A couple of things caught my attention this week in a week of media distraction (Was anyone as disappointed as I when CNN didn't broadcast the Karl Malden memorial service live?).
Pandora and net radio -- mostly good news on this front. On July 7th, SoundExchange agreed to a 40-50% reduction on "per song" listener rates. There is a catch, however, Pandora users will pay a "freemium" (see next item), if they desire to listen for more than 40 hours per month. The decision doesn't only apply to Pandora, but many of the net radio services. It should be pointed out that these rates are higher than most other non-Internet based services pay "per song." Hopefully, we'll be working with a few of these for an on-campus solution this fall. I am pleased that this is finally resolved. To quote Pandora's press release, "Still, the unresolved licensing issues have hung over us like a dark cloud for two years. It's a great feeling to have the road cleared of that obstacle." TechCrunch explains the agreement a little better than I have.
Free: The Future of a Radical Price -- I heard a good interview with Wired Magazine editor, Chris Anderson about his new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price. He discusses the history of and how to make money with "free." I really enjoyed his last book, The Long Tail and I'm looking forward to reading this one.
ChromeOS? -- Just a few weeks after Microsoft announced its decision/search engine, Bing, Google picked up the gauntlet by announcing its own OS, "ChromeOS." Let me remind the folks at Google, a similar move was the beginning of the end for Netscape. For now, ChromeOS is vaporware. Google says it will be based on the Chrome browser and the initial market will be netbooks. I like their phone OS, Android, but I know that it's based upon Linux. Will ChromeOS really be revolutionary? Maybe it will be based on Plan9 from Bell Labs -- now that would be revolutionary.
Pandora and net radio -- mostly good news on this front. On July 7th, SoundExchange agreed to a 40-50% reduction on "per song" listener rates. There is a catch, however, Pandora users will pay a "freemium" (see next item), if they desire to listen for more than 40 hours per month. The decision doesn't only apply to Pandora, but many of the net radio services. It should be pointed out that these rates are higher than most other non-Internet based services pay "per song." Hopefully, we'll be working with a few of these for an on-campus solution this fall. I am pleased that this is finally resolved. To quote Pandora's press release, "Still, the unresolved licensing issues have hung over us like a dark cloud for two years. It's a great feeling to have the road cleared of that obstacle." TechCrunch explains the agreement a little better than I have.
Free: The Future of a Radical Price -- I heard a good interview with Wired Magazine editor, Chris Anderson about his new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price. He discusses the history of and how to make money with "free." I really enjoyed his last book, The Long Tail and I'm looking forward to reading this one.
ChromeOS? -- Just a few weeks after Microsoft announced its decision/search engine, Bing, Google picked up the gauntlet by announcing its own OS, "ChromeOS." Let me remind the folks at Google, a similar move was the beginning of the end for Netscape. For now, ChromeOS is vaporware. Google says it will be based on the Chrome browser and the initial market will be netbooks. I like their phone OS, Android, but I know that it's based upon Linux. Will ChromeOS really be revolutionary? Maybe it will be based on Plan9 from Bell Labs -- now that would be revolutionary.
