Also: Warner Music partners with Lala.com | Baidu.com plans Europe launch | Playing the entrepreneur game | Joost's new CEO | Babelgum and the Ministry of Sound | Gratuitous link of the day
It's bound to happen. You make a mint, and old friends come out of the woodwork. In the case of Last.fm, it's an old colleague who claims he was unfairly dismissed.
I followed up on a story by Music Week (subscription-only site) about Thomas Willomitzer, one of the co-founders before Richard Audioscrobbler Jones joined in 2003. He's apparently threatening legal action against Last.fm because he says he was unfairly ousted from the company.
On record, all Last.fm would say was: "It's just one of those things that happens - like when a band gets sign, suddenly old members pop up and want their share. But it won't go anywhere." (Music Week)
Warner Music offers DRM-free music through Lala.com
Warner Music is partnering with music site Lala.com to offer DRM-free music downloads that it hopes will drive music sales. Users will have free and unlimited to access to complete albums in Warner's catalogue to listen online, rivalling existing services that ask users to pay per track, like the majority of iTunes content, or on a subscription basis, like eMusic. The charge comes in if users want to download the track to play on their iPods, which is rather clever.
Lala's chief executive Bill Nguyen said the site is built on setting up a relationship with record labels in advance, committing to pay them$140m over two years - a penny for every play - if it hits targets.
The core of the revamped site is a rather suspicious-sounding service that scans you entire music collection and then lets you listen to it for free through the site, wherever you are. Gizmodo points out that Lala can use that profile information (sound familiar?) to recommend you music to buy, and the site makes money that way.
Om Malik, again, speculated that Warner could be next to join EMI in offering DRM-free music on iTunes Plus.
And Flaming Lips' manager Scott Booker, quoted in the New York Times, seemed to think it will work.
"My immediate reaction is that's smart - rather than thinking I'll lose sales when people listen and don't buy." (New York Times)
Baidu.com planning Europe launch
Chinese search giant Baidu.com - the one that is causing grief for Google as it tries to break the search market in China - is planning to launch in Europe later this month. Chief financial officer Shawn Wang is expected to unveil Baidu's strategy at the Nasdaq 19th Investor Programme conference in London on 19 June, and that is likely to be pitched at younger users. Baidu has 15m more users than Google in China, but globally Google dominates with a 73% market share. Baidu is the fifth biggest search engine internationally in terms of users. (Sunday Telegraph)
Playing the entrepreneur game
Fascinating, if slightly tongue-in-cheek post, on how to build a Web 2.0 company by Guy Kawasaki - one of the original Apple marketers back in the 80s. He tracks how he built Truemors.com in seven-and-a-half weeks and with just $12,107.09.
"Here's the bottom line: Whether Truemors succeeds or not, I learned a helluva lot. One thing is for sure: no entrepreneur can tell me that he needs $1 million, four programmers, and six months to launch this kind of company. Things are a whole lot cheaper and easier these days."
So no pressure. You should be able to get that start-up going with £6k... (How to Change the World)
Joost's new CEO
Those ads with the neon Play-Doh are great and all that, but I do wonder why Joost gets so much covvy when there are so many web TV services in this space. Anyway, paidContent was rumbling about this a while ago and Joost has now confirmed that Mike Volpi, formerly of Cisco Systems, will be the new CEO. Om Malik has a succinct five-question interview with Volpi, in which he explains why he left Cisco: "Routers are great, but I can't do it forever." Ouch.
It's the right time for Joost, he said, because three trends have come together: "Content owners have realized what happened to the music industry and have embraced the Internet. I think that combined with broadband, and the P2P technology platform."
And why Joost over other online video propositions? Because it combines long-form video, a delivery platform and security. "No one has it packaged together like Joost." (New York Times)
Babelgum partners with Ministry of Sound for Ibiza
Talking of online video networks, Babelgum is partnering with the Ministry of Sound to broadcast interviews and videos from the dance music scene (apparently there still is one) along with the obligatory Ibiza footage. (Babelgum)
Gratuitous link of the day
Not the advert Nissan wanted you to hear. But much more funny.
And not your average cover. "I like big bibles and I cannot lie..."
