Music Ally

Napster has extended its mobile deal with Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo to include videos as well as full-track music. The new streaming videos have been branded as Napster Clips, and will initially be available to owners of DoCoMo’’s new Onephone handset, with 20,000 buyers being offered a six-month trial subscription to Napster’’s mobile service.

Extracts from the hour long panel session at MIDEM 2008 on the changing relationship between fans, artists and the music business chaired by Music Ally director Steve Mayall

MidemNet 2008: U2 Manager Paul McGuinness speaks

TV reality show American Idol was a key factor in many Americans starting to text message, back in the day. It’s gone from strength to strength in terms of SMS since then, with operator AT&T saying that the latest series generated 78 million text messages. Meanwhile, this series saw more tie-ins with related mobile content too.

Music firm ARTISTdirect has revealed losses of $4.76 million for the first quarter of this year, based on revenues of $4.2 million. That’s a big turnaround from the same period last year, when the company generated revenues of $5.45 million and posted a profit of $3.54 million. The company runs several music sites, as well as anti-piracy firm MediaDefender.

New Business Models: subscription, ad funded

Battle of the devices: Zune vs Zen vs iPod vs iPhone

Digital Music Consumption

Ad-supported music service SpiralFrog is ramping up its online promotion with the launch of a new site, SpiralFrogClub. It’s effectively a sampler for the full service, designed to get users introduced to our benefits versus illegal peer-to-peer download sites. It’ll offer free music in 12 genres, along with some personalisable virtual dancer representing them in a nightclub theme. We would try and explain that more, but the site isn’t accessible outside North America and Canada.

Napster has announced first-quarter revenues of $30.7 million, up 5.7% from the same period last year. The company’s losses from continuing operations fell, meanwhile, from $7.5 million in the first quarter last year, to $4.3 million this year. The company says it now has around 760,000 paid subscribers, a slight increase from the end of last year. 

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