Overall, I continued to do many of the things I have been doing over the past couple of weeks. I discussed with my supervisor many of the guidelines and asked a few questions to get on the same page with everything overall. We discussed the type of atmosphere at this department and things to improve upon now that I have been here for a more extended amount of time. My supervisor and I also decided to put aside some time at the end of each week to discuss not only my tasks at hand for the previous week and the upcoming week, but also to discuss many of the issues I have been reading about as part of my research of online music stores. This in turn will help keep us both educated about the direction that I am headed and allow for greater input on his part as well as the opportunity to point me in various directions for my research. It will also allow me to take part in various opportunities that might overlap with my research.
I did several things to help organize financial aspects of the business over the past week, ranging from tasks that need to be done like ordering more office supplies to photo copying financial records and faxing them.
As far as the progression of my research, I finished reading the basics on each of the various music services that are now offered. I have begun to create a Powerpoint presentation that will serve as the basis for my 15-20 minute presentation and also paper at the end of the summer. The presentation is in its very early stages, with just a title page, brief points to cover (I will be doing most of the talking while the presentation is more an outline of my talking points), and several pictures to help make the presentation aesthetically pleasing.
One of the most promising things I came across during my research was a site by the name of LaLa. LaLa is like iTunes in that it can play various songs from different users across a network, yet this network can be accessed from anywhere, from any computer, and songs are streamable for free and can also be bought from the iTunes music store. Any user can upload their entire iTunes music library into the LaLa player and share it with anyone else from any computer around the world, all legally. The program has flaws, of course, but it seems very promising as it allows a complete backup of one’s own music library and access to a plethora of music that can be listened to in full, and if liked, bought. Warner Group has just recently licensed their music to LaLa, which has paid a boat load for these rights.
Also, in a bit of continuation of my research of the DRM- free songs that iTunes unveiled last week, it has become known that information such as name and email address is now attached to each song file, so therefore in theory the original downloader of a DRM-free song can be tracked down by Apple or the RIAA, among others. This has been met with a decent amount of scrutiny.
I also briefly read an article about how MTV could possibly be sleeping with the enemy in releasing much of its television catalog onto iTunes rather than placing it exclusively into its own service, Urge. Yet experts also say that MTV is making huge profits from this move, though they are directly giving their largest competitors rights to their products (kind of like what happened with Microsoft Windows programs on Apple computers).
My supervisor also showed me a project just unleashed by MTV, based around a Kelly Clarkson music video that anyone can remix, called “MTV Video Remixer”, and then enter into a competition. The feature was pretty nifty in that it allowed users to fully customize the music video with quotes, fade-in/out’s, slow motion effects and other options. Allowing user customization is growing increasingly important in this day in age.
Next week I hope to fine tool my Powerpoint presentation, continue to keep the most up to date as possible with news and events of the industry, and help this department in its day to day operations as I’ve done in the past.
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