BY KURT HANSON
From the Wall Street Journal: "NBC Internet Inc. said Monday that it plans to combine its consumer Internet properties into a single portal, NBCi.com, and warned of losses related to poor ad sales and the change in strategy.

"The San Francisco Internet-media company said it plans to phase out its Snap.com, Xoom.com and VideoSeeker brands later this year to prepare for the fall relaunch, which will be accompanied by a major advertising and promotional campaign on NBC's broadcast and cable-TV properties.

"NBC Internet said it expects revenues and earnings for the second quarter and the remainder of 2000 to trail expectations due to the shift in strategy, recently completed acquisitions and 'lower-than-expected sales revenues associated with a soft dot.com advertising market...'"

Read the full story in the Wall Street Journal here (subscription required).

NBCi.com has a very nice radio player.

Does this mean that NBC is sort of back in the radio business?

Details in an upcoming issue of RAIN.








Radio’s Web relationship as strong as ever
From Radio & Records: "A wide-ranging study conducted by Broadcast Architecture vividly reveals the synergistic strength of radio and the Internet. Among the main findings, an amazing 80% of radio listeners have e-mail and Internet access. Of those with access, 36% surf the web every day, 44% have viewed a radio station website in the past year and a remarkable 49% listen to the radio while they are online. The study was conducted Jan. 1-May 16, 2000 among 7,230 radio listeners age 15-54 who spent at least one hour a day listening to radio. For more details, see the June 16 issue of R&R."

Much as I like the fine people at Broadcast Architecture, this can't possibly be right! Radio listeners comprise virtually all of the people in most demos, and I don't believe that any other study ever has supported the idea that 80% of people in any demo already have both e-mail and Internet access. (Note that R&R also called the figure "amazing.") -- KH

Music industry still gunning for Napster
From Streaming Media News: "The Recording Industry Association of America and the National Music Publishers Association fired the next shot in the legal war against Napster Inc. late Monday night by filing a request for a preliminary injunction against the MP3 file-swapping firm. The groups members, composed of recording industry luminaries, academians, and artists, claimed widespread copyright infringement and industry harm... This time, the disgruntled parties are using the results from a detailed study to back up their claims..." Read the full article from Streaming Media News here.

More on the study quoted by the RIAA...
From FMQB: A study conducted by Field Research Group concluded that downloading songs through Napster negatively affects music sales: "The more songs Napster users have downloaded, the more apt they are to say explicitly that Napster has reduced their music purchases." The Field Research Group surveyed 2,555 college students for their study. "This is not just about online versus offline," RIAA President Hilary Rosen said. "Most in the online business community recognize that what Napster is doing threatens legitimate e-commerce models, and is legally and morally wrong..." Read the full piece in FMQB here

MP3.com's Robertson makes good point
From Digital Music Weekly: "Michael Robertson, whose MP3.com recently settled a multimillion-dollar lawsuit with the RIAA over its My.MP3 service, chimed in on behalf of the recording industry. 'In my view, Napster is not designed to promote or share the music of unknown or lesser-known artists. The only way to find a song on Napster is to enter the name of the song and/or artist that the user wants to find,' he said. Read the full article on Napster in Digital Music Weekly here.

More comments coming later tonight, too. Please feel free to check back later.

"I'm just an average person who looks for choices... Here's my assessment..."

I really like this site, so I figured I'd add some commentary. I don't know if it will ever show up on the site but I hope you'll be able to offer it.

I'm just an average person who looks for choices. I've visited many of the sites you mention and have found some to be great additions to my bookmarks and places I wouldn't send my worst enemy. From Joe the "little-bit-above-average guy," here's my assessment for all of you Internet companies making these sites to see.

I did some surfing around and wanted to see which sites were the easiest to use and which sites didn't require me to sign over my name rank and serial number to use.

My journey started at DiscJockey.com. Six out of eight clicks garnered me nothing! No music. Nothing! The two times that it did work it malfunctioned. Next in line: NetRadio.com was buffertown! Also note, if you're not careful you'll never know where to click to listen. I should also note that I'm on a dedicated T-1 line here at work so speed would not be an issue.

ChoiceRadio.com? I couldn't even get past wanting to register to listen to their tinsel. GrooveRadio? Can they make their text any smaller? A trip to their chat room showed 8 people and one was an "employee." Listening to it was no picnic either. Next.

Spinner.com? My God, what a travesty! AOL has ruined a great product. AOL is no stranger to that as they've "downwardly enhanced" Netscape in the same manner. MusicChoice.com? You need to go through way too much for way too little.

You're probably asking "Did you like anything? Sure. KNAC.com, clean and easy to use. Very cool. WWW.com, easy to use but incredibly unattractive. CyberRadio2000.com was easy to figure out and lots of choices on their front page. RadioFreeVirgin.com, not bad, not good, OK. CDNow has some stations that were easy to use if you can find them.

That's about it today, shoppers. Don't drink and surf!

                                          -- "Gulliver Travels the Internet"

P.S. So I ask you, Why would anyone listen to Internet radio when it doesn't work more than 90% of the time?


What's the old saying -- "Out of the mouths of babes"? Some of this reader's thoughts, I'll admit, have been percolating in the back of m

Does his perspective make sense to you? Contribute your thoughts using your own e-mail software here or via the form below.

"This MP3 deal is just marvelous news for the record companies..."

Having been in the record business, I can say absolutely that this MP3 deal is just marvelous news for the record companies. Just think: they don't have to press records any more. This is what they've been trying to figure out how to do for years. No more distributors; no more guessing how many pressings to make; no more returns; no more product showing up in grey markets in places like Thailand; no more bricks & mortar stores to deal with.

The record producers have tried, with concepts like Music Choice Europe, but this is the ultimate deal; out-of-pocket costs have practically disappeared. It is a win/win for the producers

                                          -- Robert E. Richer, media broker

"Some thoughts on your cassette dubbing analogy..."

Kurt: Some thoughts on your cassette dubbing analogy (here):

1) The mymp3.com service isn't exactly the same as a perfect copy for less money. It's more like a "Mike's we play it back 4 U on the radio" service. What mp3.com does is STREAM it back to you, which while often quite listenable is not the same quality as as a CD. It also doesn't have any of the portablility that a CD does, so the lower price is probably reasonable. After all, it's supposedly a paid-for copy anyway, not a replacement for one.

2) The, "Hey Heather, let me borrow your CD for a minute, I want to go down to Mike's and buy a cassette!" question...not a really big issue and certainly shouldn't be built into the royalty fee structure. Here's why. If Heather is inclined to let her friend copy her CD, there are better ways to do it that are just as free and just as easy as mymp3.com. She could:

a) burn it into a CD
b) encode it into an mp3 (legal software is available for free that does it easily)
c) find the songs (the hits anyway) on Napster, Gnutella, Scour, IRC or one of the other sharing programs and download it.
d) all of the above

All of those options are easy and provide a perfect, portable copy. True, not everyone has a CD burner or has bothered to download Music Match (or some other software that encodes mp3's), but within a year or two, all of that will be pretty much standard.

For those reasons, I believe that the concerns about handing out CD's for copying on mp3.com lack practical support. FYI -- the service doesn't seem to have done much to draw people to the mp3.com site. According to PC Data Online, mp3.com's monthly unique user base (effectively monthly cume) has dropped progressively from 6.6% to 6.2% since February.

                                          -- Bob Bellin, MP3Player.com

June 12-14	Streaming Media East 2000, New York City
June 14-17	R&R Convention 2000, Los Angeles
June 14-17	PROMAX & BDA, New Orleans
July 13-16	Upper Midwest Conclave, Minneapolis
August 3-5	Morning Show Bootcamp, New Orleans
September 20-23	NAB Radio Show, San Francisco
October 5-7	Billboard/Airplay Monitor Seminar, New York
November 5-7	NAB European Radio Conference, Berlin
Nov. 28-Dec. 1	Radio Ink Internet Conference, Santa Clara, CA

xxx

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