ARTICAL ON MOBILE PHONE MUSIC SERVICES :)

Record labels are predicting that this month's launch of three new mobile phone music services will usher a return of rising sales after years of decline.

Apple's music-playing iPhone grabbed the headlines with its arrival in Britain last week. But music executives are just as excited about the new unlimited downloads service launched on Vodafone. At the same time Nokia, the world's largest maker of mobile phones, has opened a digital music store here.

The world's biggest music company, Universal, is backing the MusicStation, the Vodafone service. Rob Wells, head of digital at Universal's international division, predicts the £1.99-a-week subscription service will have mass market appeal. "We are at a turning point in the UK," he says, predicting digital music sales here could offset falling CD sales within a year.

Global sales have been falling since 2000, down another 5% to $19.6bn (£9.4bn) last year, according to industry group IFPI. Although digital sales are rising fast, at a tenth of the total market, they have yet to make up for tumbling CD sales.

One place where the gap has been closed is Japan. Total music sales there edged up 1% last year. Japan's success in offsetting falling CD sales - something the IFPI calls reaching the "holy grail" - is largely attributed to the prevalence of mobile downloads.

"Mobile is obviously extremely important because you have the market reach and secondly, the type of demographics that are very important to the music industry will almost certainly have music-enabled mobile phones." There are already indications that mobile music sales are picking up in the UK. The Orange UK network says its music sales jumped 70% over the past six months and it expects them to double by the end of 2007.

PricewaterhouseCoopers analysts say that new handsets are helping the mobile music market move away from mere ringtones to full song downloads. They expect the UK mobile music market to almost double from a predicted $83m this year to $156m in 2011. The music industry's optimism is underscored by several barriers to mass market mobile sales that have disappeared, such as high data delivery tariffs.

UK industry association BPI also cites support from new business models such as subscription schemes and enhanced handsets - four out of 10 UK mobiles can now play music.

Philip Makinson at telecoms specialists Greenwich Consulting says at £1.99 a week MusicStation brings big changes for music buyers but not necessarily for music sellers.

"Can something like this save the music industry? Well, MusicStation per se in the short term no. Because firstly it's only on Vodafone at the moment and secondly it's very cheap, meaning that the actual revenue for the music industry per user can only be quite small."

1.how is the institution going to be affected by this change?
2.how are music sales represented at this moment in time?
3.how will this affect how the audience buys and listens to music?
4.how has this change started?

another iphone related post :D

It is just a matter 0f days until the i phone is released, and so i thought i should make a blog post about the i phone. As you can tell from the picture the i phone is not only a very highly sophisticated piece of technology but is also a very stylish fashion accessory,with its sleek black finish and ever so crisp details, some say that this phone was created by god himself (well maybe not god but im sure it was someone important)

I posted a video ( \/see below) showing a advert from the apple website about how the i phone can be used, this really shows how the media is converging with technology such as phones. The i phone seems to be deleting things that we have been using for hundreds of years like the map,a example is showed below:

friend:'Oh no it seems as though we're lost, and we don't have a map....we are going to die i just know it....and im so hungry(looks at me licking lips)

me: ah you need not worry my dear chum, because i have the i phone!

friend: hows that going to help us!?!

me: well, with its gps we have no need for barbaric inventions such as the map, and we can search for a restaurant so you need not look at me with such hungry lips

friend:all hail the i phone!

a future insight? who knows......lol

IPHONE......heres a little advert for the iphone to let you see what the hype is all about :)

NMT Questions

Google has unveiled software it hopes will power a variety of future mobile phones and boost the web on the move.

The software could lead to cheaper phones as it is designed to speed up the process of making mobile services.

The firm is working with four mobile manufacturers - Samsung, HTC, Motorola and LG - but a Google branded phone was not announced.

The first phones using the so-called Google "software stack" will be available in the second half of 2008.

"This is going to bring the internet into cell phones in a very cool way," Andy Rubin, Google's director of mobile platforms, told the Associated Press news agency.

Mr Rubin's firm, called Android, was bought by Google in 2005 and the software it developed forms the basis of the new stack.

Google has formed the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), made up of 34 companies, including chip manufacturers and handset makers.

The move will be seen as a major competitor to Microsoft, Research in Motion, Palm and Symbian, who make the leading software systems for mobiles.

Google's Android software will be provided to handset makers free of charge and could lead to a price war for operating system licenses and potentially cheaper handsets.

In the United States mobile networks such as Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile will carry the Google-powered phones.

Google's system will be based on computer code that can be openly distributed among programmers, allowing them to build new applications.

A development tool kit for working on the new platform will be released next week.

QUSETIONS

1. Explain the term conversion

2. How is Google converging with phones?

3. How is this New Media Technology?

NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGY......

New Media technology....ever heard of it ??? No, well you may not have heard of it but it's very likely that it is a very big and influence part of your life. New media technology ranges from things such as iPods to WEB 2.0.
the I-phone is an example of NMT (new media technology) now this is an example of or fixation as a society to want bigger better things, even if it’s a tiny improvement people are willing to dish out big money to have the latest craze in technology that allows them to do everything in one ( internet, music, movies, email, phone, camera). anyone has to admit that this is a pretty cool gadget, it managed to step up a level in the way that phones are used, yeah ok phones have had music players and cameras etc in them before but what make the I-phone such an advancement in NMT, well when you combine one of the biggest names in music technology along with a phone, camera, email functionality, music, touch sensitive screen and last but not least the internet, it becomes a very desirable piece of technology. But what is so astounding is how the basic use of many things (like phones) are nearly lost with all the added features of nowadays technology, in the begging a phone was a massive brick like object that was used by business men in the 80's, it doesn’t take a genius to see that things have changed drastically, technology has converged and now it’s a case of all in one products.

well that’s just a brief glimpse into NMT, so next time you pick up your iPod or phone think about this post.

P.S. feel free to leave helpful comments :) thanks