Digital Media

I have a love song to write. I don't know yet whether it will be a tragic ballad or an exuberant ode to the triumph of happiness. But it's a love song for sure: I have fallen for Spotify, the latest buzzworthy "free music" service. After months of trying to find a great way to find and listen to music online, I believe I have met my match.

No, Spotify technically isn't available in the U.S. just yet, though the U.K.-based company hopes to bring the software stateside by the end of the year. My acceptance of an invite code sent by a generous friend therefore may or may not have been in gross violation of some international laws or statutes or regulations. But that's OK. Spotify, we can have an illicit romance for now.

You see, I needed this in my life. I had been thinking about "music discovery" of late. Last week, at the tail end of a trip in which I had been covering Google's splashy Los Angeles debut of its music search service in partnership with MySpace and Lala, I was sitting in the lobby of the Standard Hotel in West Hollywood, a shameless hipster magnet designed in the manner of tacky Southwest-desert motels and which features a constant soundtrack of semi-edgy music picks from '90s-era Britpop to lo-fi and LCD Soundsystem remixes. As a parade of attractive, Sunset Strip rocker types drifted to the check-in desk, I was sitting next to a cactus, intermittently holding up my iPhone to a speaker, using audio-recognition app Shazam to find out exactly what was playing.

Considering the cooler-than-thou crowd, I probably looked awfully silly. But Shazam has been my preferred method of music discovery because I just haven't found anything else I really like. Queuing up a Pandora station makes for great party music, but I've never been enthralled by its recommendations for me. Music blog aggregator Hype Machine has very well-done charts to track the songs that are getting blogged and tweeted about the most, but they can be a little bit predictable once you've already listened to the latest mashup of Kanye West and MGMT. I use Last.fm, owned by CNET News parent company CBS, to tabulate listening-history charts, but have never found myself hooked by its recommendations or radio stations. (Sorry, bosses.)

Social music and discovery services are a mess, frankly. Some of them have terrible user interfaces, and others are slowly becoming the victim of poorly conceived business models (many of which relied too heavily on advertising strategies that have yet to bear fruit) and ill-fated licensing agreements with the major labels. Still others, in striving to get a leg up on competitors, veered into editorial curation--exclusive album-listening debuts, promotions and tie-ins, and the like. That can make for a whole lot of clutter.

Then along came my Spotify invite, and everything changed. The service makes no attempts on the surface to be an "influencer" in and of itself, instead just offering access to full-length streams of just about any song. That's daunting at first. When you first load up Spotify, you're greeted with basic top-music charts that are notably uninspiring (Black Eyed Peas? Kings of Leon?) and searches don't bring you anything other than, well, what you searched for. Social-networking features like Facebook and Twitter sharing are sparse and well-hidden. If you don't know where to look, it can be a little bit dull.

Instead, the "discovery" process is left up to third parties. Create a playlist on Spotify, and you can assign it an HTML address so that when people click on it (assuming they have Spotify accounts) the playlist will open right up. A popular U.K. music blog called Drowned in Sound has a feature called "Spotifridays," where a selection of popular music from that week is packaged into a Spotify playlist, eliminating the need to click around through various Web browsers and streaming-music embeds. A friend sent me a link to Drowned in Sound's playlist of top songs of the first half of 2009. I was set for the next 7.6 hours.

Then, this happened: My Amazon MP3 bill started escalating as my "shopping cart" filled up with songs from bands I'd never heard of before, like the Veils, Let's Wrestle, and the Big Pink. The no-brainer Spotify platform, and how easy it is for anyone to use it to create playlists and share them in a way that doesn't involve a single wacky embeddable widget, was making me buy music.

But Spotify's long-term prospects are still hazy. Its dual business models, monthly subscriptions (for ad-free accounts and access to its iPhone app) and advertising for free accounts, have historically failed to hold up in the face of the micropayments-based iTunes. CEO Daniel Ek has even acknowledged that profits aren't flooding in yet and accused the labels of inflating licensing fees. The specter of SpiralFrog, another hyped free-music service that went down in flames earlier this year, is still in recent memory.

It's also unclear as to how the Spotify service, currently available in Sweden, Norway, the U.K., Finland, France, and Spain, will fare in the U.S. when it arrives here. Google's new music search feature, which is right now restricted to the States, may give a big advantage to competitors MySpace Music and Lala as search traffic is directed there. There's also the potential money drain: Government regulations over licensing fees last year. Digital music, you could say, is an industry with a lot of emotional baggage.

Generally, when there are glaring roadblocks in a new relationship, it's a red flag that you shouldn't get too attached. But this is one where I'm willing to fight to keep it alive. I hear there's a chance I'll be shut out of Spotify entirely in a few weeks unless I tweak my IP address somehow to fool the service into thinking I'm in one of its approved countries. Or unless I cough up the money for a premium subscription.

And I'd consider that. Money can't buy me love, but it could buy me Spotify. And right now they're sort of one and the same.

It was a fullish moon when I picked up a new book called "The Lights in the Tunnel," thinking that the title was sure to lift my spirits on All Souls Day.

Perhaps I should have picked me up some Dostoyevsky.

It's not that "The Lights in the Tunnel" isn't thoughtful or interesting. The author, Martin Ford, is a computer engineer who has clearly spent many hours considering the true effects of technology on society.

It's just that a rough summation of those effects might be described as "really bloody terrible."

Essentially, he believes that technology is the direct cause of job losses that will never return. In fact, his fear is that even in those industries that are currently still labor intensive, job losses are inevitable. Which just might mean that there will be vast numbers of people all over the world who will have no money to spend at Zara. Not even at Old Navy.

Naturally, Ford has found himself in a spirited debate with economists who seem to think his arguments border on loonism.

A chap named Robin Hanson seems rather hurt that Ford isn't in the thrall of economists' thinking--you know, the optimistic stuff about how technology will always produce more jobs and more wealth because we humans are, well, so clever.

Perhaps I paraphrase a touch, but economists such as Hanson tend to believe that economic inequality might be a politically difficult thing, but it doesn't portend economic disaster: because, as Hanson says, "producers can focus on giving the rich what they want, and innovation and growth is just as feasible for elite products as for mass products."

(Credit: CC Firepile/Flickr)

Now of course, I'm not going to argue with economists about human behavior because it's generally akin to arguing with a hockey color commentator about creme caramel.

However, Ford, the techie whom economists dismiss, has a very interesting solution to his rather bleak human scenario. He seems rather keen on a consumption tax, or a direct tax on business that would attempt to capture the income that people would have earned if they had had a job. Then he would incentivize the unemployed to contribute to society according to their own talents and society's needs.

You need a strong heart and stomach to read Ford's book, but some small part of me cannot help but wonder whether his rather miserable prognostication might have some truth to it.

"Glenn Beck would scream," Ford told me in an e-mail. Which made me immediately wonder why his publishers hadn't put that quote on the book cover.

Strangely, Ford isn't some sandal-wearing socialist wagging his finger at the money lenders.

"Capitalism has worked out fairly well for me, and I'd like to keep it around. If the ideas in the book are correct, then I really wonder if the system will be sustainable without some type of intervention," he told me.

Here is a computer engineer who's genuinely worried about, well, human beings.

"If that underclass increases relentlessly over time, and if you start seeing more educated people getting dragged into it, then we are going to have a huge problem. I think that may happen as machines and computers keep getting better until eventually they can do the jobs of even people with lots of education and training. At that point I think you have to do something," he added.

Unfortunately, the history of the world doesn't necessarily offer too much hope for the implementation of the kind of intervention that Ford is suggesting.

So one day, you, me, Ben Affleck, Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, and Liv Tyler might be seated in a devastated landscape muttering: "How were we to know we were supposed to listen to bloody Martin Ford? He was just some computer engineer."

Would you pay $30 a month to watch TV via iTunes?

That's the pitch Apple has been making to TV networks in recent weeks. The company is trying to round up support for a monthly subscription service that would deliver TV programs via its multimedia software, multiple sources tell me.

Apple isn't tying the proposed service to a specific piece of hardware, like its underwhelming Apple TV box, or its long-rumored tablet/slate device. Instead, it is presenting the offer as an extension of its iTunes software and store, which already has 100 million customers.

A so-called "over the top" service could theoretically rival the ones most consumers already buy from cable TV operators--if Apple is able to get enough buy-in from broadcast and cable TV programmers.

That's a big if: Apple has told industry executives it wants to launch the service early next year, but I have yet to hear of a single programmer that has made a firm commitment to the company, which has tasked iTunes boss Eddy Cue with promoting the idea.

But industry executives believe that if anyone jumps first, it will be Disney, since CEO Bob Iger has shown a willingness to experiment with Apple and iTunes in the past: In 2005, Disney was the first player to sell its programming on iTunes, via a la carte downloads. And Apple CEO Steve Jobs is Disney's largest single shareholder, a result of Disney's 2006 acquisition of Jobs' Pixar animation studio. Apple didn't respond to requests for comment.

Network executives I've talked to are intrigued with the idea--they are eager to find new revenue streams--but are also wary, for multiple reasons.

Story Copyright (c) 2009 AllThingsD. All rights reserved.

There are many ways of showing respect to those you don't actually respect.

So it's touching to see that Apple has not only produced a few "Get A Mac" ads to darken the hearts of those about to upgrade to Windows 7, but has also donned its Wellington boots, gone down on its knees, and offered a dig in the grubby world of search.

I am grateful to The Next Web, who discovered that Cupertino has been throwing a few grenades into Google searches such as "Download Windows 7" and "Windows 7 download."

(Credit: The Next Web)

While one naturally expects to see ads for Microsoft stores adorning these searches, Apple has slipped in ads that suggest the best way to upgrade to Windows 7 is to actually purchase something from the Apple family.

Some might find it amusing simply that Apple is using such a tactic. But perhaps others will be a little disappointed that the wording for the ad is so straight. No jibes. No subtle suggestions that Windows 7 is merely a Manchurian macrame version of Vista. Not even a hint that Windows 7 will make you more miserable than eggnog ice tea.

How sad.

Amazon's acquisition of shoes-and-more retailer Zappos is complete, the e-commerce giant said in a release Monday. The company in July had announced its intent to make the purchase, for about $850 million in cash and stock.

Zappos, which made a name for itself based on outside-the-box customer service principles, will stay independent from the Amazon.com brand and will continue to operate out of its Las Vegas headquarters.

Numbers released by J.P. Morgan Research in conjunction with the acquisition announcement predict that Zappos will post moderate, single-digit growth for the 2009 fiscal year after raking in $635 million in revenues last year.

BoomTown--fresh from slapping around sixth-graders caught in a Bing-stupor and restaurant-seeking vampires from Microsoft--is not quite sure what to think of another new advertising campaign from an Internet giant.

This time, it is coming from eBay.

With the tagline, "Come to think of it, eBay," the ads start Monday, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, to "boost its standing as a holiday shopping destination."

Interestingly, the new marketing campaign in print, television, and online--the first for the Web commerce giant in 18 months--has been crafted by San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, which has also just nabbed the lead role in the $100 million advertising campaign by Yahoo.

A previous eBay ad campaign.

(Credit: Screenshot by The Wall Street Journal)

Goodby, owned by the Omnicom Group, is known for its innovative ideas and has done such memorable campaigns as the Slowsky turtles for Comcast, the weird folk of Emerald Nuts, owned by Diamond Foods, as well as campaigns for tech companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Adobe Systems, and Netflix.

Still, Goodby might be getting a little too cute here, because "come to think of it" could remind consumers exactly how much they have forgotten about eBay.

At best, "come to think of it" is a double-edged sword.

In a good scenario: "Come to think of it, I really haven't listened to my 'Frampton Comes Alive' album in forever and I really want to hear it again."

In a bad scenario: "An old girlfriend of mine is trying to friend me on Facebook--but, come to think of it, she was pretty freaky and I am very scared she found me again."

You get the idea! Come to think of it: play at home!

Actually, according to the Journal story, Lorrie Norrington, president of eBay's marketplace operations, is pushing a different meaning of the phrase, "to shift the buyer perception of what eBay is today."

It has to since San Jose, Calif.-based eBay has seen its core marketplace business suffer, even as it has advertised less.

Here's a video of one of the new ads.

For more videos, see the original story.

Story Copyright (c) 2009 AllThingsD. All rights reserved.

I know that many, especially those associated with making money out of music, feel that pirates who share files should be made to walk the plank to the rhythm of Fiona Apple's "Criminal."

However, a survey commissioned by the professional cogitators at Demos in the U.K., suggests that just because one might download illegally, it doesn't mean one never spends money on music.

Indeed, according to the Independent, this survey, performed by the omeletteheads at Ipsos MORI, showed that those who share files spend 75 percent more on music than those who have allegedly clean hands.

Another omelettehead, Mark Mulligan of Forrester Research, told the Independent that those who share files are simply more interested in music.

He added: "They use file sharing as a discovery mechanism. We have a generation of young people who don't have any concept of music as a paid-for commodity."

(Credit: CC The Impressionist.co.uk/Flickr)

But perhaps it's not quite so simple. I'm still not entirely convinced that file sharers are only those who delight in technology's ability to let them obtain product for nothing. I'm not entirely convinced that technology has made free-fighters of us all.

Wandering around Alcatraz on Saturday (how else is one supposed to celebrate Al Capone on Halloween?), I was struck by how everyone who wanted a little guide book happily volunteered to slip a dollar bill in the slot provided. People still accept the quaint idea of exchanging money for something of an appropriate value.

Isn't the real philosophical heart of file sharing the idea that real, honest people simply felt they had been gouged by the music industry for a little too long? File sharing allows them to alter the imbalance between the listener and the music producer.

It doesn't mean they will never spend money on music. They will simply spend what they feel is the right amount of money on music they think deserves it.

This survey found that 10 percent of the respondents, age range 16-50, admitted illegal downloading. But what might have been instructive would have been to learn just how much music people bought for their average of 77 pounds (around $120) per month and how they made their choice as to what should be bought and what should merely be, um, borrowed.

The music industry is adjusting because it has no choice. And its goal, long-term, may well focus on the ability to earn more from those who love music, rather than from those who are rather more indifferent.

Perhaps the most important word in that thought is "earn."

First the Nook (pictured), now the MediaBook?

(Credit: Barnes & Noble)

The question is, who isn't getting in on the e-book reader action these days? Less than two weeks after we met Barnes & Nobles' Nook and just a few days after hearing of tire maker Bridgestone's plans for a flexible e-reader, our friends at Crave UK alerted us that Creative may be hopping on the e-reader bandwagon as well.

Creative fan site EpiZenter.net (so named for Creative's family of popular Zen MP3 players) reports that the company showed off a working model of its first e-book reader, tentatively named the MediaBook, at its annual general meeting Thursday in Singapore. The device reportedly has a touch screen, text-to-speech function, and an SD memory card slot. It will run on Creative's Zii System-On-Chip technology and will be Internet-enabled.

At the meeting, Willie Png, Creative's vice president of strategic business, described Amazon's Kindle as "just another electronic device which displays books in text" (snap!), according to EpiZenter.net, and said Creative's e-reader will harness "videos, pictures, text, and services in one device that supports a media-rich experience." Color Creative ready to join the ever-tightening race to produce that proverbial "Kindle killer."

Creative reportedly is talking to 10 international and local publishers to provide content for the MediaBook, with fiction, newspaper, magazines, education materials, and textbooks all slotted for the device. Singapore Press Holdings, which publishes 17 newspapers and more than 100 magazines, could be one local content provider, saying it is exploring with Creative how to provide a variety of multimedia content, including videos and radio programs, for the device.

No word yet on pricing and availability, but we'll fill you in as soon as we hear.

Miley Cyrus is undoubtedly one of the world's greatest and most important musical artists.

So when she recently decided to leave Twitter and rapped on YouTube about it, one imagined that investors in the supposedly billion-dollar company shivered uncontrollably for several days.

As did some who watched the haunting performance in her rap video.

However, now the teeny singer has gone further. She believes that Twitter should be banished from our firmament. And I mean firmament.

You see, in an interview with the B96 radio show in Chicago, embedded for your pleasure, the pop divette declared: "Twitter should just be, like, banned from this universe."

I should say that Miley's speaking voice isn't quite as mellifluous as her singing. What could be? However, please peruse this video and, when it gets to around the 3.30 mark, you might enjoy Miley's Twitter tirade.

A highlight of her invective was, perhaps: "Because people, like, honestly, like, I mean people wanna know why, like, you're, like, unhealthy, and, like, you need, like, get out and do stuff and, like, be in the world instead of being like this (pretends to be hunched over a keyboard) all the time. And, like, all I did was, like, lay in bed all the time."

I know there will be some who might fear that Miley has removed herself from Twitter because the 140 character limit did not allow her full expression of her likes and thoughts.

However, I am confident that this deeply introspective performer is merely trying to warn her fellow teens of the dangers of immersing yourself far too much in, well, yourself.

As she further cautioned: "I"m not really a big fan of the Internet any more. I don't really get online."

Should you or your children be concerned that Miley might disappear entirely from the Internet, please rush to purchase some of Miley's fine recordings, which are available at iTunes.

Moreover, at MileyCyrus.com, you can secure examples of her highly stylish, Miley stylish collection of clothing. Regretfully, the current link doesn't go through directly to the Miley Cyrus collection on Walmart.com, which might be something of an oversight. You can also still find Miley on Myspace.com/mileycyrus.

Alternatively, you could spend all of your energies trying to save Fuzzy.

You see, Fuzzy's owner, who is possibly humorous or perhaps, like, demented, has declared that she will kill her cat Fuzzy on November 16 unless Miley returns to the world of the tweet.

At Twitter.com/mileysavefuzzy, you can participate in the important debate concerning Fuzzy's future.

You can also go to Mileysavefuzzy.com to learn more about how Fuzzy is to be cooked in the event of his demise. Eating a cat is not, allegedly, illegal in the country in which Fuzzy resides.

How can anyone not, like, like the Internet?