Der New Yorker Medienkonzern News Corp (NYSE: NWS, WKN: A0DLJU) hat Berichte über einen bevorstehenden Verkauf seines Social-Networking-Portals MySpace.com dementiert. News Corp befinde sich derzeit nicht in Verhandlungen mit einem anderen Unternehmen, über den Verkauf von MySpace.com, so News Corp Digital-Chef Jonathan Miller gegenüber Reuters.
In the wake of acquiring smaller digital music services iLike–and now, it looks like, Imeem–MySpace continues to attempt to align itself as the foremost player in the digital music industry. On Wednesday, the News Corp. division rolled out a music charts page to track the most popular music getting listened to on the social site.
It’s fairly self-explanatory. There’s a prominent “movers” section featuring artists that have seen an uptick in activity recently, and music can be filtered by genre, country, and label category (indie, unsigned, or major). Then there are links to “friend” an artist, buy songs, and watch music videos on MySpace’s recently launched music video portal.
MySpace, rumored to be on the verge of purchasing the free music streaming site imeem, is struggling to keep up with its own payments to music copyright holders, according to a top News Corp executive — a problem that has plagued every other licensed free music service.
The digital music doubters could be right with the contention that advertising revenue can’t cover the costs of licensing music. Meanwhile, illegitimate free music sources continue to proliferate, rendering paid music subscriptions irrelevant for most music fans.
Australia and New Zealand have become the first markets outside of the US to experience MySpace Music, which launched there today as part of its international expansion.
The service is a JV between the News Corp-owned MySpace and the local offices of the four major record labels. It also offers independent content via deals with digital aggregators IODA and The Orchard.
Consumers will be able to buy tracks and albums through MySpace Music withiTunes providing the downloads locally. Both Toyota and KFC have been named as flagship sponsors of the service in both markets.
http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1038808&c=1
Der deutsche Handyklingelton-Marktführer Jamba ändert nach der vollständigen Übernahme durch den US-Medienkonzern News Corp. seinen Namen. Das Unternehmen firmiert nun als Teil der News-Corp.- Unterhaltungssparte “Fox Mobile”, wie eine Sprecherin mitteilte. Die Marke “Jamba” für Klingeltöne, Handy-Bildchen et al. soll aber nach Angaben des Unternehmens erhalten bleiben.
Musik und Marken Digital BBQ Musik 2.0 Inside the gap between