Apple Profits Up 50% in Q1; iPhone Sales Near 9 Million

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Cupertino,
Calif. – Apple (NASD:  AAPL) sold nearly 9
million iPhones during its fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 26, while iPod sales
fell 8% to 21 million as the company reported a 50% jump in profit and 32%
increase in revenue for the period. Apple posted a profit of $3.38 billion for
the quarter, while revenue hit $15.68 billion. While iPod sales were down for
the holiday shopping period, iPhone sales actually increased 100%
year-over-year.

The company attributed some of its positive results to a change
in the way it accounts for subscription revenues from iPhone and Apple TV
sales.

"If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it’s surprising that Apple
is now a $50+ billion company," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

"The new
products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this
week with a major new product that we’re really excited about," Jobs
added, referring to the expected introduction of a tablet PC by the company at
a media event in San Francisco tomorrow.

 

Related Links:
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/01/25results.html

Liberty Media Looks to Boost Live Nation Stake to 34.9%

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Englewood,
Colo. – Liberty Media (NASD: LINTA), the media
conglomerate controlled by John Malone, whose holdings include Starz, Overture
Films and QVC, on Tuesday announced its intention to increase its stake in the
newly merged Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE: LYV) by purchasing up to 34.5 million shares.

Liberty
currently owns about 14.6% of Live Nation.

The company’s offer price of $12 per
share represents a premium of 14.3% over the closing price of Live Nation
shares on Monday.

If the deal is completed, Liberty would own about 34.9% of the
outstanding shares of Live Nation.

Live Nation won U.S. antitrust approval of its $870
million merger with Ticketmaster Entertainment on Monday.

Liberty characterized its purchase of Live
Nation shares as "for investment purposes," and will attribute any
shares it purchases to its Liberty Capital group.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u76k7

http://www.libertymedia.com

http://www.livenation.com

IgnitAd Gets Seed Funding for Online Ad Optimization

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Jerusalem,
Israel –
IgnitAd, a provider of online ad optimization services, announced on Tuesday
that it has raised an undisclosed sum of seed funding, from DFJ Tamir Fishman
Ventures and Jerusalem Venture Partners’ JVP Media Studio.

Israel-based IgnitAd
is also currently being incubated at JVP Media Studio.

"IgnitAd’s
innovation will take the online advertising market forward by adding automation
to the buying and selling process, while giving web publishers and advertisers
the control and visibility to ensure better match between them, protect their
brand integrity and increase their performance." said Shai Saul, a general
partner at DFJ Tamir Fishman Ventures.

 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u76g3

http://ignitad.com

MySpace, SoundExchange Team to Source Unpaid Artists

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Cannes, France – News Corp.’s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace
social network has partnered with royalty collection and distribution agency
SoundExchange to search for artists who may be owed royalties for their works
but could not be located. MySpace said it has already identified 25,000 artists
who are registered on MySpace but not with SoundExchange, who are collectively
owed more than $14 million in royalties for streaming of their songs on
Internet and satellite radio.


 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u6y7j

Shazam ID Service Driving 300,000 Song Purchases Daily

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Cannes, France – Mobile music discovery service Shazam
is generating 300,000 track purchases each day from users of the service, CEO
Andrew Fisher said at the MidemNet conference in Cannes, France,
Music Ally reported. The Shazam service lets its 50 million users hold their
phones up to a speaker, which then sends data to Shazam and the user in turn receives
song, artist and album information, along with links to buy the track. Fisher
said Shazam now reports a 13% conversion rate, for those purchasing a track
after tagging it using Shazam.


 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u6y76
(Music Ally)

http://www.shazam.com

Authorities Raid Home of EliteBits File-Sharing Admin

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Los Angeles
– The home of the operator of EliteBits, a BitTorrent file-sharing tracker
site, was raided on Friday by a representative from a Danish court accompanied by
several representing anti-piracy agency Antipiratgruppen, TorrentFreak
reported. The admin, known as "Laeborg," told TorrentFreak that the
men who came to his house informed him that his bank account was traced from
donations made to EliteBits. The men took screenshots of his computer of staff
profiles, and lists of top downloaders and uploaders — and also asked for the
user database.


 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u6wdw
(TorrentFreak)

CEO of French Streaming Service Deezer Ousted by Investors

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Paris
– Deezer, the France-based streaming music service, has seen its co-founder and
CEO Jonathan Benassaya forced out by investors, TechCrunch reports. The
investors were reportedly not satisfied with the performance of the company
with relation to ad sales and the recent switch to a $14 per month subscription
model. Deezer reportedly counts 10 million users in Europe,
but was only able to convert 10,000 to paying customers over three months.


 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u6xmd
(TechCrunch)

http://www.deezer.com

Male-Focused Network Break Media Forms Game Studio

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Los Angeles
– Break Media, the operator of a network of websites targeting young males,
announce on Monday that it has established a new video development studio.
Located in China,
the studio will focus on social games, and is currently working on six original
titles; its first game, "MMA FightPicker," is due to launch next
month. The game will be featured on Break’s CagePotato.com site and also be accessible
on Facebook. Break says its stable of sites reach more than 100 million men
worldwide each month.


 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u6xsl

http://breakmedia.break.com

HarperCollins Debuts Inkpop Web Community for Teen Writers

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

New York – HarperCollins
Publishers on Monday launched inkpop, which it says is the first interactive
writing platform for teens backed by a major U.S. publisher. The site combines
community publishing, user-generated content and social networking elements
"to connect rising stars in teen literature with talent-spotting readers
and publishing professionals." Since a soft launch in the fourth quarter,
the site has attracted more than 10,000 members and nearly 11,000 submissions,
spanning novels, poems, essays and short stories.


 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u6xt6

http://www.inkpop.com

RightsFlow Inks Deals with PRS for Music, PIAS

By
Mark Hefflinger
-
0

Cannes, France – RightsFlow, a provider of bulk
mechanical licensing and royalty services for the music industry, on Monday
announced agreements with PRS for Music, which represents 65,000 U.K.
songwriters, and PIAS Entertainment Group, which provides distribution for 200
record labels. RightsFlow will now identify and license PRS for Music works for
mechanical uses in the U.S.
The company’s deal with PIAS will see RightsFlow provide mechanical licensing
and royalty payment service for all of the company’s 200 distributed labels.


 

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/u6wua

http://www.prsformusic.com

http://www.pias.com

http://www.rightsflow.com

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