Whether by design or accident, Ping’s lack of integration with other social networks, or even with the web itself, is now its most compelling feature — at least from a strategic perspective. It’s essentially an e-commerce platform for music disguised as a social network. Read more »
Whether by design or accident, Ping’s lack of integration with other social networks, or even with the web itself, is now its most compelling feature — at least from a strategic perspective. It’s essentially an e-commerce platform for music disguised as a social network. Read more »
AirPlay was one of the most nebulous topics up for discussion at today’s special press event regarding iOS, iPods, iTunes and Apple TV. In many ways, it’s something we already know a lot about, since it’s the successor to AirTunes. In others, it’s a mystery. Read more »
After nearly a decade, iTunes is getting a new icon with the release of version 10. Jobs also introduced Ping, a social network Apple created specifically for iTunes. Ping allows users to share activity with their friends, and follow their favorite artists to receive updates. Read more »
During today’s press event, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the iTunes store has sold 450 million TV episodes. How will its newly announced 99 cent rental program change the marketplace, especially with Hulu Plus around? It depends what’s on offer. Read more »
As expected, Apple today came through with a few major device updates it will be shipping this fall. It revised its entire iPod line, and gave the iPod Touch many features previously only available on the latest iPhone, such as FaceTime video chat. Read more »
At this morning’s Apple press event, CEO Steve Jobs announced a new Apple TV that’s a quarter of the size of the original box, with all-HD content, cloud storage and Netflix and YouTube access. The $229 price is dropping to $99, with pre-orders available today. Read more »
What’s in store for tomorrow’s Apple event? It’s possible only Steve Jobs and whoever does his Keynote presentations know for sure, but that’s not gonna stop us from making our bests guess. So get out those rumor checklists and see how yours matches up. Read more »
It wasn’t until the late 1970s that bottled water started catching on in the U.S. to become the market it is today, representing 28.9 percent of the U.S. beverage market. Is Apple’s scheme to rent TV shows online at $0.99 per episode a similar watershed moment? Read more »
We first reported that Apple was in discussions with TV networks to make episodes available for rental at a new 99-cent price point six weeks ago, but a new report provides more detail on how those discussions are going and when the service will launch. Read more »
Dr. Horrible collaborator Jed Whedon, in between writing for television and helping Felicia Day make music videos, has kept busy with his own projects. And his new self-published album, entitled History of Forgotten Things, represents a sincere effort to create compelling original music. Read more »
Zipcar’s path to the public market has become a bit more bumpy as its purchase of Streetcar, its largest rival in London, raises anti-competition concerns. The Office of Fair Trade (OFT) in the U.K. said Tuesday it couldn’t be confident that the acquisition wouldn’t stifle competition. Read more »
It can be a real hassle putting an audiobook into iTunes when it’s split into many different files. Lucky for you, I have a method, absolutely free, to make listening to books a pleasure again by combining all the separate files into one audiobook file. Read more »
The Discovery Channel’s Shark Week has been a tradition of the cable broadcaster, first running a week of specials devoted to selachimorpha in 1987. On August 1, seven glorious days of shark-related programming begins — but what are your online viewing options? Read more »
While The Onion News Network, delivering the Onion’s skewed POV on news, is typically free to watch, this month the network is experimenting with a premium offering available for $1.99. The justification for charging is this: This news broadcast comes from the future. Read more »
Mobile music has long failed to gain traction despite a tremendous amount of hype, but a slew of recent announcements about cloud-based services have reinvigorated the space. But as carriers and record labels should know by now, the only certainty in mobile music is that the ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
After finding more than $375 of iTunes transactions on my credit card this weekend, I thought I was hacked. It turns out the “hacker” was my step-daughter who was understandably confused between virtual goods and real currency for in-app purchases inside a free iPhone application. Read more »
This is a developing story, and not all of the facts are out yet, but if what is being reported on The Next Web turns out to be true, it may be prudent to stop reading and remove your credit card from your iTunes account. Read more »
mSpot, a new music streaming service for your own audio collection, recently launched on Android 2.0 or better devices. Thanks to local caching, mSpot offers playback even when your phone has no data connection. But seamless on or offline playback is hurt by one main issue. Read more »
Today on the Net: Apple is moving its iTunes music and movie service into the cloud, about a third of US residents watched the World Cup, according to Nielsen, and TiVo will supply software and services to power a next-generation TV initiative at ONO in Spain. Read more »
Getting PDFs into iTunes to sync them with iBooks on your device can be a bit of a chore. But by using the method below, you can send any document or even web page straight to the Books section of iTunes for syncing with ease. Read more »
By now, a lot folks with an iPhone have been running iOS 4, the new name for iPhone OS. But if Apple has seen the point in renaming the OS, at what point will it admit that iTunes is horribly named at this point in time? Read more »
Just in case you missed any of them, here are the five most popular posts on WebWorkerDaily this week: Read more »
Not long ago, digital rights management and copy protection seemed to be on their last legs. But DRM is poised to make a major comeback, and copy restrictions could soon be a bigger of TV viewing than ever. ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Apple, met with limited success of the Apple TV, has called its device “a hobby” but Google, with its Google TV, is forging ahead with what it believes could revolutionize the industry. So how do they compare? Read more »
Apple CEO Steve Jobs in his keynote interview at the D8 conference came close to endorsing the kind of “iTunes for news” model that many print publishers and media observers have wished for. But would such a system really be the savior of traditional media? No. Read more »
Apple’s iTunes now accounts for 28 percent of all music sales within the U.S. This four percent gain since Q1 2009 detail that Apple’s digital store still holds the top spot as the number one music retailer within the U.S. Read more »
The iTunes movie store just got a lot more usable thanks to a small but significant update that went live today. As of now, the iTunes movie store features Top Critics’ reviews and the Tomatometer rating score from Rotten Tomatoes prominently displayed above customer reviews. Read more »
Ever wanted to listen to all your Rock music? Or wanted to hear only your recent music purchases? We’ll walk you through creating a Smart Playlist and how to set up different “rules” to control what songs automatically show up in your playlist. Read more »
Online television guide The Futon Critic, launched in January 1997, is one of the web’s most reliable resources for information on broadcast and cable programming. But their coverage of the TV industry is about to take on a new digital edge. Beginning this summer, The Futon […] Read more »
Why shut down Lala if there’s no chance of launching an iTunes.com? Because cloud-based media storage and retrieval is central to Apple’s long-term strategy, and Lala is central to implementing that ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
YouTube Developing Self-serve Rental Model; YouTube engineers are working on a self-service method that will give moviemakers the ability to upload and provide their streaming content for rent. (MediaPost) Hollywood Video Closes Doors; the movie-rental chain, which filed for bankruptcy in February for the second time […] Read more »
Apple recently unveiled iPhone OS 4, which brought many much needed features to the platform. Despite rectifying some long-standing oversights, however, Apple still hasn’t allowed their iDevices to sync wirelessly with people’s home computers. Read more »
Just days before the iPad lands in our hands, Apple has updated iTunes to version 9.1 so that we can sync content onto the new device just as soon as we post our unboxing photos to Twitter. iTunes 9.1 provides the ability to sync books from the iBooks app and adds some improvements for managing Genius Mixes. Read more »
Digital magazines aren’t new, but the latest version of Zinio is. This new Adobe AIR application lets you read magazines on Windows, Mac or Linux computers and the experience is immersive. With dynamic content, live web links and interactive media, this is the future of magazines. Read more »
The worldwide online market for digital goods will grow amid a state of continuous disruption across all forms of content markets. Fueled by an ever-growing user base, migration from physical formats to digital distribution, and a proliferation of new connected devices, the overall market for digital goods will grow to $36 billion by 2014, up from $16.7 billion in 2009. This report examines the state of paid content and the various monetization and payment models across each of the various digital goods markets. The report examines key players and market dynamics in the film and video, newspaper, online game, music and social networks space relative to their paid content strategies, and includes a revenue forecast of each of these segments relative to the overall paid content market. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
What do you get that hard-to-buy-for person on your list who already has everything? Well if they already have an iPhone, which is likely since we’ve already established they’ve got everything worth having, then you can now buy them iPhone apps, directly from the iTunes Store. […] Read more »
If you have hundreds or even thousands of songs in your iTunes library, then it’s more than likely there are some songs which you’ve forgotten you even own — you can’t listen to every single one at the same time, after all. By using iTunes’ Smart […] Read more »
Steve Jobs calls the iPad Apple’s “most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device” and I’m certainly not one to disagree. The iPad boasts significant advances over the iPhone in terms of hardware and software which makes me wonder, how much of that advanced technology […] Read more »
When iTunes web preview pages first appeared for songs and albums the industry was abuzz with the possibility that iTunes could be migrating to the cloud. iTunes preview has so far had little impact on how we use purchased media content, but it has had a […] Read more »
