MySpace Elbows iTunes With New Music Service

(NEWSER) - Apple has joined forces with four major record labels on a mission to get music buyers to start buying albums again instead of just single tracks, the Financial Times reports. The project—codenamed "Cocktail"—will bundle album downloads with lyrics sheets, sleeve notes, photos, and assorted interactive features in an effort to lure consumers into buying the whole package. More»

Joint venture with record companies aims to create competition

(NEWSER) - The world of online music buying looks set for a shakeup with the launch of MySpace Music, announced today. The joint venture between MySpace and three of the big four record labels aims to compete head-to-head with iTunes, CNET News reports. Music industry bigwigs are said to have long felt that iTunes was getting too powerful. More»

His heirs may struggle as technology moves forward

(NEWSER) - Steve Jobs wasn't the Thomas Edison or Henry Ford of his time, but some future American business visionary may be known as the Steve Jobs of his time, writes Michael Hiltzik. Jobs—a "master of bare-knuckled business strategies from the old school"—wasn't known as an inventor the way Edison was, and didn't develop a new manufacturing model the way Ford did. But he revolutionized consumer electronics design, upended old business models for entertainment and information, and showed that "high manufacturing standards don't cost money, but make money," Hiltzik writes in the Los Angeles Times . More»

Company to launch digital storage locker, maybe with blessing of labels

(NEWSER) - Looks like Apple will beat Google to the clouds when it comes to music. Insiders tell Reuters that the company is about to launch its version of an online storage service, similar to what Amazon rolled out last month : "Apple's plans will allow iTunes customers to store their songs on a remote server, and then access them from wherever they have an Internet connection." More»

Digital changes aren't all bad

(NEWSER) - Jon Bon Jovi has accused Steve Jobs of personally "killing" the music industry, but Bon Jovi is just engaging in silly "nostalgia grief," writes Keith Staskiewicz at Entertainment Weekly . In his interview with the London Sunday Times, Bon Jovi fetishizes the experience of a physical record. Because of Jobs, he adds, today's kids don't know "the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it.” More»