Bjork's New Album is an App-lbum

Bjork is set to release her new album Biophilia in the fall, but she doesn't want you to just buy 1 song for $.99, she wants you to buy the full experience. In conjunction with Apple, Bjork has created an app for each song on her new album, which will provide a multi-media experience for the user. It's interesting that this is being developed in conjunction with Apple as their $.99 strategy is responsible for the demise of people buying the whole album. This new format will also create a little turmoil inside of Apple as their app and iTunes divisions are separate competing entities.

You can read more about the album here:

http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2011/08/features/music-nature-science?page=1

CBS May Be Making Online TV Even Cheaper

In a move that could spell even lower value perception by consumers for online media content, Mashable reports that CBS's Les Moonves is hinting that the price point for television programs may be lowered to $0.99 saying, "There are certain shows that will be sold on Apple for 99 cents."

The question is whether this shift, which Apple's iTunes has been pushing for, will be followed by other TV content providers. If so, as consumers shift more to watching content online and the value of commercials on traditional cable and network outlets becomes less and less, where will the money to create this content come from? And where will this democratization of content creaton lead the industry? How will we ever be able to produce such quality content such as Survivor and Fear Factor on 99 cents an episode?

MySpace Music Portal to launch iTunes competitor

While The New York Post was incorrect in its prediction that MySpace's iTunes competitor was to launch last week, today Reuter's reported that discussions of a joint venture between MySpace and three major music companies hot and heavy.

Reuter's reports that Sony BMG, Warner, and Universal have signed into the joint venture that is to launch within the next five days and is structured to be a mix of digital downloads and revenue sharing on advertising.

Attracting more than 15 million unique monthly visitors (as reported by comScore), MySpace's biggest strength could arguably be its music section and artists pages. Currently, MySpace's music portal only focuses on new music promotion and tour date information and captures some revenue by linking visitors to iTunes to purchase music.

This new joint venture seeks to directly compete with iTunes and seeks to tie together all forms of making money from digital music by allowing users to buy digital downloads in MP3 format, buy related products such as ringtones and videos, and see and hear ad-supported streaming video.

What is most interesting about this joint venture is its business model:
"… Unlike most music licensing agreements, which require upfront advances, no money is expected to change hands. Instead, the labels are trading content rights in exchange for minority equity stakes in MySpace Music and the chance to participate in the advertising revenues that News Corp. hopes to generate from the service."

Sources: Mashable, Reuters, New York Post