Archive for the 'Music' Category

Volkswagen Germany just launched a rather unique employee contest: the scirocco song contest. Out of the ca. 100.000 Volkswagen employees, more than 100 opted in take part in the contest and sent in their version of the scirocco song. A Jury put up the best 25 songs for a vote by all web users on [...]

Business Week features an article that says Sony BMG drops DRM. Peere pressure or not, I don’t care, I am just very happy about this. That’s the last Giant of the 4 to drop DRM.
Will Apple now drop their DRM so that I can listen to the songs I purchased (and I did purchase some, [...]

Pepsi always seems to play the big numbers in their promos. A few years back, they had a lottery for 1 billion dollars with a monkey doing the final draw (so I heard).
Now they started a cooperation with Amazon to offer 1 billion songs in 2008. The details of the promo will be announced during [...]

Andrew Keen is a well known critic of the whole Web 2.0 user generated (”communistic”) cult of the amateur that is shaping our media consumption (”prosumption”) these days.
Now, on Ad Week, he contributed an Op Ed about Web 2.0 being the death of advertising. It is quite a rant, you’ll be amazed:
Web 2.0 is, in [...]

Apple’s handling of the iPhone price issue raises many questions about what Apple can get away with unscathed.
A recent PcWorld article is asking whether Apple is the new Microsoft. Will Apple be the new bully on the IT playground?
Don’t look now, but the role of the industry’s biggest bully is increasingly played by Apple, [...]

This seems so obvious, yet it took some time to realize it. According to this Reuters article, Blue Note records (one of the most famous brands for Jazz Music) has dived into offering a digital experience:
The label is in the process of revamping the site to become a social network and digital music store for [...]

Here is a good summary of the latest coup of Prince, the artist formerly known as a symbol. He just released his new album by attaching it to a newspaper in the UK. Meaning: everyone who bought the paper, also bought the CD. That should instantly catapult him into the top 10 charts. He did [...]

There is a new prediction market leveraging the crowds wisdom: Media Predict.
Here’s how it works: when users register, they get 5,000 virtual dollars to begin investing. They can scan the markets for book proposals, up-and-coming musical acts, script treatments and TV pilots. Each is valued in virtual dollars per share based on perceived potential. If [...]

There is an interesting article at the Times Online about the new book “the cult of the amateur” by Andrew Keen. A cry out against the crowdism of web 2.0 and how it is killing our culture. How user generated content on wikipedia, blogs, youtube, et al results in the crippling of traditional, quality content [...]

This is one of those most amazing setups: Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are being interviewd during the “All Things Digital” conference this year. They talk about the computer, software and internet industry, some thoughts about the history but also the future, etc. Well worth watching, also very entertaining!

It already starts with a prologue of [...]

Even though the discussion about the life after the 30 Sec. Spot continues, there are still some amazing examples of how TV advertising produces visible results.
There is a TV spot for German Telekom currently running in Germany, that is quite nicely done, a few nice special effects, absorbing visuals and surprising scene-cuts. But really nothing [...]