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MOBILE MUSIC

On the Mobile Music front 3GSM started already one week before the actual event with Steve Jobs’ Thoughts on Music meaning Digital Rights Management (DRM); DRM is a trigger for the Record Labels to control the sales of digital music. A great and surprising Open Letter by Steve, certainly with a strategy behind, I was thinking a week before the event, too busy preparing the MobileMonday Global Peer Awards (I want to come back on the Steve Jobs letter later here).

Surprise, surprise, on Day one of the event, Microsoft anounced the launch of its own Mobile DRM system ‘PlayReady‘ (!) that will allow the use of commercial content on multiple different devices for a single fee. Is this what the consumer is waiting for?

Two days later, at the opening session on Wednesday, the chairman and CEO of Warner Music Group Corp, Edgar Bronfman Jr. said “that buying digital music from a mobile phone is too difficult and the music and mobile phone industries need to improve the process to meet demand (…)”

A study last year found that only 8.5 percent of people who own a phone that can be used to download and purchase music actually did so. “Why? It’s expensive, it’s complicated and it’s slow,” he said. “It’s amazing that we’ve generated as much revenue as we have given how cumbersome the experience can be.”

For your info, personally I haven’t bought one single tune on my mobile phone(s), though I consider myself one of the 3% online (legal) PC music buyers Steve is mentioning in his open letter:

“Today’s most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells that the average iPod is nearly full. This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats.”

The 3% I bought on iTunes of course, so where do the other songs come from? Older Cd’s (of LP’s I bought already once before…) copied to my iTunes and to my phone.

I wonder if the US companies heard about OMA DRM from the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA)? Its mission is to provide interoperable service enablers working across countries, operators and mobile terminals. Since its inception in June 2002, the Open Mobile Alliance has grown to more than 300 companies representing mobile operators, device and network suppliers, information technology companies, and content providers Members include traditional wireless industry players such as equipment and mobile systems manufacturers (Ericsson, Siemens, Nokia, Openwave, Sony Ericsson, Philips, Motorola,Samsung…) and mobile operators (Telefónica, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile…), but also software vendors (Microsoft - hello?, Sun Microsystems, IBM, Oracle Corporation, Symbian, Celltick…)

I don’t get it everyone was thinking Apple would show it’s iPhone at 3GSM. Why smart Steve would do such thing now when he announced previously the iPhone launch for Europe around Christmas 2007? Who else can say he has a product with 50,400,000 Google entries before it’s actual launch I haven’t seen any other phone brand model beat that! Oviously no big players are scared about the iPhone…

One thing gets clearer everyday, the iPhone has one big advantage: it’s Mac OS X and iTunes seamless integration; why would the iPhone need 3G? Everyone will buy its tunes on iTunes and beam or synchronize them to his iPhone, easily, with one-click buy activated… I dig.

Still, when I wanted to make a personalized mix for the MobileMonday Global Peer Awards networking party (no selling or re-distributing of the music I bought!) iTunes told me “You cannot copy 16 of the choosen songs to your CD”… come one guys, GET REAL! Next time I think I’m going to invite a band and offer their songs directly through a Futurlink-a-like interface…

More M-Trends thoughts on 3GSM here soon including mobile trend stuff such as IMS, IPTV, the mobilisation of Web 2.0, mobile search, the awards and the networking parties of course!

You can view my 3GSM Flickr Photoset here.

3G, 3GSM, Analysis, apple, communicator, digital rights management, drm, e90, ethnographics, f700, global peer awards, innovation, iphone, lg, microsoft, mobile 2.0, Mobile Apps, Mobile Content, Mobile Culture, Mobile Events, Mobile Lifestyle, mobile marketing, mobile music, Mobile Search, mobile video, mobile web, MOTORIZR Z8, motorola, n95, nokia, oma, open mobile alliance, Operators, Peer Awards 2007, phone, prada, samsung, shine, social media, sony ericsson, startups, steve jobs, Trends, Ubiquitous Devices, usability, user experience, w880, walkman, warner music, we media, zune

Derek Torres and Stuart Mudie are co-authors of The Unofficial Guide to Windows Vista, a book that takes an in-depth look at the highs and the lows of the latest version of the Microsoft operating system and is due to be published by Wiley in February. I’ve known Stuart online for a long time now, and we finally met back in February of this year when I helped him organize the Mobile Sunday gathering of mobile bloggers prior to the 3GSM World Congress. When Stuart asked me if he could visit m-trends as part of the “virtual blog tour” he and Derek are organizing to promote their book, I agreed on the condition that he would write about something of relevance to the readers of this blog. I thought that would be enough to put him off, but he’s done it! Well, nearly…

If you’re trying to get your head around Microsoft’s mobile music strategy, you could be forgiven for being a little confused.

Do they want you to use Windows Media Player 11 and sync your music library to one of their authorized PlaysForSure portable music players? Or do they now want you to buy a Zune and use the specific software that comes with the device?

And where do they expect you to purchase your digital music? From URGE, the digital music store owned by MTV Networks that was launched in close cooperation with Microsoft as recently as May of this year? Or should the Zune Marketplace now be your one-stop-shop for all your digital music needs? (One thing’s for sure, it’s not MSN Music.)

Om Malik has a good prediction about what the result of providing so many alternatives will be: “What happens to consumers when faced with the choice of Zune or Urge!!! Answer - iPod!“

* While researching this post, I discovered that there’s even talk of the Zune adding phone functionality at some unspecified time in the future. How would that work? Would Microsoft force you to change your carrier every six months? Or - even worse - would you be obliged to sign up with the Microsoft MVNO?

Stuart Mudie, co-author of The Unofficial Guide to Windows Vista

Announcements, blethers, Blog Tour, derek torres, Friends, ipod, media player, microsoft, mobile music, msn music, mtv, playforsure, strategy, stuart mudie, Unofficial Vista, urge, zune

Excellent Q&A with Steve Jobs in Newsweek: ‘Good for the Soul‘ on the cultural impact of the iPod the last years… Questioned if he’s worried since the anouncement of the iPod competitior, Microsoft’s Zune “…designed around the principles of sharing, discovery and community,…” Steve answered:

In a word, no. I’ve seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. By the time you’ve gone through all that, the girl’s got up and left! You’re much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear.

Something that every mobile developer and mobile startup should bear in mind before starting developing products: keep it simple and make things usable with only a couple of clicks, there’s easily the one click too much for the mobile user…

apple, Experience Design, ipod, Mobile Lifestyle, mobile music, mobility, mp3, podcasts, stevejobs, usability, user experience, zune