SoundExchange Q2 Digital Royalty Payouts Top $54.8 Million

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Washington
– SoundExchange, the recording industry entity set up to collect and distribute
digital music royalties, said this week that it made a record $54.8 million in
payments to artists and labels in the second quarter.

"Digital royalties
are on the rise across the board, but the organization also credits increased
efforts to clean poor data, as well as partnerships with other organizations,
with pushing the total above last quarter’s record distribution,"
SoundExchange said.

Executive director John Simson also credited increased
staffing and technology resource allotment on distributing "old
money" from "various artists" or "label unknown" recordings.

The group has distributed over $470 million in royalties since its
creation in 2003.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/xw39q

Report: Hulu May Test Paid Subscription Service This Month

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
1

New York
– Hulu, the online video portal joint venture between NBC Universal (NYSE:  GE), News Corp. (NYSE:  NWS)
and Disney (NYSE:  DIS), may begin testing a paid subscription service next week, The Wall
Street Journal reported, citing people briefed on the plans.

The "Hulu
Plus" service would charge around $10 per month for access to content beyond
Hulu’s existing free offerings, as well as distribution to Apple’s iPad and as
well as other devices, according to The Journal’s source.

Since launching at
the end of 2007, Hulu’s traffic has grown to reach 813 million unique streams
in May, according to Nielsen.

The company said in March that it generated over
$100 million in revenue in 2009.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/xw17b
(WSJ)

http://www.hulu.com

GarageBand.com

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Indie Music Store, Community Site GarageBand.com to Shutter

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

San Francisco
– GarageBand.com, an online music community and digital music store, announced
that it will shutter on July 15 after more than ten years in operation,
TechCrunch reported. The company spawned social music discovery service iLike
— which was acquired by MySpace — and said that users’ music and profile data
from GarageBand can be ported to iLike.

"It’s been over ten years since
we started helping discover independent music on the ol’ interwebs," reads
an email sent to GarageBand.com users.

"The landscape of how music is
discovered and delivered has changed drastically over the last decade and we
are proud to have been a huge part of that change — first with Garageband.com
and then with iLike.com and beyond. Sadly, that landscape will not include
Garageband.com anymore."

Requests for refunds on recent purchases must be
submitted to the company by July 31, 2010.      

 

Related Links:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/24/garageband/

http://www.garageband.com

Report: Apple Sells 1.5M iPhone 4s; Admits Antenna Issue

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
2

Los Angeles
– Apple (NASD: AAPL) sold an estimated 1.5 million units of its iPhone 4 on its first day on
sale yesterday, according to analyst firm Oppenheimer, Reuters reports. The
sales figure tops previous launch-day sales of half a million iPhone 3GS units
in 2008.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster estimated that 77% of iPhone 4
sales on Thursday were upgrades from previous iPhone models. This compares with
previous estimates of 56% of iPhone purchasers in 2009 and 38% in 2008.

While
sales of the iPhone 4 appear to be brisk, Apple acknowledged that owners can
affect the reception the phone gets depending on how they hold it in their hand.

"Gripping any phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna
performance with certain places being worse than others depending on the
placement of the antennas," the company said in a statement to PC World,
which reported on the issue.

"This is a fact of life for every wireless
phone. If you ever experience this on your Phone 4, avoid gripping it in the
lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the
metal band, or simply use one of many available cases."

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/xvyd0
(Reuters)

http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100625/43560/

http://snipurl.com/xvzt4
(PC World)

Social Games Publisher Playdom Acquires Hive7

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Mountain View, Calif. – Social games publisher Playdom announced this
week that it has acquired Hive7.com, a gaming start-up based in Palo Alto, Calif.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2005, Hive7’s social
game titles include "Knighthood," "Youtopia,"
"Kick-Off" and "Sindicate."

The company will move its
development studio into Playdom’s offices in Mountain View.

Playdom, which earlier this
week announced a new $33 million financing round, has now acquired or invested
in eight game studios over the past year.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/xvw0n

http://www.playdom.com

http://www.hive7.com

Ticketfly Acquires Web Ticketing, Marketing Firm Gigbot

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

San Francisco
– Ticketfly, the operator of an independent online ticketing and social
marketing platform, announced that it has acquired Gigbot, a provider of
Web-based ticketing and marketing tools for venues and event promoters.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

San Francisco-based
Ticketfly plans to integrate Gigbot’s service, which sells hundreds of
thousands of tickets annually for over 30 clients.

 

Related Links:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/06/prweb4185104.htm

http://www.ticketfly.com

http://www.gigbot.com

WorldSpace Sells Satellite Radio Assets to Yazmi USA

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Silver Spring, Md. – WorldSpace, the satellite radio
provider that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late 2008, said that it has
closed a deal to sell its assets to Yazmi USA, a company owned by WorldSpace
CEO Noah Samara.

Yazmi paid $5.5 million under the agreement — a fraction of
the $28.8 million that Samara’s Singapore-based firm, Yenura, agreed to pay in
early 2009.

That deal, however, was later terminated by the company’s lenders.

Liberty Media, which had been providing WorldSpace with debtor-in-possession
financing, then called off talks about a possible acquisition of the company in
March.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/xvucg

http://www.1worldspace.com

Some iPhone 4 Screens "Yellowed"; iOS 4 Car Links Broken

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

i>Los Angeles
– Apple (NASD: AAPL) support forums have been receiving complaints from some owners of the
company’s new iPhone 4, who say that their smartphones’ displays have unsightly
yellow spots or bands. Gizmodo has published details and a gallery of photos of
users’ yellowed iPhone 4 screens. Meanwhile, Business Insider reports that
users who upgraded their iPhones to iOS 4 have seen their ability to connect
the devices to a car stereo via a USB cable broken.


 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/xt1ci
(Gizmodo)

http://snipurl.com/xt1ap
(Business Insider)

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2470321&tstart=0

Fox Launches BlackBerry-Exclusive Bitbop Mobile TV Service

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

New York
– News Corp.’s (NYSE: NWS) Fox Mobile Group on Thursday announced the launch of Bitbop, its
mobile entertainment subscription service that at launch offers full-length TV
shows on demand. The $9.99 per month service will initially exclusively support
BlackBerry smartphones, and is available from the BlackBerry App World. In
addition to TV content from CBS, Fox, NBC, A&E, Comedy Central, Discovery,
FX, MTV and USA,
Fox Mobile said that Bitbop will add full-length movies later this year.


 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/xt2i1

http://www.bitbop.com  

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