mirrors what iTunes offers for Apple devices, giving hardware manufacturers such as Dell a way to kick-start plans to take on the iPad.

Other Android devices already ship with the Amazon MP3 store, but an addition of the company’s Kindle e-books and sizable catalog of on-demand movies and television shows to Dell’s upcoming line of various-size tablets — and possibly Android devices in general — signals a more significant alliance between Google, Amazon and hardware manufacturers like Dell, as they team up to copy Apple’s successful mix of touchscreens and entertainment.

The documents also indicate that — like Kindle owners — users of this Dell mini-tablet will have wireless (3G) access to the Kindle store with “no monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for a Wi-Fi spot.” If that’s the case, Dell’s tablets would have a significant advantage over the iPad, which can only access the 3G network if you pay for the more expensive version of the hardware and sign up for a $15 or $30 per month data plan in addition to whatever wireless data plan you have for your phone.

Amazon did not return our request for confirmation, while Dell spokesman Matt Parretta only said, “We’re not going to comment on rumor and speculation on unannounced products.”

Even among the rumors flying around, nobody’s speculating about the price or ship date of the Dell Streak, Dell Mini 5, or whatever it ends up being called. Given the company’s track record when playing catch-up against Apple (see the iPod-like, inexpensive Dell DJ MP3 player) it will likely position this device as a less costly version of the iPad concept with the same range of books, music and video, thanks to Amazon and Google.

Tablet processor manufacturer ARM expects over 50 iPad competitors to be released this year. Even if Dell screws this up, or if people aren’t receptive to the Streak’s size (between that of an iPhone and an iPad, although Dell plans to release other sizes later), the integration of Amazon’s book and video platforms into other Android-powered tablets could prove a significant challenge to the multipurpose iPad and dedicated e-book readers.

Then, the question will be whether a consortium of companies (hardware manufacturers for device, Google for the OS and Amazon for the content) are capable of providing an experience as smooth as Apple tends to, because it controls all of those elements itself.

See Also:

• Amazon, Google Partner for Mobile Music Store
• Amazon: Kindle Books Outsold Real Books This Christmas
• Amazon’s Kindle 2 Slims Down, Adds Audio
• Can Apple’s iPad Save the Media After All?
• The Key to Apple’s iPad? Uh-Oh, It’s Magic
• Ten Things Missing From the iPad
• Condé Nast Adds 4 Titles to iPad Initiative
• iPad Surprise: Lower TV Episode Prices in iTunes?

Image: Flickr/nDevilTV

British Phonographic Industry-funded study finds that bundled digital music services could earn ISPs £203 million ($303.9m USD) by 2013.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) is once again trying to lure in UK ISPs to help it fight illegal file-sharing on their networks, this time by releasing the results of a study it funded that found ISPs there could earn as much as £203 million ($303.9m USD) by 2013 if they launched a bundled digital music services for their subscribers.

It also said the offering could help ISPs reduce the cost of “subscriber churn,” that a simple 10% reduction could help a big ISP with around 3.5m customers would generate indirect value of more than £20m per year ($30m USD).

“It’s increasingly clear that it isn’t smart to be a ‘dumb pipe,’” says BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor. “This report shows that the revenue potential of digital music services alone makes sound economic sense for ISPs. UK music companies want to innovate and develop exciting new digital offerings. ISPs such as Virgin Media have recognized that legal digital music services offer a more exciting and profitable future than continued widespread piracy.”

It’s ironic that it would cite Virgin Media as an ISP willing to offer digital music services considering the ISP spent years and a staggering eight figure sum developing “Virgin Music Unlimited” only to see it fall apart thanks to last minute by major record labels. Virgin Media later came to an agreement with Universal Music last June, but the service, promised to appear towards the end of last year, is still nowhere to be found, so it should hardly be held up as an example by the BPI.

Further damaging the credibility of their statements is the fact that the BPI tries to suggest that ISPs could make even more from bundled digital music services if only they were “offered to consumers in tandem with meaningful action to tackle illegal music downloading. ”

In other words, if they get on board with the BPI’s proposals to fight illegal file-sharing ISPs could make a lot of money.

In response to the study UK ISP TalkTalk, which claims to be the country’s largest broadband provider with over 4.25 million customers, sarcastically thanks the BPI for its “strategic business advice,” but says the £203 million ($303.9m USD) figure glosses over the fact that it would have to criminalize the behaviors of many of its customers in an ultimately “expensive” and “futile” pursuit.

“Though some may question the value of such insight from an industry which has failed to acknowledge the impact of new technology on its own business models and is pressing the Government to criminalize its biggest customers. As it happens TalkTalk does offer a legal download service (emusic), as do other ISPs,” it said in a statement. “Perhaps there is a goldmine for ISPs in legal downloads but that will not alter the fact that the copyright protection proposals being proposed threaten human rights. They will penalize innocent broadband customers. They are expensive, unwieldy and utterly futile.”

It’s silly that the BPI is even offering such “innovative” ideas for others to follow when it can’t seem to come up with any for itself. It’s like getting workout tips from a couch potato.

One has to wonder why people would even want a bundled digital music service when they already have, in the BPI’s own words, more than 35 legal online digital music services to choose from.

The BPI ought to commission more studies that find out what consumers actually want, and try to give it to them. Instead the music industry seems to continue doing the opposite, first figuring out what it wants and giving consumers only what it’s forced to to make a profit, but even then profits are secondary to control of access.

Stay tuned.

jared@zeropaid.com

I'm headed off to lead a panel at SXSW in a couple days, and the last-minute preparations haven't left me much time to do a writeup for this playlist. The short version is that today's playlist features tracks from new (or pretty recent) albums by Lightspeed Champion, Surfer Blood, The Heavies, Man/Miracle, The Ruby Suns, Clem Snide, and more! This is one of my favorite playlists in a while (and yes, there are 2 tracks by Lightspeed Champion on here, and they both rock; also, there are 2 songs with the word "swim" in their titles - pretty cool, eh?). There's also an instrumental cover of a Wu-Tang song and a return to form for the Magnetic Fields, among other things.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the tunes. [Editor's note: Please insert your own liner notes and witty commentary as you see fit.]

See you all when I return!

After a long wait and more than 50,000 signatures on an online petition, cyclists will be happy to know that Google has finally added bicycle routes to Google Maps.

In Google Maps, users can now find "Bicycling" in the tool's "Get Directions" drop-down box. After choosing the option, bikers can input two addresses and find the bike route that will get them to their desired destination. Like Google Maps' other modes of transportation, the mapping tool provides turn-by-turn directions and an estimated travel time.

The new Google Maps bicycling feature is available in 150 U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City. The tool boasts over 12,000 bike trails. When users look for directions, the company's mapping algorithm weights trails more heavily than roads for safety reasons. If cities have bicycle lanes, those are also weighted more heavily than roads without them.

One of the neatest features built into the Google Maps bicycling tool is its power-exertion calculation. According to the company, biking directions "compute the effort [bicyclists] will require and the speed [they will] achieve while going uphill." Based on those calculations, the tool provides bicyclists with a route that eliminates areas that would require "an unreasonable degree of exertion."

Google said that its tool even keeps bicyclists away from busy intersections and areas where bicyclists would need to brake too often.

The new Google Maps bicycling tool is in beta, which means it might be a little buggy. Google plans to add more routes and trails to the service in the coming months.

-- Don Reisinger

Image: Biking routes in San Francisco. Credit: Google

Researchers create BitStalker, an efficient “active probing strategy” for finding copyrighted material on large BitTorrent tracker sites, but fact that the research was funded “in part” by PolyCipher, an ISP consortium, should make some nervous about what it plans to do with it.

Researchers from the University of Colorado have published a new technique for fighting the distribution of copyrighted material on BitTorrent. Current monitoring employs passive methods that are prone, as we all know, to a variety of errors and false positives.

To mitigate the potential for false positives they investigated the feasibility of using active methods to monitor extremely large BitTorrent swarms like those found on public tracker sites like The Pirate Bay. For this they developed BitStalker, a new active probing framework that identifies active peers and collects “concrete forensic evidence” that an individual was involved in sharing a particular copyrighted file.

“We find that the current investigative methods produce at least 11% false positives, while we show that false positives are rare with our active approach,” they say in their paper, “BitStalker: Accurately and Efficiently Monitoring BitTorrent Traffic.”

They claim that BitStalker can monitor over 20,000 peers in 5 minutes using only 14.4–50.8KB/s of bandwidth. Using Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) they estimate one could monitor the entire Pirate Bay with some 20 million peers for only about $12.40 p/mo.

So how does it work?

First it gathers a list of peers in a given BitTorrent swarm by querying a tracker. For each IP address it and port number returned it then conducts a series of “light-weight probes” to find out if a peer really exists and is participating in the file transfer.

1. Establish a TCP connection with another peer.
2. Exchange handshake messages with the correct SHA1 content hash and receive handshake responses.
3. Exchange bitfield messages and receive bitfield responses.
4. Request and receive a 16KB block of file data.

The researchers say that by following these steps BitStalker can make false positives a thing of the past.

They continue:

A successful TCP probe indicates that the peer is listening on the correct port. However, an effective counter-strategy could be to register arbitrary IP addresses with ports that are opened (such as web servers). The subsequent handshake probe is more conclusive, as it indicates that the BitTorrent protocol is running on the correct port and also identifies the content being shared by a SHA1 hash. The bitfield probe provides stronger evidence still, since it describes all pieces that the peer has downloaded, which implies active sharing. Finally, requesting and subsequently receiving a block of the file provides the strongest form of concrete evidence for file sharing.

It’s welcome news that researchers have figured out a way to find conclusive proof that a person was involved in illegal file-sharing, but it does, as they acknowledge, raise “general legal issues that this type of monitoring exposes.”

In particular, a specific definition of what constitutes “evidence” in the context of illegal file-sharing.

Most troubling is that the research was “funded in part” by PolyCipher, an ISP consortium created by Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications. With the MPAA and RIAA trying to get ISPs to become voluntary copyright police one has to wonder whether BitStalker may go active in the near future.

Stay tuned.

jared@zeropaid.com

I want to first thank Chris from Bandzoogle for approaching me to do an interview for them; anytime I get asked to do an interview I gain a new found confidence in what I preach and teach and it feels good to know that people are paying attention.

It’s taken years of hard work to be able to understand all the different facets of the digital music business (not to mention marketing online in general to back it all up), and every interview I do I get to introduce many musicians and industry professionals my perception of how to get your name out there and get people’s attention.

I loved the interview I did, and many of the Bandzoogle members agreed. I thank them for understanding my point of view – specifically when I discussed giving away their music for free. They understand that building a fanbase (through the acquisition of permission-based email marketing) is perhaps your number one priority when you’re starting out, and that they money you invest in recording an album is also your initial investment in marketing – you’ll trade that album for an email address to entice people to check you out.

Because the BandZoogle blog is currently only open for members to comment (and, while I am not a member, I do see the value in the service they provide for those musicians who maybe aren’t ready to play with the big boys and host their own custom site), I decided to post my responses to their comments here!

@Kelly Pettit

“it’s still a really hard thing to come to grips with. I mean, my newest album which will be out in a month cost over $20,000. “

I think the actual concept of becoming a professional musician in itself is a hard thing to come to grips with. It would be like starting any other kind of business. You’re going to need to invest time and money into something in order to succeed. You invested $20,000 in your album. Do you feel you are deserving of a $100,000 or $1,000,000 profit from that investment?

That’s not a realistic scenario. Instead, that $20,000 investment is the same as maybe starting a hot dog stand, but instead of selling hot dogs you are playing gigs and trying to make enough money to pay the bills. Most of your profit goes right back into the business to keep things going.

Truth is, if you want to actually make a lot of money selling music in CD or Digital format, you gotta create enough hype around it. Expect to pay thousands even hundred of thousands of dollars on various marketing and advertising to generate that buzz. Add touring support money in a similar vein if you want to get a tour up and running. Who realistically has that money and knows what to do with it?

The Labels do, but who’s getting signed to Labels these days? Most are not musicians, most are just celebrity tabloid fodder. If you fit the bill then good for you; if not, then you’re screwed. Unless you create that buzz yourself, and without the money to do that, the only assets you have to make it happen are time and that album you just created. So give it away and see if you can create that serious buzz.

PS I checked out your music; production is good, you can tell it’s a legitimate recording. I’m a Counting Crows fan, and the acoustic/organ combo reminded me of them in “She’s Just Like Summer”. I suggest getting that music player on the front page so they can listen before joining the list. I signed up, thanks!

@nuraghirecords

“I’m a new home builder and I’m gonna give away the 1st 20,000 homes I build for Free”

Let’s get one thing straight: people NEED homes. Shelter is a necessity. Your music is not. Music is something we get emotionally attached to, and when that happens, therein lies it’s value.

Let’s talk about YOUR investment. How much did Gilbert’s album cost to produce? I know it’s not as much as our friend Kelly above paid for his. Why should both of you have to sell the music for the same price, when he obviously paid a lot more to produce it? Or how about a major label act, who might have spent $100,000 to produce music? They charge the same $.99 a track on iTunes.

It’s like walking into a car dealership and BMW, a Ford Fusion, and a Kia Hatchback all for sale for $45,000. What music is the consumer going purchase? More importantly, why do you feel your music is worth as much as those who spend 10 times the amount to produce theirs?

That’s the problem with musicians, you know how much time you’ve put into something and feel that it’s enough to create the value. Guess what – it’s not! That’s why, especially for those who can’t afford to get some serious recording done, that you should consider giving it away, in the hopes that if you ever get the funds and the opportunity to do a really professional recording, you can then have the value in not only the production but also in the fanbase you’ve built that you can actually sell the damn thing too.

@therhythmmethod

“What he says makes perfect sense”

Thanks

@alexterriermusic

“Did Eric give away 20 000 of his $50/month subscription?”

Yes I have given away a ton of Label 2.0 memberships! Why? To GENERATE BUZZ, that’s why. OH PS I’ve been creating that value in my product by blogging FOR FREE for over 3 years, taking the thousands of hours I’ve spent working, researching, and thinking about the Web and this business and sharing it with you, again, for free.

“I’m not a CEO or a guy who wants to help you for a monthly subscription (please find another advice than giving my work away, I might as well just give it up). I’m a musician.”

Exactly, you’re a musician and not a business oriented person. So why are you trying to sell a product if you’re not ready to be a CEO of your music business?

“And here is a free advice: do not put entire tracks on your players but only clips (I edit my clips to show the different parts of my tunes), free softwares are available (for Firefox users) to download ANYTHING in streaming: the tracks off your players, the videos on Youtube, the tracks on Myspace…”

Good luck…

@knocks

“My ‘giving away’ part = my Youtube Tutorials and my “selling merchandise’part = the Drops I sell to that audience I gained.”

You got it knocks! That’s awesome.

@negraszrus

“Sorry to say this but for me Eric is just another marketing expert who wants to take advantage of struggling musicians. Look at his website: he offers his services for $50 a month (not exactly cheap). Where are his freebies?”

Before I continue, I must say I refrain from cursing here as much as I can as I try to be a professional at all times. But it is my blog, so go fuck yourself, seriously.

I have produced content for my blog, while not the most super resourceful blog out there, for years. I even did this interview for free. If you actually looked you would also see, that, whoops, I give away free Label 2.0 training material FOR FREE in exchange for an email. Sound familiar? I also have given presentations at various conferences for…free. So I DO have a free model.

And if you were to actually see what I’m doing with Label 2.0, you’d know that I’m not “taking advantage” of anybody. Our service is an educational and interactive platform that we’ve spent years learning about and month in and month out are working hard putting content together for our members. I’ve had to turn down bands who are “struggling” (which I now view as either lazy, unmotivated, or not serious about being a professional) and couldn’t afford to pay anything to anyone. This service is the affordable option to those without the pockets to hire someone to do various business and marketing actions for them.

“I think the overall internet marketing concept comes down to this: give away your music for free.”

It’s a major part of it, because it allows you to get something in return – an email address, which you can learn how to monetize. Most fail to see the value in the email address – the key in the free model and one of the musician’s only real assets. The email address you get in return for the free music allows you to upsell other product to the fan. If you do not have this product, then you are never going to make it as a musician sorry. THAT’s the business model and that’s how the “free” marketing concept works.

“So my sad bottom line after 12 years personal internet experience: less sales than ever and a lot more businesses who try to make money with us!”

So after 12 years of internet experience, all you have to show for it is a crappy website, 31 Facebook fans, 280 MySpace fans, 3 Twitter followers, and 1 upload on YouTube? I wonder how big that email list is.

@derekjordan

“I believe in looking at the big picture. How far am I going to get trying to squeeze a few bucks out of people? How far am I going to get getting my music in the hands of thousands of people instead? I’m going with the 2nd choice.”

THANK YOU some one has a brain and understands this perfectly. Everyone check out his site for free music – nice squeeze page with introduction video and calls to action! I signed up just based on that alone, it’s something we teach in Label 2.0.

@pennylessrock

“You must first built VALUE to your music… that is what is happening to these artists who are selling gold and platinum records.”

You build value (other than production) through interaction. After the free album, interact with them through content and the live show. Do it long enough and you’ll build that value – it’s a time game. If everyone just did it and did it right from day one, they’d have started building that value instead of whining about how no one wants it.

Unfortunately your missing out on that by trying to sell your single; the production does not warrant it. It’s demo quality, and do you do with demos? You GIVE THEM AWAY in the hopes that someone will like them enough to give you a shot at a better production.

@daveturnerband

“How is this shit any different than those late night infomercials offering sure-fire ways to make money in real estate? Sure, there are a handful of people who can make the system work and make a fortune – but there’s always the mousetype, “results not typical.” I’d like to know, of all the people who subscribe to this service for $50, what is the average return on investment for this company?

With Bandzoogle, we pay our monthly fee for a clear service with clear value (a great website and associated features/tools and hosting). With Herbert’s company, you get a claim, for $50 a month, that they’ll walk you through this theory. I’d like to know: What’s the OVERALL AVERAGE return on investment for Herbert’s clients?”

OH BOY let the cursing commence!

First, go read my fucking sales page man. Do we PROMISE you ANYTHING? DO we say you’re gonna sell a million records and bang pornstars and trash hotel rooms? IF we do say that somewhere please point it out to me. I’m pretty sure we outline our service pretty clear – to teach you how to set up and market your online music business (PS Were working to make what we offer as clear as possible, so check back soon!)

It’s obvious that you’re gonna have to do some learning and some hard work in order for it to work.

I have a question – what’s the return on investment for the standard college education? Ask those who are still paying their Stafford loans off for their worthless marketing degree. A $50 a month course that teaches you more then you’ll learn on a campus – not a bad deal in my opinion. What’s the return on investment on an education? It’s not something that’s gonna get you rich quick, it’s a process.

And it’s HEBERT asshole. PS Dave gives away a free track, go figure. OH He’s also a self employed copyrighter and internet marketer too! Maybe HE has a product to sell.

@touchtheclouds

“Buyer beware of marketing schemers that want to take advantage of your overwhelming desire to hit the Big Time. There are many factors involved – hard work, connections, etc”

That’s exactly what we teach in Label 2.0 – how to do all the hard work the RIGHT way and how to use this hard work to meet those connections. Buyer beware or relying on your God to bring you success.

@knocks (again)

“Dave..you my friend have written the best thing I have read in awhile…points 1-5 I TOTALLY agree with.

Especially when you wrote “focus on writing and practicing and performing mostly”

That’s why Dave still has a day job. And here I thought you got it! Our job at Label 2.0 is to teach you and help you do all this marketing and list building stuff the right way, so you’re not out there wasting your time learning what we already know or learning though mistakes. You just do it and do it right so you CAN focus on writing and practicing and performing mostly.

@evermoregreen

“I truly believe the most important thing for an artist to do is forget about being famous. Focus on local respect, work it, get out and gig, make friends, grow your own mailing list, be creative with your mail outs and blogs, be friendly and down to earth, learn from others, be inspirational…it’s all grass roots.”

Agreed and right on the money.

If I’m out to hawk a marketing product just to screw over musicians, I don’t think I would have spent the 4 hours it took to write this rebuttal. I hope all you read this have a new perspective on their music business and will take the right steps to make sure they are prepared to become successful. For all the naysayers, what alternative options do YOU have to build your fanbase and run a successful business?

Post from: Evolvor Media

We apologise in advance for what reading this story will do to your internal jukebox. Fans of Ultravox are trying to get the band’s ‘Vienna’ single to number one later this month in the UK via an online campaign.

The aim is to make amends for the fact that the song was kept off the top spot in 1981 by novelty song ‘Shaddap You Face’ by Joe Dolce. Predictably, then, the original recording of the latter tune is being released for the first time digitally to go head-to-head (again) with Ultravox.

It comes out on 16th March, and YES, there is a Facebook page, as well as a dedicated ‘Battle For Britain’ website to promote Dolce’s cause. Although given that his song has sold more than six million physical copies over the years, the plucky underdog stance may wear a bit thin.

Either this will be the next big digitally-fuelled chart battle, or both tracks will debut in the low eighties before sinking without trace. Place your bets now…