Wednesday’s Music 2.0 Briefing: Limewire’s Store, Valentino To AEG & More
> P2P software firm Limewire has opened an mp3 store with about 500K songs mostly from IRIS Distribution and Nettwerk. It mixes both an individual song and an eMusic style subscription servce. Dual purchase options is as smart move but with such slim selection its hard to see how they can compete and this morning when I checked the service was down.
> Former Fantasma Production’s respect #2 John Valentino has been tapped by concert giant
AEG to open a Florida office. Fantasma, whose founder Jon Stoll passed
away last month, was bought last week by Live Nation.
> Total Starbucks CD sales were 4.4 million CDs in North America last year, up 22%. But that means only 2 CDs per day per store according The New York Times.
> Livewire Mobile has aquired Groove Mobile for $14.5 million. (press release)
> Increasingly indie labels are by-passing iTunes and Amazon and selling direct to fans via their own sites. (ars)
as much as the reputation-damaged NYTimes wants to malign it, selling 4.4 million physical CDs in this day&age is remarkable; maybe their selection has strayed and needs tweaking, but Hear Music has been a success…