Chinese government and Houston Interweb Design Inc. are joined forces to set up world's first legalized Chinese MP3 site. Site will be similiar to MP3.com and will offer Chinese music to public. China doesn't have any copyright laws that would make MP3s illegal, but spreading Chinese music needs an approval from Chinese government.
(read full story from businesswire)
Liquid Audio took a new step in consumer markets when it announced to open a "real world" consumer store chain called Liquid Kiosk. These small automats will be located in regular consumer stores and they will offer users to create their own CDs from Liquid Audio's music collection.
(read the full story from cnet)
As some people already have noticed, After Dawn has been through background development process during last week or two. During this time we've been improving our website to keep our service quality high. Since huge increase in our user base has happened in last few months, the service quality has been quite poor specially in rush hours.
But now these issues - and many more minor issues, thanks for all who have contributed bug reports and suggestions - are fixed and we focus on developing more new services to our users in near future.
And as always, all kind of a feedback is very welcome. Please use the Feedback -button in top of the page.
-Petteri Pyyny, webmaster
Ericsson released its new cell phones in CTIA's Wireless 2000 -- a thing that makes these new phones noteworthy is the fact that they are the first ones to combine all the toys you want in one packet. Ericsson's latest cellphone series include among others a phone with EPOC OS and which can be extended to PDA/Cell Phone/MP3 Player device by buying an extension card that Ericsson will ship later on this year that adds MP3 playing capabilities to its phones.. Nice, now we just have to wait what Nokia will answer to that..
(article from yahoo)
Retro-times are here when Rome, a new MP3 player, is released. Rome is exactly the same size as C casette and with same shape too - for a good reason; it turns virtually any casette player into MP3 player.
(full story from wired)
One of the universities in U.S. finally announced that they WONT ban the usage of Napster in their networks. University of Southern California will announce this little bit relieving fact later on this week - hopefully other educational institutions will follow later...
(article from zdnet)
EMusic.com, one of the Internet's biggest music retailers, and Earjam.com, leading developer of music software solutions for Internet, have joined forces. Details of the new partnership agreement are not available yet, but big players like these two can come up with something dramatic...
Wired asks in its big article from professionals, who really owns the music and who should make profit out of it...
This interesting article can be found from here.
Aiwa released their first portable MP3 player called MMX-FX500. Very special about this player is the recording feature -- actually this is the first hardware based MP3 encoder available for consumer markets so far. It records audio in 128k MP3 format, which is rather good even that Real MP3 Freaks (tm) would love the idea to have higher bitrate available.
10,000,000th user has registered to MP3.com. Michael Robertson of MP3.com says, "More and more people are coming to our site to learn about and use all of the innovative music services we provide." MP3.com offers Beam-It technology, 50MBs of HDD space and many other features to its registered users.
The SanDisk corporation will provide its MultiMediaCard storage solutions for SK Global's Enco Deco MP3 players. Enco Deco works with one AA battery and its measures are 60 x 87 x 20mms.
(full article here)
Muze and Musicmatch joined forces by adding Muze's artist database information available for Musicmatch Jukebox's next version. With this ability, users get full information in separate window about the artist currently playing in Musicmatch Jukebox. Information includes full discography, links to music clips, album covers, artist biography, etc..
Our newsletter mail server had some problems related to scheduled routines. We are terribly sorry about all the 'spamming' this has caused to our subscribers.
We are working to solve the problem as soon as possible. Unfortunately the mail server is beyond our control.
-webmaster
U.S. last years music sales jumped 6.3% - CD sales increased over 10%. And all this even RIAA complained all year how MP3s and music piracy will kill the CD sales...
EMI jumps into digital audio markets by making a partnership deal with SuperTracks. SuperTracks starts offering EMI's tracks in Internet soon. All terms of the partnership are not yet disclosed.
We've opened our WAP version of After Dawn for public, so if you have some of these cool little WAP phones, just go to URL https://www.afterdawn.com/wap/ and read your MP3 and DVD news wirelessly.
OtsJuke DJ has developed a software that allows people to play two different tracks from one CD at the same time, so you can mix, fade, etc. tracks just like pro DJs. Free demo software is available at their website
Now when we all have thousands of Internet radio stations available for our desktop computer, wouldn't it be cool to have all these stations available to your car too? Well, it will be possible in 2002 according to this article.
AltaVista introduced its MP3 search engine two weeks ago and in last week they got over 1 million MP3 searches a week.
mp3.altavista.com
MP3.com starts to offer music videos and live concerts on its website. Material comes from LiveMusicChannel.com which made an agreement with MP3.com for spreading part of its content through MP3.com. MP3.com will have "featured video" available on its website and links to other videos in LiveMusicChannel.com.
Students of those American universities who banned use of Napster in their campus areas are furious. They've formed a website called Students Against University Censorship where they collect names for a petition that will be send to all universities that banned use of Napster. Students say that if they pay for the tuition fees that are used to fund the university's network, maybe they should also be able to use that network as they want.
Students against university censorship
MP3.com is pulling out of its planned acquisition of Web event planner SeeUthere.com, citing the unavailability of pooling of interest accounting for the merger.
Instead, MP3.com will take a "major stake" in the company for an undisclosed price. SeeUthere is expecting to raise up to $30 million from current and new investors in the coming months, the company said.
The companies will work together in a "strategic relationship" as a result of this deal.
(news from cnet.com)
Our PalmVII application got 5 cows from Tucows, world's largest software distribution site. Five cows means the best possible rating available in Tucows. Same rating is also available in Palm.net portal site.
Tucows: PQA/Entertainment
Yesterday we launched our PalmVII wireless version of After Dawn where you can read latest MP3 and DVD news with your PDA. As most of PalmVII users know, these so called PQA applications require installation -- you can find Dawn.pqa file here. Install it and get news to your handheld whenever you want, (almost) wherever you are (in U.S.).
Notice, PalmVII and related Palm.net service only works in U.S. metro areas at the moment, please visit Palm.net for coverage maps.
Lucasfilm has responded to questions regarding the DVD release of Star Wars movies. In a nut shell what they are saying is that "We are all busy working with Episode II. There's no time to focus on a DVD release." It's odd, though, that they do have the time to release the movies on VHS world wide, and even on Laserdisc in Japan.
Related stories:
Lucasfilm Responds to the Star Wars on DVD Campaign
Star Wars on DVD Campaign
Valley Media and Amplified.com, two music distributors, announced that they will be merging. With the merger the two companies are looking to hasten the adoption of digital downloading as a means of commercial distribution. Valley Media is a distributor of CDs, casettes, videos and DVDs to more than 200 retailers nation wide. Amplified.com supplies digital music tracks to many of the same retailers' Web sites.
Related stories:
Read more at Cnet news
WiredPlanet just recently launched a network radio station called Radio Epitaph that (obvious :-) plays tracks from Epitaph Record's artists, including Offspring and Bad Religion.
MP3.com has introduced a tool that lets clients make money by bringing new consumers to MP3.com's My.MP3.com service.
With the new Bucks to Beam-It program, MP3.com lets anyone start their own business-to-business operation by adding the My.MP3.com banner or text link to their Web sites. When a new consumer enters My.MP3.com via that link, activates her account, and starts beaming in her CDs, the affiliate member will be rewarded $1.00.
Related links:
MP3.com's Affiliate Program
Bucks to Beam-It Referral Program
First program has been released that converts MP3 audio files into VQF format. VQF is format that provides smaller files with better sound quality. This program is first pre-beta so don't expect very much from it, but give it a try.
MP3-2-VQF Converter
MP3.com is going to held an MP3 Summit 2000 in June, located in San Diego, California. For first 750 people the registration fee is $75 and for rest it's $250.
MP3 Summit 2000
It seems to be that the attacks that hackers have been doing all week to major websites here in U.S. are effecting also to our performance, specially to our data transfers from U.S. to Europe. This is a situation that we just can't handle in any way, since even FBI can't do anything for it... We've been having almost 35% decrease in user sessions within last 3 days.
We're currently in big problems, because very large amount of European users are unable to access After Dawn -- we have no idea about the reasons, but I've asked our ISP to solve the problem as soon as possible (our number of daily users has dropped over 25% in last 3 days).
EMusic.com, world's largest digital music reseller, launched today it's MP3 "Eargear" promotion. During the promotion, Emusic will give free Logitech SoundMan® X2 computer speakers and Jensen digital audio headphones to customers who purchase downloadable music from EMusic.com. First time customers who purchase at least one track worth of 99c will get Jensen JM15 digital headphones, value $14.95, for free. And customer who purchase digital downloads for $25 worth or more will get Logitech SoundMan X2 speakers, worth of $99.95, for free.
(article from yahoo)
ChangeMusic Network annouced that it had made an exclusive partnership deal with The Orchard, the largest supplier of independent music to Internet music retail stores. Based on the contract, artists who'll sign up for ChangeMusic will have an opportunity to join also to The Orchard who supplies artists' recordings for largest net retailers, including Amazon and Buy.com.
Viacom, owner of various cable channels, including MTV and VH1, is preparing to launch an IPO for MTVi Group Inc. This division is the author behind www.mtv.com, www.vh1.com and all other music related websites of Viacom (including SonicNet).
(article from yahoo)
United Internet Technologies (UIT) and Liquid Audio, Inc. Wednesday announced they have teamed up to offer digital downloads to UIT customers.
UIT will include Liquid Audio's Liquid Player software and links to Internet music with UIT's proprietary software released on CD-ROMs. UIT Internet-enabled video technology allows users to view full-motion video while online, providing a broadband-style experience with a conventional dial-up connection. Past UIT partnerships include NBC and World Championship Wresting.
With both software products resident on a UIT CD, users can access broadband-style video from UIT-enabled Web sites and use the Liquid Player to sample or purchase music from Liquid Audio's extensive catalog.
(full article from this link)
Microsoft is introducing a new addition to its Windows Media format that allows Pay-Per-View (or -Listen or -Download, whatever) tracks and videos be played with it.
Microsoft's goal is to offer easy solution for websites to offer commercial content for their users without the fear of piracy. But how are customers gonna take this one, that's an another problem...
RIAA announced today a press release by its CEO, Hilary Rosen.
"The claims in the lawsuit are ridiculous. This is a transparent attempt on the part of MP3.com to silence criticism of its infringing tactics. It won’t work. Our record is clear in distinguishing legitimate uses of MP3 technology from piracy. The lawsuit against MP3.com has nothing to do with MP3 technology. It has to do with MP3.com, the company, taking music they don’t own and haven’t licensed to offer new services to make money for themselves. And there is nothing illegal in my saying so."
RIAA's full press release
The Star Wars On DVD on-line petition is going rather well. As of February 9th, the petition is up to 15,514 signatures.
If you haven't signed the petition yet, you can do so at the following URL:
http://www.dvdfile.com/interactive/guestbook/addguest.html".
Please do ask your friends to participate, too!
MP3.com filed a countersuit against RIAA, who filed a suit against MP3.com's My.MP3.com few weeks ago saying that it violates copyright laws of U.S.
Sorry for all the people who have ordered our newsletter -- it has caused some major crap during last few days; sent too many times (should be every 3rd day) and sent same news again and again.
This is because of our dear beloved ISP who has set up our scheduled tasks. I will try to change this situation as soon as possible, so this should'n happen never again (never say never...).
-webmaster
Kerbango Inc. has unveiled the first "standalone" Internet radio. The Kerbango Internet Radio looks like a fashionable AM/FM radio and it provides all the features that normal radios have. Using a built-in version of RealNetworks' RealPlayer G2, the Kerbango Internet Radio makes it easy for users to find and tune-in to all of the radio stations around the world that are broadcasting over the Internet. The Kerbango radio can be used anywhere, only a power outlet and an Internet connection are required, (Just like everything else out there). "Just as the emergence of FM dramatically changed radio in the 1960s, it is once again being transformed as traditional radio stations and Internet-only stations go online to reach new audiences around the world," said CEO of Kerbango, Jon Fitch.
(full article from this link)
MJuice announced that Real Networks will support MJuice's secure MP3 downloads in their player. This will add a huge amount of potential users to MJuice's secure format -- Real has over 23 million users currently.
(article from Wired)
AudioDreams.com has been re-opened. AudioDreams merged appx. 1 year ago with EatSleepMusic.com, but now they're running on their own domain again -- you'll find MP3 news, free MP3 downloads and much more from there.
AudioDreams.com
Listen.com has announced that BMG Entertainment, EMI Recorded Music, the Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group have all invested in the downloadable music company.
"These investments in Listen.com are also another significant sign that the entire music industry will be moving aggressively online this year," said Rob Reid, CEO of Music.com.
(article from internetnews.com)
Sigma Designs announced that it will add Linux support to its new REALmagic NetStream 2000 card and EM8400 progressive MPEG-2/DVD decoder chip.
The NetStream 2000 card is the first MPEG-2/DVD playback product to support the Linux operating system.
Read the press release from Sigma Designs
Latest version of RaveMP MP3 player is RaveMP 2300 and it's special feature is absolutely the fact that it uses IoMega's Click! discs. So there's finally some real use for these $10 / 40MB discs.
Napster - world's most popular MP3 searching and sharing tool - causes some major problems to many schools and universities, because their students use all the bandwidth with the Napster. Now they've announced that they'll start trying to find different kind of solutions how to prevent this situation -- Napster employees will meet university officials, student representatives and other related persons.
MP3.com's much-argued new service that opened few weeks ago, My.MP3.com, has a program called Beam-It - and this program wasn't available for Linux users earlier, but now that issue is fixed too. So, now all Linux/Windows/Mac users can use MP3.com's service -- even that RIAA would hope something else..
EMusic.com, one of the biggest digital media retailers, offers an affiliate contract that gives 10% of the sold material to website owners. This sounds very nice specially for (us) those who have their own little MP3 sites, but no resources to become one of the "big ones" like Emusic and MP3.com.
Myplay.com wants smaller MP3 sites that distribute legal content to join to their affiliate program. Myplay offers an opportunity for users to move tracks to their "locker" that is physically in Myplay's servers, instead of downloading hours for just few tracks with their modems. Myplay gives $1.50 for all new users that join to their members.
EMusic.com just signed distribution contracts with Justice Records and Miles of Music Distribution. Justice Records is mainly focused on country music and Miles of Music is mainly for bands that play Americana and Alternative Country music.
We made a few changes to our discussion boards today and hopefully everybody like the new ideas. Changed features:
-no need to create an account or to log in - you can now post "anonymous" messages, but if you wish to receive email notifications or show your nickname, you still have to create a profile to our site (recommended)
-we will add later in this week discussion topics for most of the software topics/groups where users can send questions and add comments/reviews about different programs
We hope that you will get attached to our discussion board -- for now, it has been totally dead.
Discussion board
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