TTL - The Tech Link Blog

Dell

Recently, Dell started offering pre-installed movies on their computers during online checkout. They are now pushing the media distribution further by offering pre-installed “music packs” on their PCs.

Dell’s agreement with Universal enables the computer maker to offer attractively priced music when a customer buys a new computer. A 50-song pack will cost $25, and a 100-song pack will cost $50. That’s half of what it would cost if the same amount of songs were bough on iTunes!

All songs will be DRM-free. Users will be able to use and listen to the purchased songs anywhere, anytime. As of now, the XPS One and Dell Mini 9 netbook are excluded from the offering.

The Boston Globe

Lala

Lala.com just launched a new service for its U.S. users called Music Mover.

The idea is simple and quite similar to blueTunes.net, where the service will scan you entire music library (it’s iTunes compatible) and upload only the songs that are not present in the Lala.com music catalog.

Once this process is complete, the user’s entire music library will be available for free and unlimited streaming over the Internet. The main difference between blueTunes and Lala is that Lala is completely free and blueTunes will make you pay if you send more than 100 songs to your account.

ars technica

iTunes

Apple has done it again! The iTunes Store has been offering TV shows/series download for only 36 months and they have already hit 200 million downloads.

The iTunes Store offers TV shows and series downloads from NBC, CBS, MTV, HBO, etc. at $1.99 for standard definition and $2.99 for high definition.

FierceMobileContent

iTunes

Marketing, ads, publicity, call it whatever you like, these are around to stay.

As focus drives away from standard media (TV, newspaper, magazines, radio) and converges towards the Internet, streaming content, online magazines, video games, movies, etc., ad agencies and marketing firms are looking for ways to integrate the new media age.

The Apple App Store is a real gold mine for ad agencies. Don’t be surprised to see more and more free “sponsored” games and applications available for download very shortly.

What’s next? Free songs including a 10-second ad break at the beginning? Why not?

MacDailyNews

YouTube

Like what you see? Then “Click to Buy”. You will see a lot of this on YouTube from now on.

It’s no secret, Google has been loosing a lot of money with YouTube because it’s not profitable enough. Sure, it’s popular, but it doesn’t bring profits to the company. As a first step in transforming YouTube into a money-making venture, Google started integrating non-intrusive links within certain video pages that promote different type of products and media.

Users will be able to buy the music tracks of certain music videos they like to watch, or buy a game or movie right after watching the preview or teaser. Partnerships have already been made with iTunes and Amazon.

BetaNews

iTunes

The Copyright board spoke yesterday and decided to leave the current royalty rates unchanged for CDs and music downloads at 9.1 cents per song.

Web radios will have to pay the same 9.1 cents per song streamed never exceeding 10.5% of its total revenues in order not to completely usurp a net broadcaster’s profits.

If the decision would have been to raise royalty fees to 15 or 16 cents per song as suggested, online music stores like iTunes and AmazonMP3 would have had to increase their prices as they would not have been profitable anymore.

BetaNews

Apple

Apple’s business strategy for many of it’s products is based around the iTunes store. So why would they threaten to close it? Well, right now, Apple is paying 9 cents per downloaded song to the artists, they want 15 cents.

The Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, D.C., is scheduled to rule today on a request from the National Music Publishers’ Association to increase royalty rates paid to its members on songs purchased from online music stores like iTunes.

Apple says that they might be forced to close they iTunes store if the fees go up because they might not be profitable anymore.

MacDailyNews