The iTunes store sells songs for 99p each. Some people think this is too much. But the band Coldplay has found an even more profitable way of selling their music. They’ve signed up with Cingular Sounds to sell fragments of their stuff as ring tones. Fans can fork out $2.49 to purchase a 15-second snippet from the band’s new single, Speed of Sound, that can be used as their phone’s ringtone. Assuming that the average track lasts for three minutes, that’s equivalent to $29.88 per track. No wonder the ringtone business is now reckoned to be worth $209 a year. It even has a Top Ten chart.
What UK politicians would have on their iPods…
… if only they knew how to operate them. Lovely item in today’s Guardian about politicos’ musical tastes. Reminds one that music provides a window into the soul. Could one love someone who loved Wagner?
Reboot: June 11-12
Interesting conference happening in Copenhagen in June. Participants include Cory Doctorow, Jason Fried, Robert Scoble, Doc Searls, Jimbo Wales and David Weinberger. Hmmm… wonder if RyanAir flies to Copenhagen.
On this day…
… in 1912, the Titanic sank off the coast of Newfoundland. When I was growing up in Ireland, there was an urban legend that the Cork Examiner, a relentlessly provincial publication, carried a huge headline in 96-point type saying, “Corkman Drowns” and below it, in smaller type, “Titanic sinks on maiden voyage”. As the Italians say, if it isn’t true then it ought to be.
Apple’s results
In the last quarter, Apple sold 5.3 million iPods, a 558 percent increase from a year ago. More astonishing though is the news that the company sold 1 million Macs — 43 percent more than in the same period last year. And 40 percent of those were sold to customers who had never owned a Mac before. Wow! Something’s up.
Sistine chapelcam?
The conclave of cardinals to elect the next pope assembles in the Sistine Chapel next Monday. Wonder if any enterprising media organisation has thought about bugging the building? A wireless webcam would be just the ticket. This one, for example, can be remotely controlled.
Quote of the day
The first two television election broadcasts by the two main parties concentrate not on throwing mud at each other but on hosing the manure off their own reputations.
Mark Lawson, the Guardian, April 12 , 2005.
Rip, mix, burn, laugh
The Ed Matts story gets better and better. The Guardian solicited further creative photoshopping from readers. The results are hilarious. This one by James Smith is my favourite.
Photoshopping, dog-whistles and the election
Wonderful story in the Guardian about Ed Matts, the Tory candidate for South Devon, after the right-hand photograph appeared on his campaign literature showing him and another prominent Tory, Ann Widdecombe (aka Doris Karloff), holding placards which apparently parrot the new Tory ‘tough’ line on immigration (code for xenophobia). The only problem is that the pic is a photoshopped version of an earlier picture (the left-hand one) in which the two politicos are shown campaigning in support of a local failed asylum seeker and her family who faced deportation. Verily, you couldn’t make this stuff up.
An innovative use of Google
From today’s New York Times…
It seems that Kenneth L. Lay, the former Enron chairman who faces trial next January on fraud charges, has paid Google, the online search service, to place ads next to or above searches about Enron and related topics and direct people to a site that gives his side of the story.
The links also appear in searches involving the bylines of some reporters, like Mary Flood of The Houston Chronicle and Kurt Eichenwald of The New York Times. A quick check of the Google “AdWords” site suggests that Mr. Lay pays about $25 a day for linking ads to the searches. Every time someone uses Google to search for sites about “Ken Lay” or “Enron,” among other terms, and then clicks on the link to the kenlayinfo.com site, that click costs Mr. Lay a little less than a dime. His case hasn’t yet gone to trial, but he’s trying to score points in the court of public opinion, and he’s willing to pay for it.