iPhone or Bust?

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.
Some are predicting a revolution that will see mobile downloading approaching that of highly developed markets such as Japan. 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. One place where the gap has been closed is Japan. Total music sales there edged up 1% last year. Japan's success 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. 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. There are hopes handsets will improve further from a music-playing perspective thanks to the iPhone. 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."
Makinson predicts such subscription services will also need a fixed-line service in addition to mobile to have mass appeal - something which is being planned as a premium version of MusicStation. sers want more simplicity in terms of being abile to play what they buy across various devices. That is already happening with developments such as Sony Ericsson's Walkman phones, which synchronise with computers, he says. But he remains cautious about the benefits for record labels.

Do you think the problem of "Internet Piracy" can be solved ?

Do You Believe schemes like this one will make people more keen to buy music online?

Is there any other alternative to this system??

If you have any thoughts dont hesitate to tell.

Thanks Bye xxx

New Media Technology...

Okay so here we are!, My first ever blog.

NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGY

As you know the Title of this Post is "New Media Technology" or "N.M.T" And i guess your probably wondering, what is N.M.T?

Wikipedia Quotes, "New Media Tecnology is the marriage of mediated communications technologies with digital computers". Simple enough? right?

I dont think so, and unless your some sort of genious or my Media Studies teacher, you wont either. What do I believe New Media Technology is? Simple. It is the latest technology that is around us. Its hard to pinpoint what N.M.T is at any one point as there are constantly new technological advances to hit the shelves. We will look around only to find mobile phones with global positioning systems and easier access to the Internet than your PC at home. Gone are the days when a phone was just a phone. So i ask myself, Why is technology evolving so fast? Once again my personal take on it is that technology is evolving so quickly due to the whole reason the media is around in the first place. TO MAKE MONEY. For example, if Sony Erriccson released a phone with a new feature i.e. Colour screen, then lets face it, people will be more attracted to that rather than a less advanced phone that still has "green screen" beacuse its in our "media obsessed" human nature, to want what another person hasn't got. To be "better" and to improve their social "status" as such. Dont get me wrong im not a hater of change, but i am one to question the need for it once in a while. Its not just Phones that update constantly, look at the number of new cars about today. Each one is more "fuel efficient" and Faster than the last, yet how is it then that statistics prove that the 1967 Ford Mustang is faster than the 2007 model? What does all this new technology built onto a newer car do? how about makes it heavier, thus decrasing the speed and the fuel economy, and ladies and gents we all know what type of change that equates to, Climate change. However bad or good new technology is, lets be honest, soon the new technology around us will be able to do pretty much everything, Making most of our lives a heck of a lot easier. I believe that the Idea's in Star Trek and Star Wars are not actually that far off. I remember watching a documentary where someone was even saying they had spent their whole life dedicated to the development of a Lightsaber, for the Military to use. Good luck. Some may call that person a freak, if you asked me i'd call him a futurist. Mabye the starship Enterprise isn't such a far fetched idea and soon we will have the technological ability not just to seek out new life and new civilisation but mabye, just mabye, "go to boldy go where no man has gone before".

Why not leave me your thoughts on this blog?? comments welcome!!

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