Posts by Mark Mulligan (bio)

Mark Mulligan | May 14, 2008, 08:00 AM
imeem Takes on Yahoo and AOL

Social music site imeem have been placed as the number one US music-streaming service in the US, ahead of Yahoo and AOL. The rankings aren’t from either of the main measurement companies (Comscore and Nielsen) so will doubtlessly be contradicted / challenged by other rankings. Also the difference between imeem and Yahoo is less than 10 percent so, depending on the strength of the methodology, within margin of error.

But quibbles aside, if we take these numbers at a directional level it is clear that in a short period of time imeem has come out of nowhere and is competing on equal terms with the big boys. Social networks like MySpace and Facebook stole audience time and share away from traditional portals, communities and personal pages by offering something completely new. In the same way social music sites like imeem, Last.FM and Pandora are all causing upheaval to traditional online music destinations by providing audiences with a new, immersive experience. Streaming music sites have to date survived by offering an online approximation of radio (and music TV). But social music sites have changed the rules of engagement. If the incumbents like Yahoo want to remain competitive for young audiences, they’ll need to start learning the new language of social music.

Mark Mulligan | May 12, 2008, 09:25 AM
A Wider Perspective on the ITV Voting Story

Another guest blog today from Jupiter's European Media Analyst Nick Thomas

Tempting as it is to join the chorus of disapproval as details of UK broadcaster ITV’s latest PR disasters around voting irregularities emerge - and boy, do they make themselves an easy target - what are the wider lessons for broadcasters adjusting to a world of declining revenues and fragmenting audiences?

Yes, broadcasters need to create new revenue streams as audiences and ad revenues migrate online. Getting revenue from premium phone lines was never the long-term answer, not least because audiences are increasingly interacting via their laptops and mobile internet (ie voting for free) rather than via SMS and Premium calls. The latest publicity has now accelerated the decline of those revenues.

What’s needed is a fundamental shift in the way broadcasters perceive their relationship with their viewers, in response to the shift that viewers are already making. As their viewers increasingly time-shift, place-shift, and multi-task across different platforms, broadcasters like ITV need to demonstrate quickly that ‘interactivity’ means more than simply fleecing their viewers via dodgy phone lines. Contrition is fine, but can ITV actually change what seems to be hard-wired behaviour among some of its execs?

As revenues decline, broadcasters should also radically look at the value of their content. As new business models for content creation emerge – the likes of Kate Modern and Quarterlife are produced for a fraction of traditional TV budgets – broadcasters should not take the primacy of professionally created content for granted. Their viewers don’t.

The growth of online video consumption creates new challenges for companies seeking to engage audiences. For more on this check out our recent report Online Video in Europe: Managing TV Audience Fragmentation.

Mark Mulligan | May 07, 2008, 10:45 AM
Qtrax have signed a content partner, no really they have.

Now that the dust has settled on the Midem furore Qtrax have announced the important addition of Universal Music Group and Universal Music Publishing to their roster of content partners. You may recall that Universal were the first to sign up with competitor Spiral Frog. Universal have been carving out a niche for themselves as the ‘first to the table’ label partner for the more edgy digital music offerings. Whilst those services may have to pay a premium for UMG’s risk, they know that having them on board Universal will play the role of Pied Piper with the other labels eventually following cf Comes With Music, Spiral Frog, imeem. Though Qtrax has been signing partners for some time, their French Riviera faux-pas essentially relegates them to the level of new-entrant in the eyes of much of the market, so UMG’s ‘first to the table’ role fits perfectly here.

As regular readers know I dubbed 2008 as the ‘Year of Free’ (after admittedly calling it too early in 2007). This time though everything is well on track. The irony of it all though is that the free pioneers like Spiral Frog and Qtrax will probably end up playing second fiddle to the likes of Nokia’s Comes With Music and quite possibly even Apple – who may well even beat Nokia to market with a pre-stored value / pre-loaded music device.

Mark Mulligan | April 30, 2008, 02:59 PM
What Does the Rest of 2008 Hold Part I

Part one of another semi-regular series, this week Apple and Nokia

Apple and Nokia have their horns locked in an intriguing corporate duel, each opening up secondary fronts on their opponent’s turf in a bid to out-flank them: Apple with the iPhone and Nokia with their music strategy. The new ‘away’ business of each is comparative small fry in their opponent’s ‘home’ marketplace but is so disruptive to force their opponent to reassess the rules of engagement. The application of Apple’s characteristically innovative approach to devices to the iPhone has set new standards for what high-end phones need to look and perform like, despite the fact it accounts for a miniscule fraction of global handset sales. Similarly Nokia’s Comes With Music is setting the standard for next-generation music services despite the fact it’s not even been launched yet.

The implied question is what will the defensive counter-thrust of each company be? I’ll leave the Nokia part aside as mobile is not my area of expertise but I’ll take a stab at the Apple part.

Over the course of much of much of this century Apple has innovated hard with the iPod, typically launching the ‘iPod-killer’ before the competition can. The iTunes Music Store (iTMS) however has remained relatively untouched – what changes that have been implemented have been evolutionary rather the often revolutionary approach to iPod refreshes. Apple has simply not been under any serious competitive pressure to evolve iTMS since its launch. It has, since the word ‘go’, been the best-of-breed offering, and for nearly as long the market leader, increasing its dominant market share with each year.

Now with the emergence of new approaches to digital music (subsidized subscriptions, social music, ad-supported) Apple is at risk of looking like yesterday’s digital music offering. (Indeed Nokia seems to be stealing all the press, something Apple traditionally pride themselves on). This matters to Apple because the role of iTMS is to enhance the value proposition of the iPod. If iTMS acquires a market perception of being outmoded, the whole iPod value proposition is affected.

So what will Apple do? I’ll make my personal predictions around one or more of the following happening before the end of 2008:

· A subscription service (probably covering music and video) but with some sort of ownership story for music and a predominately rental story for video. (An optional pay-as-you-go payment model would be well suited to driving additional a la carte sales). Using the licensing territory that Nokia has carved out Apple could offer permanent ownership on iPods and computers, but not CD burning. This would of course make it highly important for the next option…
· DRM-free across all a la carte catalogue. Olive branches need to be extended to the majors, but Apple needs to beat the rest of the pack to universal availability of DRM-free. It would also help Apple address the issue of iPod owners having music optimized phones as a secondary music player
· Pre-installing iPods with content (music and video). A great way for Apple to differentiate at point of sale and to charge premiums for devices in the face of increasing price pressure.
· Social discovery features, perhaps facilitating opt-in profiles that incorporate users' iTunes based listening behaviour and iTMS purchasing behaviour.

Apple being Apple (i.e. impossible to predict) none of the above may ever happen, but whatever does, Apple needs to do something soon.

Mark Mulligan | April 28, 2008, 02:49 PM
Comes With Insider Rumours

Another Comes With Music ‘insider’ story in today’s Register, attempting to throw further doubt on Nokia’s business model for the offering. This is the second ‘insider’ CWM story in as many weeks, which begs the question ‘why?’. Is it just because CWM is newsworthy, or are some vested interests getting information in the public domain to help negotiations perhaps?

Mark Mulligan | April 28, 2008, 09:35 AM
SonyBMG Join Up With WE-7

Hot on the heels of their deal with Nokia, SonyBMG have inked a deal with UK based ad-supported download service WE-7.

I’m sure the guys at We-7 are very relieved to be able to plaster Leona Lewis and Mark Ronson all over their site as a quick peek at the top 10 artists on the service to date suggests a rather unfortunate combination of limited catalogue and a skewed early adopter base:

#3 Uriah Heep (what the ??!!!)
#4 The Kinks
#6 The Searchers
#7 Emerson Lake and Palmer
#9 The Troggs

And (admittedly much) further down the list there are even the long-lost 80's glam metal guys W.A.S.P., which brings back memories of my misspent heavy metal youth.

But I’m being unfair, this is a relatively new service just getting off the ground, and is different from the more well known ad-supported duo in that its focus on the advertisers is so strong, it almost feels like it is an advertiser’s service first and a music service second. Which is no bad thing, as the ad-supported offerings are only going to make it if they get their ad story right.

Jupiter’s got a European report coming out soon looking at the opportunity in Europe, on a country by country basis, for ad-supported and subsidized offerings, compared to the premium download opportunity. Watch this space for more details.

Mark Mulligan | April 22, 2008, 07:11 AM
Comes With SonyBMG

Nokia today announced that SonyBMG has signed up to Comes With Music. It's another important step forward for this potentially game changing service. Though no further details have yet been confirmed (e.g. launch date) it shows that Nokia are maintaining the momentum which will be crucial to a successful launch. Also announced were a couple of cool new entry level music phones.

Mark Mulligan | April 19, 2008, 01:21 PM
How Much is a Comes With Music Device Really worth?

Paid Content report ‘well informed music industry’ sources as claiming that Nokia have guaranteed Universal Music $33.5 per handset for Comes With Music. That works fine for getting UMG to the table and kick starting the subsidized subscription marketplace, but it doesn’t scale well if you want a full choice of catalogue. Add in the other four majors and the indies (assuming they’ll each want a fee that is proportionate to UMG’s based upon their respective market shares) and you’re up to over $130 a handset.

If this was just a MP3 player we’re talking about then you could make an argument for some small margins based off a premium consumer price point. But we are of course talking about phones, and phones that will also do many more things than just music and voice. And as such there’ll be complex subsidy and other such negotiations with handset operators and other content partners and internal content divisions at Nokia. So it’ll either:

• It’s going to have to retail at a very premium price point and thus price out much of the target young market, or
• Nokia are very bullish about how much additional revenue CWM will generate and it’s associated additional benefits (handset market share, customer retention etc)

Then, for the UK, add into the mix the UK music industry’s current call for a blanket license on MP3 players (to drive revenue from format shifting). Would this apply also to devices such as CWM handsets for which a license fee has already been paid? If the license proposal was adopted in legislation it would need to have a specific addendum to exempt devices with licensed content components. Otherwise that’s yet more on the cost side of the equation for Nokia.

UPDATE - Nokia have publicly rejected the claims that they are paying Universal such a high fee for the device.

Mark Mulligan | April 16, 2008, 07:43 AM
How Not To Do Multi-Platform Programming

Another guest blog from Jupiter's European Media analyst Nick Thomas

A story about ITV caught the eye yesterday.

It was something of a self-inflicted PR disaster. In an attempt to reinvigorate the flagship ITV1 brand, the broadcaster reverted to a strategy that served it well in the past by buying a top-notch US show for its primetime Saturday 9pm slot. Pushing Daisies is pretty good too, and also stars homegrown actress Anna Friel. According to one reviewer, 95% of straight men in Britain are in love with her. Not sure about the methodology but the findings sound about right. Cue acres of press coverage and a decent first-night audience.

But then ITV let slip that with only eight slots available in the schedule (for a nine-week series) they would simply drop the second episode. It’s a decision that beggars belief, and a missed opportunity to highlight the multi-platform credentials its been working hard to acquire. A 30-second brainstorm in the Jupiter office generated the following solutions: start the high-profile new show with a double-bill; offer the second episode as an exclusive on itv.com to drive traffic and showcase a service which is losing out to the BBC’s iPlayer; showcase the second episode on one of its digital channels; or a combination of all these.

Plenty of people within ITV could have come up with this list, but none of them it seems, is running the place. The incoming controller of ITV1 can expect a busy few months banging heads together.

Mark Mulligan | April 14, 2008, 01:38 PM
Good Digital Music Marketing Part II

Radiohead have consolidated their reputation with their Nude remix initiative in partnership with Apple. They have made vocal, guitar, base, drums and strings / fx parts available for download via iTunes and invite fans to create their own remixes and post them to a specially designed web site.

This has to go down as one of the best implemented pieces of digital music marketing I’ve seen. This isn’t by any means the first time that artists have empowered their fan base to remix their tracks, but it’s certainly a best-practice case study for implementation and has some really nice touches:

• Selling the parts as full price singles on iTunes (I, for example, paid nothing for Rainbows but just spent the best part of 5 pounds on the parts)
• Allowing fans to vote for their favourite remix (thus drawing in new audiences such as the fans of the remixer rather than the band)
• Creating Facebook and Myspace widgets for remixers to use to get friends to vote.

All in all a really cool initiative. Over one and a half thousand mixes have been submitted so far

And if you’re interested you can hear my remix here (which for the record was done in Logic Audio).

And of course feel free to vote for my mix ;-)

Mark Mulligan | April 07, 2008, 09:22 AM
Good Digital Music Marketing Part I

(The first in a semi-regular series of digital music marketing case studies)

Interesting marketing by Warner’s Infectious Records; the Subways are giving away their (rocking) new single as an MP3 download via their site. The video is also heavily featured on MySpace music (and has been for quite a while now). However you can’t buy the download on most download stores yet and even on iTunes you can, currently, only buy the video. So if you want it on CD, the free download is your option, for a little while at least.

Great way to reward the fans anticipating the album release and also to reach a wider audience through the video promotion.

Mark Mulligan | April 03, 2008, 07:50 AM
MySpace Music Nears the Starting Block

MySpace’s long awaited Music Service looks set to be announced later this week or early next. Though details are unsurprisingly patchy at this stage it looks set to include ad supported streaming and MP3 downloads. Reports indicate that Universal, Sony BMG and Warner are on board or on the verge of being, with EMI yet to sign on the dotted line. The labels will take an equity stake in the new service.

Of course this service should have been live long, long ago. MySpace has established itself as a crucial element of the music marketing process in a ridiculously short period of time, and music is also a key driver of its audience. Jupiter’s research shows that nearly a third of European social networkers buy music they discover on MySpace and Bebo, rising to close to a half in the UK. If that is the conversion ratio when a purchase is a minimum of a URL and numerous clicks away, the potential of an integrated offering is undoubtedly significant.

I’ve heard from a few contacts in the labels that MySpace has been overplaying its hands in negotiations, essentially implying that it is doing the labels a favour and should be rewarded for it. Be it as it may that a symbiotic relationship of sorts exists, this is still the labels’ content and they still need revenue. Acquiring equity in the store hits something of a compromise. But it also represents the era of transformation the music industry is entering. CD sales may be declining and digital revenues may be modest, but consumption is at least as strong as it has ever been. What the record labels need to do is create a revenue generating framework around consumption and understand that purchasing will be much less central to future revenues than it has been historically. Expect many more innovative services and mould-breaking partnerships as the labels throw everything at the wall to see what sticks.

Mark Mulligan | March 31, 2008, 08:45 AM
TDC Launch Subsidized Music Subscription Offering

Danish telco TDC has announced the launch of a subsidized subscription service that will “offer consumers unlimited music downloads ‘bundled' with private broadband or mobile subscriptions, at no extra cost.” TDC broadband and mobile customers will automatically be able entitled to access the music offering free of charge. At first sight PLAY appears to be a predominately PC and mobile centred experience, though it’s not immediately obvious whether you can utilize both platforms unless you subscribe to both broadband and mobile. I’ll be getting further details from TDC soon.

Play is essentially a tethered download service, with a download store incorporated. Crucially access to downloaded tracks expires when the broadband or mobile subscription ends. This gets to the crux of the business proposition for TDC. Danish Online household penetration is near saturated and will grow by just 2 percentage points in 2008. Similarly nearly 90% of those online households already have broadband and this share will grow also by just a few percentage points. In short the broadband market is saturated. This offering is differentiation with a predominate view to retention. However the label licenses have significant costs associated with them so TDC will have to be seeking to recoup some share of the costs (advertising?) as music alone is not enough to differentiate in the fiercely competitive world of home broadband.

It’s a innovative looking service (though full portability could be an issue) and is one of a few such offerings that have been in the pipes for some time. To understand where it fits in the future of digital music read our latest report on Next Generation Music services.

P.S. TDC assure me that despite the fact the service goes live at one minute past midnight that this is not an April Fools.

Mark Mulligan | March 19, 2008, 10:01 PM
Comes With EMI

Nokia’s Comes With Music looks to be gaining some much needed momentum, with EMI announcing they are in negotiations to license to the offering. With Omnifone’s MusicStation Max and rumours of Apple deploying a similar approach for iPods Nokia are at risk of being beaten to the punch in their own game. They need at least two of the majors on board before launching CWM, and of course really they need them all. If EMI do sign up it should be a matter of time for the others to follow. The longer term issue is whether the terms Nokia are agreeing create a sustainable market framework for subsidized subscription offerings.

Mark Mulligan | March 19, 2008, 09:10 AM
Labels Sue Eircom

More on the enforcing piracy debate: the four majors have sued Ireland’s leading ISP Eircom, demanding that filtering technology be deployed to combat illegal downloading of music. Eircom unsurprisingly protest and ask how they will be able to tell whether traffic is copyrighted or not without first of all looking at potentially innocent user’s traffic data. There are ways to narrow this down beyond reasonable doubt for many networks but they are typically labour intensive and not an explicitly integrated part of the filtering implementation. It's worth noting though that this specific case covers filtering, which is related to but technically seperate from enforcement and, to some degree, from policing.

Filtering can be implemented without monitoring traffic. But savvy users can find ways round filtering, which could mean that the hardcore sharers are left largely unaffected.

There is clearly a strong case for finding common ground and for ISPs and content owners to work as the 'partners' they publicly claim to be. Common ground typically infers a degree of compromise, which brings us back to the issue of finding cost and time effective solutions which bring genuibe benefit to both parties.

Mark Mulligan | March 17, 2008, 10:19 AM
More Anti-Piracy Legislation

The Swedish government is working on legislation to compel ISPs to provide details of IP addresses used for illegal file sharing. (Sweden remains the main home of the infamous Pirate Bay). This is part of a European swell of rights owner driven legislative activity. Currently Swedish ISPs are (predominately) not liable for the data on their networks, the traditional defence of ISPs.

If the precedents are set and ISPs do become liable there will be a crucial period of adjustment, for a couple of reasons in particular. Firstly a line will need to be drawn in the sand somewhere: the sliding scale is already beyond zero due to issues such as terrorism, but it will need to stop somewhere short of the other extreme. Secondly, and explicitly related to the former issue, enforcement has to be practicable and affordable. No one can afford to police and enforce every infringer, and indeed currently the content industries only go after the core infringers. A workable framework needs to be put in place that strikes the balance between responsibility and affordability for ISPs (which ideally should be explicitly tied to beneficial license terms for content offerings, including bonuses for achievement of enforcement targets). The ISPs need a big, fat, juicy carrot to accompany the stick.

Currently the music industry is most strongly associated with fighting online piracy, but the TV and film industries are becoming more important as every day passes: video file sharing is growing strongly in Europe (a report on this topic by my colleague Ian Fogg will be published very soon). But it’s not just becoming a big deal for the content owners, it’s impacting ISP networks more than music sharing. In Sweden about a third more Internet users file share music than video, but the traffic from video (according to my back of the envelope calculations) is already at least 50% bigger. This share will grow as HD content becomes more prevalent and adoption grows.

So the movie and TV industry are facing the same questions the music industry did back with the rise of the original Napster. What is interesting though, is the difference in approach from many TV broadcasters: alongside enforcement are mainstream free online offerings: iPlayer, Hulu, ABC.com etc.

The TV industry can probably afford for the Internet to act as ‘radio’ for them as advertising is (normally) a basic element of their core business. The Music industry though, already has its radio and is counting on the Internet to shoulder much of the retail role that CD is shunning. In short ad spend alone is not enough for the music industry online.

Mark Mulligan | March 14, 2008, 10:21 AM
Napster Available on O2

Napster is coming to O2 (the UK mobile operator) but in a slightly counter intuitive way. Instead of O2 customers having the opportunity to have the full fledged subscription service on their mobile they instead get to search, preview and buy (a la carte) from the Napster catalogue on their devices, with Ericsson acting as facilitator.

Is it significant? Well from an O2 customer perspective you now have a deeper catalogue to chose from but beyond that I’m not so sure of the significance.

First it delivers in dual delivery which is basically saying “we know that the file you’ve bought on your mobile is of such poor quality that we’ll send you a decent quality one to your PC.” Fine it’s arguably an adequate solution for today’s mobile network capabilities but it isn’t equipped for the long run. The distinctions between mobile and PC are blurring, driven by more consumers hooking up their mobiles to PCs, sideloading music and accessing the world wide web on device. Nokia and Apple have evolved their businesses to help drive this change, by making one standard store that you can access by mobile or PC and get the same file quality and type. This is the sort of future proofing that dual delivery doesn’t have.

But the bigger issue for me is that this is just another download store. Admittedly it has good catalogue and discovery but as a download store it is entering an overly crowded marketplace and lacks differentiation. The irony is that as much as subscription services have failed on the PC in Europe, they have some potential on mobile, at the right price point. But that opportunity hasn’t been tapped here. As a download store, O2 isn’t just competing with Vodafone and Orange, they’re head to head against Apple and few come out of that face off smelling of roses.

Mark Mulligan | March 05, 2008, 10:55 AM
Is SFR Really France's Number One Download Destination?

Vivendi recently stated in their annual earnings that “SFR: [is the] #1 music platform in France for downloads in Q4 2007” and press reports place their December downloads at 2 million. All of which sounds pretty impressive except for the fact that they’re almost certainly not #1. As readers of this blog will know, Jupiter tracks the European music download markets closely, both for mobile and PC. The total music downloads (PC and mobile) for France for December 2007 was in the region of 8 million. That would put SFR’s 2 million downloads somewhere in the region of a quarter of the total for that month and somewhat behind Apple based upon our calculations. Also SFR’s numbers include free promotional and bundled tracks not included in Jupiter’s 8 million figure.

Some may recall the Music Load in Germany attempted to claim number one spot and published their numbers, only for Apple to counter with theirs and establish themselves at number one. It appears they’re gambling Apple won’t do so here. However my colleague Thomas Husson adds that SFR's aggressive and compelling Illimythics offering has the potential to make them a much bigger player should they retain current momentum.

Mark Mulligan | March 04, 2008, 10:10 AM
Warner to Sell DRM-Free via 7 Digital

I nearly missed this: 7 Digital (one of EMI's original DRM-free partners) today announced that they will be selling DRM-free MP3 tracks of Warner Music’s entire catalogue. A welcome move that reflects the growing realization among the music industry that dropping DRM is a becoming a strategic centre-piece rather than a tactical sideshow. As we predicted back in April last year, the DRM-free tide is becoming an innevitability rather than a possibility. It does of course leave Apple looking increasingly exposed with its DRM catalogue limited to EMI with all the other majors making varying degrees of their catalogue available DRM-free with other retailers.

Mark Mulligan | March 04, 2008, 08:49 AM
Nokia Launches German Download Store

Nokia have launched their second European digital music store, this time in Germany, following the UK launch in November. The store itself is not about to change the digital music landscape, but it will be basic element of Nokia’s broader ambitious content and music strategies. Whether Nokia actually need to have the download stores is another question. Their thinking is that a download store is a basic hygiene factor in any digital music strategy, but it is clear now that DRM wrapped 99 cent downloads have limited appeal. It is to be hoped that Nokia deploy some smart integration and positioning of the download store with their forthcoming subsidized subscription offering Comes With Music. (Simply directing subscribers to the store for CD burns and purchases after subscription period expiration just won’t cut the mustard).

Mark Mulligan | March 04, 2008, 03:47 AM
When the Swiss Army Knife Comes out on Top

I was in Sicily over the weekend and went on a long run over the hills. Usually I’d take my iPod but as I was going in a direction I’d not been before I decided to take my N95 just in case I needed to make a call. The 8 gig of memory means that I’ve got a decent selection of music on there as well, though I hadn’t got round to putting the album I’d wanted to listen to on their (the Wombats). But when I was out I really began to appreciate having the N95: I saw a falcon soaring in the sky and was able to capture it on video and then when I’d got to the top of a particularly high hill I was able to take a high quality photo of the fantastic vista down to the sea. So my mild irritation of not having the music I wanted was completely offset by having all the extra functionality.

OK it’s a pretty niche usage scenario but it does illustrate how context can lessen the importance of the primary music playback functionality (the N95 doesn’t come close even to the Touch as a music player) when the secondary applications are required. Is this an argument for multimedia phones over dedicated portable media players? Not exclusively, as the latter is already fixing a course towards multi-functionality cf the iPod Touch.

Mark Mulligan | February 22, 2008, 11:13 AM
Time for ISPs and Content Owners to Get on the Same Page

News of the UK government’s proposal to pass legislation to compel ISPs to stop illegal file sharing on their networks appears to be polarising debate and bringing out the usual discussion of privacy concerns etc.

They key issue here is that it is in the interest of content owners and ISPs to reach collaborative, voluntary agreement. If both parties could come together and create a viable and compelling (dirt) cheap alternative to illegal content online for consumers ISPs would be able to monetize traffic and content owners would extract revenue from otherwise elusive audiences.

To compete against free, and of course (in the case of music), with Apple, content owners need to empower ISPs with groundbreaking licenses. The shift to free or near to free legal content is of course well underway – just consider Spiral Frog, Qtrax, Comes With Music, MusicStation Max, imeem etc. for music and iPlayer, 4OD, ITV.com, ABC.com, Hulu etc for video.

An all in one content bundle that ISPs could wrap into broadband packages for little additional cost to the consumer would take this to a logical next step. But there isn’t much room for charging a premium – my colleague Ian Fogg points out that home broadband is becoming increasingly commodified. A family content bundle might just be a differentiator for ISPs and would certainly be door opener to mainstream audiences for content owners.

Mark Mulligan | February 22, 2008, 10:59 AM
DRM is So 2007

Having just attended a certain music awards show I had the refreshingly high tech experience of a using a sponsor’s pre-stored value swipe card to redeem a USB format album of music for the show. Though I intially had a few odd experiences when trying to open it (including being sent to a US Yahoo Music app) the music was actually pretty easy to get to. But most interestingly it was all in MP3 format. A welcome breath of fresh air.

Mark Mulligan | February 19, 2008, 05:23 PM
Universal Appeal?

Vivendi Universal today announced the launch of Zaoza (in France for now), a mobile subscription offering that gives consumers unlimited access to music (most majors on board), videos and games for just three Euros a month. A cynic might argue that at that price point you have to question just how much consumers would be willing to pay for music thereafter i.e. would they ever buy a CD album again. The DRM offers Comes With Music style DRM that provides permanent ownership on PC and mobile but no CD burning (if I were Nokia I’d be wondering whether the advance I’ve paid should have been so high). But, as my colleague Ian Fogg points out, this assumes a high level of CD ownership amongst the (young) target audience. But for those youth that don’t have CD players, CD burns are simply not a stimulus for paying more.

The 3 Euros price point and multiple handset operability look great on paper, but the devil will be in the detail. It looks like only a select (read ‘limited’) amount of content will be available to subscribers. Though it seems this selection will be rotated, it remains possible that it will be just that: a ‘selection’.

Also, what does this say about mobile content strategies? My colleague Thomas Husson points out that this looks to be a scale game i.e. an acceptance that mainstream consumers (particularly younger ones) do not want to pay for content and that most mobile content revenues streams are stagnant (if that). So the assumption is: gamble on lots of consumers paying a little generating significantly more revenue than a few consumers paying a reasonable amount. It’s a gamble, but it’s a time for high stakes.

Is it a winner? Quite possibly, but let's wait and see how it looks in action with mainstream (non-beta) consumers.