Dr. Dre To Anchor Best Buy 'Club Beats' Sections

Best Buy has teamed up with Monster Cable and Beats by Dr. Dre headphones to launch its new in-store "Club Beats" area. The giant retailer is adding a new section in all its stores where customers can sample the latest audio, music, entertainment and technology products including DJ equipment, mixing software, turntables, headphones and laptops.

To help promote the new Club Beats, Best Buy will host a series of events featuring appearances from top music artists including Lady Gaga, Will.i.am and Dr. Dre. It will promote the events through local radio and newspaper advertisements. According to the Nielsen Company, the retailer spent $213 million on advertising in 2008 and $142 million in the first eight months of 2009.

It seems like Best Buy is starting to notice the new trend of in DJing, and also with the concern for the sound quality of music. Beats by Dr. Dre was selected because of its commitment to giving the average listener a professional-quality listening experience through their headphones.

Best Buy sees this DJ-focused offering as something brand new for mainstream retail. "It may not be simple to find these products in a mainstream environment-either you have to know what you need, or you have to talk to someone who is in the industry," said Wendy Fritz, svp of merchandising for mobility for Best Buy. "What we're trying to say is 'hey you can do this,' and when they come into the store our Blue Shirts can say 'these are the three or four products you need to get started.'"

Seven stores will feature a full "experiential" Club Beats area, with a spectrum of products while 300 stores will features an "interactive" area, with similar options but slightly fewer products to try out. All remaining stores will include a "core" Club Beats area, with a product selection, merchandising signage and customer service assistance but less of a focus on interactivity.

-Woody Ellis

Music: Too Expensive to Be Free, Too Free to Be Expensive

Recently, a rumor has been released in the music business regarding MySpace business operations. According to the article I read, MySpace is on the verge of purchasing the free music streaming site imeem, which has been struggling to stay on top with payments with music copyright holders. However, this problem is spreading to similar licensed free music services, according to a top News Corp executive. There has been speculation that advertising revenue is a poor business solution to cover costs of licensing music, which has lead to illegitimate free music sources continuing to prosper. MySpace has been losing money and could soon add a subscription option due to payments obligated to music companies. On the other hand, YouTube remains the only licensed, free, on-demand music service that promises to break even. This is mostly due to the visual nature of the services which makes users more likely to encounter advertisements on the site. Furthermore, when the labels launch their Vevo (YouTube spin-off) they expect to bring in more money in ads than YouTube does. An interesting perspective that I found interesting was geared towards Googles' new music search service. This music search service allows to users to listen to a song once for free through LaLa or MySpace's iLike service. As mentioned in the article, "If Google can't figure out a way to support something with ads, it arguably cannot be done." In conclusion, advertising was suppose to be the golden opportunity for music fans to get free music while at the same time contribute to copyright holders. This vision seems to be gone, and music enthusiasts will likely head back to file sharing networks.

-Ryan Dolan

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/11/music-too-expensive-to-be-free-too-free-to-be-expensive/

Words With Friends...and album advertisements

One of my favorite games on my iPhone recently is "Words With Friends." It's an app that allows you to play scrabble against your friends either on one phone while passing back and forth, or from different phones, anywhere in the world. And if you dont have a friend to play against, you can select to play a random opponent. Anyways, this app is extremely popular. There is a free version (which of course has all the advertisements) and a version with no advertising for a small fee. Well, most people don't mind the occasional ad pop up, so they go with the free version. Since this app is very popular, bigger companies (toyota, axe, netflix) are placing there ads in the rotation.

While playing recently, I noticed there were several advertisements for newly released albums. What made this advertisement different than the ones i've seen in the past, is there is the option to be directed to your iTunes on your iPhone to download the album if you are interested. The ads pop up quite frequently while playing. So the player sees them often. Even if they dont purchase the album, it raises awareness that the album is available.

The market surrounding this app is also very broad. People from all ages, locations, and backgrounds play. Advertisement placement throughout this app is brilliant.

~Laurel Zevitz

Lady Gaga on Gossip Girl

None other than Lady Gaga will be performing on tonight's episode of Gossip Girl. Although her fan base probably already connects with the viewers of the show, she still has an opportunity to attract new fans. She is also being associated with a very popular show for teens and young adults. This is also a chance for Lady Gaga to expand her market, and show people if she can act or not. Which in the future could be something she benefits from if the taping goes over well. It will be interesting to see if this appearance strengthens her fan base.

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2009/11/13/sneak-peak-lady-gaga-dances-in-red-sequins-on-gossip-girl/

- Val South

More Beatles Merchandise

The Beatles seem to be the only band that can continue to sell records in a large quantity. 9/9/09 which was what can only be called "Beatles Day" marked the release of their entire remastered catalog as well as Rock Band Beatles edition. Both the game and the albums sold incredibly well. With that in mind EMI has opted to release more another piece of merchandise that is sure to send Beatle geeks scrambling for their wallets. Set for a December 8th release date, a Beatles apple logo with removable USB features the bands entire catalog as well as documentary's album art and some other goodies. The initial pre-order was set for thirty thousand units priced at $279 but it looks as if they have already increased the number of units. I'm not a huge Beatles fan and I find myself desperately wanting one of these. I can only imagine that the Beatle freaks will buy these up every time they are released. More info on the apples can be found here: http://www.thebeatles.com/#/news/APPLE_AND_EMI_TO_RELEASE/?store=2
Steve Smith

iTunes Variable Pricing selling fewer songs, but still making more money?

Earlier in the semester I posted on a story stating that iTunes raised the price by 30 cents of some of their hottest singles. While sales have dropped 6%, some of the more popular songs are still selling at a normal rate. Because of this news, Apple can more than likely declare this as a victory.

To me, this shows that Apple can probably get away with raising single prices in the future if marketed right. They didn't raise the prices of every song, just the hot sellers. I would assume that they know that people are going to get the song they want given that the price isn't ridiculous. Raising the price 30 cents shouldn't ruffle the feathers of too many people. I know they don't ruffle mine.

http://gigaom.com/2009/11/12/with-itunes-variable-pricing-fewer-hit-song-sales-still-mean-more-money-for-apple/

-Marcus Hall

Downloading Vs. Music-Streaming

Despite the popularity of music-streaming a recent survey of 10,000 students showed that 75 percent of students prefer downloading music. These students would rather use sites like iTunes for example to download and keep music on hard drives or MP3 players. There is a growing demand for cheaper downloads. TunesPro.com seems to be the front runner in meeting this demand. They have already lowered prices when they launched 3 months ago. The price was lowered and hopes of attracting younger customers. Those hopes were met TunesPro said “We have seen a huge surge of younger people using our site as more and more of torrents and P2P files contain viruses, so our pricing must be competitive enough for the younger students with perhaps less disposable income than professionals. We keep our prices low and concentrate of making money through volume sales. Currently we charge 19c per song and offer a further 10% when a whole album is purchased. We believe this will attract the younger users away from iTunes, which charge almost 6 times more than we do."

This sounds great for music lovers I. My question to you guys is do you think that sites like TunesPro will bring an end to iTunes or at least make them change how they operate as far as pricing goes. Also, I would like to know if you guys preferred either music-streaming or downloading.

Trevion Martin

http://www.millsberry.com/