Firstly some exciting news from January 2009 The Diary of A Madman Blog will also be available as Podcast of a Madman  with the usual ranting's and good stuff, as well as a whole host of other media that I can only talk about, but the podcast you can also listen, watch and view some episodes - all be announced and then you can subscribe and keep up to date with my Diary Blog and the new Digital Nutshell...

Well, it may Christmas, but the outlook is not one of hope and cheer as we see more companies struggling with economic slowdown and credit crunch. And last week saw more casualties across the board as some companies either have one more roll of the dice and cut back on staff - or in the worst case collapse completely.

Quick look at the list so far...

• The shock of Pinnacle filing for insolvency, flipped around 100 job losses - but that is only half of the story as there are still payments due to the indie labels distributed through Pinnacle.
• One of my favourites Pandora, ended up letting go of 20 (14%) people from their 140 strong workers.
• MTV let around 300 jobs go as part of Viacom's overall cut of 850 worldwide, as well as the Real/MTV Rhapsody America partnership which in addition cut a further 25 jobs.
• RealNetworks themselves also posted an announcement that it will be "eliminating their positions" nice tone of voice there, of around 130 people or 7.5% of its worldwide workforce.
• The media darling start up iMeem now looks in trouble and as well has it's feelers out for an immediate buyer has cut 25% of staff...

Yes indeed times are tough and could get decidedly worse before they get better, which is a worrying thought! However here are some of nuts cracked this week and the edible chunks look a bit like this..

• My favourite Tap Tap is now back in the headlines after EMI have set up a bunch of their artists under a new banner "Tap Tap Dance" - which will feature Moby, Chemical Brothers, Digitalism, Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx. This follows the successful inclusion of other Artists such  as Katy Perry, Nine Inch Nails and the poor dance remix of Kaiser Chiefs. Weezer continue their comeback and are adding some festive cheer with Christmas songs, however as always the case these days with EMI, the artists themselves must be responsible for the push. Cynthia Sexton, an EMI Music executive was quoted saying "Artists will promote on their Web sites and reach out to fans,"  "We're talking to them about ways of letting their fan base know through existing social networks." because EMI have such a wealth of experience in successful Social network promotions and marketing... What ever happens Bart Decrem (CEO) and his Tapulous team have a success that the major labels are lining up for, how the licence and publishers will see this is for another day.. "We are close to having a formula that the artists, labels, publishers, and Apple are all happy with," was Bart's latest comment....
• We noticed at last that good old Qtrax (the Ad-supported music service) has recently added a licensing agreement with Sony Corporation of America (SonyBMG) to add the major label's suite of artists and catalogue to their site. With only Warners left to go - that is a good 10 months since the quite public announcement and then retraction of sorts that Qtrax already had the approval of all the Majors. We have no idea of the cost of the upfront advances - but judging by others who had a slightly less public dressing down - we think that there needs to be a hell of a lot of advertising needed to go through the site to start to make it back through the existing investment. 
• Shazam and their music recognition engine, has announced that it has recently added an additional 2 million tracks to its ever expanding database of tracks. Shazam has been doing some good deals and creating some great partnerships that means that the bursting database is proud to hold over 8 million tunes for you to discover - unfortunately I have tried the service every month for the last year - and still seem to catch it out some how - must be teh crap that I listen to... The Sound of Slayer Played on the Bagpipes  seems to have passed them by!!
• Interesting one this - watching how YouTube continues to monetise itself and start to get some of the money back that Google paid for it, we noticed that Rumblefish (the music licensing site) has also announced a partnership with Youtube. This should allow users to select music from their own digital catalogue and add it, using the site's "Audio Swap" feature, to their videos. Rumblefish's catalogue has around 25,000 songs taken from a varied set of genres (that's if you agree with genre classification that is - topic in 2009!!)
• NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) delivered a paper aimed at the UK Government entitled Attacking the Recession: How Innovation Can Fight the Downturn.. interesting how it calls on the government to set up a self funded VC for UK startups in technical innovation - as the recession bites deeper it feels that innovation can and does suffer. However to get through a tough recession one can not neglect the need for continued innovation especially within our Technology sector - read it all here
• Madman Live from CES 2009 - as part of some of the new features that I intend to bring to my blog in 2009 - one of the very first will be to give some insights into the exciting world of consumer electronics at its premier event in January in Las Vegas. I hope to bring some insights and information as well as some pictures of some of the hottest technologies that are being announced at the event. Look out for updates from 8th January..
• In February this year, as well as the world being a very different place economically, I also did a post on the value of the internet and the worth of Facebook -read it here. So now only 10months later it now looks like the "perceived" value of Facebook has dropped by almost $14Billion - that's $14Billion!!! What has changed in only 10months? Well Mark Zuckerberg has increased his users to now 120million from around 100million 10months ago - so that's impressive!! However with that size of userbase the amount of $$$ being spent in supporting the application, no matter how lightweight, will not be cheap. There is the question around how the valuation and where my original blog was very critical of, was around web advertising placed on eyeballs themselves, and what was once described as the "once-in-a-century shift in the business of advertising." never really came to that did it - I remember saying that it would not work in the way that Zuckerberg said it would - it was all too... well wooly!!Facebook is not a public facing trading company - however there are shares and these are traded especially in The Valley and Wall Street - where I know plenty of friends that have them - and recent indications were that they were trading as low as $2.27 and $3.96 which gives an overall value of around $1Billion - which my learnered friends is less than a tenth of the price that Microsoft paid (sorry "Invested") its $240million only this year!! Just as the stock market feel to its knees and teeters on the "Minsky Moment" I warned that the Dot-Com bubble was set to burst again will stupid and unrealistic valuation of Facebook at $15Billion - Facebook will continue - but 2009 will see a whole new breed of more adaptable social networks and communication - that from the off-set will be, and discreetly, be built around a model of financial security and stability - which will mean only one thing - the further demise of the Facebook $$$ value and Mark Zuckerberg would have lost the potential to be one of the industries overnight billionaires - instead he could well have what we term as a "Friends Reunited moment"
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• Finally it is Christmas and this will be the final Blog post from me and the last issue of 2008 for the Digital Nutshell - so in true Holiday Spirit - here are the latest Apple ads t warm the cockles of your heart... Merry Christmas everyone (...and I'm a Mac!)

In a slightly changed format for my Blog and something that I will continue to do bi-weekly is give, in a nutshell, a round up of some of the key stories and developments within the world of Digital Media, Entertainment Retail as well as the Music & Movie industry...

So without further a do lets crack on with the very first DMN...

Labels News...

• EMI - and Guy Hands still tinkering with what the company should look and feel like inside.. As my readers know I'm not a fan of Guy Hands, not from a business perspective, I admire him as a financier and business head! However EMI being a UK institution that spawned some of the countries best loved artists, is being driven into the ground and a lack of new talent and direction is turning the company into an unrecognisable business, rather than a record label. So what has happened now?  Several Terra Firma senior executives, namely Chris Roling (EMI's COO and CFO), Ashley Unwin (COO for UK and North America) and Francois van der Spuy have gone! As well as Riaz Punja and Stephen Alexander who are meeting Terra Firma and Guy about their next move within the business. In a final and bizarre twist the deal that Terra Firma did with CitiGroup (£2.6bn) to fund the deal has now been rolled up into Citi’s $23bn leveraged loans portfolio, which was recently underwritten by the US government! So the ongoing twists and turns of the British institution could end up being bailed out and a liability for the already downtrodden US taxpayer.....
• Taking the downturn and the ongoing music industry dilemma and traumas in a much more dignified manner is Warner Music Group. Who, unlike EMI, decided that they should not have such a severe knee jerk reaction by having a clear out internally or restructure the company in such a way that it becomes confused and unrecognisable! In fact apart from the odd market and industry analysis that keeps blowing the value of WMG further down, they seemed to be bracing themselves for the long haul and hope to weather the storm. WMG has taken the calm approach by cutting costs, acquired some companies, even invested in some new start up companies, followed suit into the digital initiatives that are sprouting daily as well as reviewing their artist portfolio and not going over the top to keep them (look at the cost of Madonna & Nickleback to Live Nation) WMG announced their Q4 and fiscal results, read here... and although net loss overall doubled to $56 million, I think reading between the lines of the report is that as long as they keep their nerve and keep what they are doing by investing, developing and enhancing their portfolio in a way that is representative of WMG - they are not for the scrap-heap just yet! Some of the key highlights..  recorded music down and weary, publishing, as you would expect, up and looking healthy, digital showing some signs of life but worryingly the growth is slowing already. The Q4 revenue dipped 1.5% to $854 million, operating income from their continuing operations dropped 20% and net income gained slightly to $6 million.
• Onto some news from Atlantic Records which announced that it reached a digital milestone of 50% digital share - which when looked at the overall digital market is something to be proud of, however low the margin is.. Atlantic Records have said that over half its revenues now comes from digital - which compared to the previous news and parent company WMG, who's digital share was reported at 27%. Atlantic's milestone has been greeted with optimism and the fact that the digital revenue stream came from album and track downloads, ring tones, ring backs, satellite radio and subscription services! Julie Greenwald, president of Atlantic Records, did expand on how this was achieved "It used to be that you could connect five dots and sell a million records. Now there are 20 dots you can connect to sell a million records." So what WMG need to do is find some more of those dots and start connecting them up....
• Never a week goes by than I am inundated with new services to try, new business models to review, new strategies and propositions that would like my opinion or view on! Will this be the killer Store | App | Model | Service (you delete as appropriate) So the latest one that arrived in my inbox from a journalist for me to review and feedback on is Finnish ISP operator DNA. Who have just launched yet another broadband-music download bundle - you will see so many more of these next year... This one costs the user €39.90p/m and is twined with downloadable music that it runs with.... UMG. Rob Wells is busy doing these deals - but at least Rob is trying out new ideas and models.
• Sneaking onto UK shores without as much as a "cor blimey guvn'or" Amazon's long awaited MP3 store touched down in the UK today and with heavy discounting - as only Amazon can do! Just as the US service it is very simple to use and apart from having to manage the device transfer yourself - it will be a welcome addition to the UK MP3 market and will start to fight initially with Tesco, Play, HMV, 7Digital... before thinking of Apple - however Apple did have a nice price cut in advance of the Amazon arrival!!

Live | Concerts

• The ongoing "adventure" of Live Nation has interested me since it began. I sort of got it when I spoke with Bob Ezrin last year - however now it looks like a rudderless ship that is drifting off into unknown waters and with the ongoing stand off with Ticketmaster, tying up massive deals with aging artists in an age where as we have seen with WMG, publishing good and recorded music is listless - what can Live Nation bring to the table? I have a few ideas that could springboard Live Nation into a worldwide player - but that's not for me to say or to instruct. So instead I will continue to look in aghast at what else Live Nation decide to do next... enter a 3 year deal to sell their tickets through...... Blockbuster!! Why?  Only reason is that it is a sign of desperation for a footfall driver into Blockbuster stores as I see no other benefit for Live Nation?? Free popcorn with every ticket purchased?? 
• Still on Live Nation - one of their jewels in the Live Nation crown is the Madonna Tour - recent reports just out show that the the U.S. leg of The Sticky & Sweet tour had a gross of $91.5 million based on  550,000 tickets. Using my calculator I make that an average ticket price of $166. However the average ticket price from her last tour 2 years ago worked out at was $183 slightly down, but what i don't have to hand is the merchandise costs where it is reported that the average (I do mean average as the top tier to see Madonna is $£50!! - but combined of everything.. t-shirt, drink, travel..) cost to a Madonna concert is $250!! I guess if your a big Madonna fan she is worth it. But looking at the Top 10 Concerts for last week in the US and you will see that Live Nation has 9 out of the 10 Promotion spots - with only AC/DC in Minneapolis going with Jam Productions. 

...and Finally

• At last my friends in San Francisco have reached the milestone of a v1.0 release of their open-source customisable music player. Well done Rob, Steve, Ethan and all the team... Anyone who knows me will know that I have been talking about the Songbird boys for a very long time now - and glad to see that they have reached that 1.0 milestone which always a great relief when you are on a start-up out the front door to the wider world and not just friends, supporters and followers. Songbird are creating a non-proprietary, cross platform, extensible tool that will help enable new ways to playback, manage, and discover music - and is under active development all the time. Download, play, share, enjoy, feedback and get involved - they'd love to hear from you!!