 RAIN 2/18: Ready your apps! The "age of mobile computing" has begun ·Feb 18, 11:46 AM MERCURY NEWS WRITER SAYS NEW WINDOWS MOBILE APP SIGNALS MONUMENTAL SHIFTSan Jose Mercury News columnist Chris O’Brien commented yesterday that Microsoft’s release of its widely-praised top-to-bottom brand new mobile platform, Windows Phone 7 (RAIN coverage here) marks the end of the era of dominance by the desktop PC, and begins the age of mobile computing.
After losing market share and buzz to Apple (iPhone) and Google (Android), Microsoft needed to make a big splash with this week’s announcement. “For the new (mobile OS) version, Microsoft scrapped the Windows-based version completely,” O’Brien writes. “The need to think mobile first was so critical, the company was willing to risk undermining its biggest franchise, Windows… “The company whose success is so closely associated with the personal computer has made a clean break from the past to take a radical step forward,” he concludes. “If you’re looking for the real action, the exciting innovations, it’s going to be in mobile from now on.” NUMBER OF AMERICANS WHO USE INTERNET SURGES DURING RECESSION New data from the NTIA and the U.S. Census Bureau indicates the number of online Americans grew significantly from October 2007 to October 2009 (especially among older adults, women, ethnic minorities, and the unemployed). In that span, the number of U.S. households with a high-speed Internet connection grew 25%, less than 51% to over 63%. Read more in Communications Technology here.
CNET WRITER URGES SIRIUS TO FORGET THE HARDWARE, FOCUS ON SELLING CONTENT“If satellite is going to make a move, it’s got to be now,” writes CNet feature columnist Molly Wood. She argues the time is right for satellite radio as terrestrial is in decay, and Internet radio has yet to reach critical mass (in audience and convenience).
Wood says that Sirius XM may find success by, well, acting like a webcaster. Primarily, by concentrating on selling the content, not hardware. Sirius needs to focus on delivering its content to devices consumers already own. “Flip the script and start selling commercial-free radio stations and Internet and mobile streaming,” Wood writes. Oh, and those prices? Gotta change, Wood argues. “The various packages are ridiculously complex and the whole thing just feels like a confusing, overpriced mess — because it is.” Relatedly, Sirius stock yesterday got *as high as $1.15, its highest level since September 2008, and as the Wall Street Journal reports, “concerns have abated about a possible reverse stock split or delisting of the shares.” Just a year ago the stock was at 5 cents. Find the CNet blog post here. Read the Wall Street Journal here. SPOTIFY CEO SAYS AVERAGE USER STOCKPILES 15K SONGS TechCrunch reports today that Spotify CEO Daniek Ek, during a session at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, said the average user of his company’s free ad-supported on-demand music service has 15,000 tracks in his or her collection.
By the way, 15,000 4-minute songs would take 1,000 hours (or 41 days, 16 hours) to listen to back-to-back. Also, 15,000 songs is the equivalent of 1,250 12-songs CDs. Read it in TechCrunch here.
SOUNDTRCKR “GEO-SOCIAL” APP ANNOUNCES NEW iPHONE FEATURESSoundtrckr is the “geosocial” music service RAIN reported on here, which allows users create custom Internet radio streams based on their music libraries. Users share these streams Soundtrckr friends, and others can listen to custom stations. The app’s geo-tagging feature assigns a real-world location to a song and alerts the user to songs that have been assigned to their location.Now, the company has announced, iPhone app users can create stations from any artist in Soundtrckr’s catalog, and determine the current location of their friends and listeners. share: del.icio.us.  Reddit  Digg  Yahoo  Wink  Windows  Google  Newsvine 
CommentCommenting is closed for this article.  Other stories RAIN has upgraded (and moved)! RAIN 9/13: RAIN Summit Chicago takes place today! RAIN 9/12: First Summit in RAIN's hometown takes place tomorrow RAIN 9/9: Summer holidays, "doldrums" impact July Webcast Metrics, but audience up over last year RAIN 9/8: Clear Channel launches new customizable iHeartRadio beta; RAIN goes hands-on RAIN 9/7: Meet more speakers you'll hear at RAIN Summit Chicago in less than a week RAIN 9/6: Clear Channel taps The Echo Nest to take on Pandora RAIN 9/2: RAIN reviews Spotify's radio-like product Artist Radio RAIN 9/1: UK online radio aggregator Radioplayer campaigns b'dcasters to create "all radio" ratings RAIN 8/31: Execs from Merlin, Triton Digital, jacAPPS and more to appear at RAIN Summit Chicago |
