This is Money, a UK web site by the publisher of the Daily Mail newspaper, recently published an article “The Best Music Download Sites,” in which they rated the iTunes Music Store, Napster, MySpace, SpiralFrog, PlayLouder (a UK-specific service), the online sites for Virgin and HMV, and band and label sites in general. eMusic received the highest rating (5 stars), along with the iTunes Music Store. The article references the new eMusic UK pricing, mentions iPod compatibility (but not the use of the MP3 format and the lack of DRM restrictions), characterizes eMusic as being for “fans of indierock, modern classical and jazz,” and delivers the overall verdict “Excellent site for the true collector.” ...

Courtesy of Google News I found an interesting story in the Wall Street Journal apparently about a new Naxos initiative in partnership with eMusic. It’s behind the subscriber wall and (as a non-subscriber) I couldn’t see the full text, but I managed to get the following tidbit: On Tuesday, classical label Naxos will unveil a dozen new albums in a line it’s calling MPkey. The albums are packaged in CD-sized boxes and will be placed on store shelves at Borders. Inside each box, however, customers will find not a CD but a card with an access code and a booklet of instructions for downloading the album from eMusic. ...

This is my report on activities of the Mozilla Foundation for the week ending September 1, 2006. Projects for the week Here’s a partial listing of what I and others at the Foundation did this past week: Grants and related topics. The Mozilla Foundation will be supporting the Mozilla accessibility hackfest meeting in Cambridge MA October 10–12, including sponsoring travel costs for selected attendees. Next action(s): Work with attendees of accessibility hackfest to get travel arrangements sorted out. ...

In a prior post a while back I talked about how job postings were useful clues to what a company’s up to. Well, I found some more eMusic job postings, courtesy of the ever useful Digital Music News; there are not many clues to eMusic’s future, but it’s always interesting to see what’s involved in running eMusic. Here are the current positions (warning: as these positions are filled I’d expect the URLs to stop working): ...

Really, everyone getting excited about SpiralFrog’s announcement should just stop reading fevered pronouncements like “a huge blow to established music stores such as iTunes, eMusic, and Urge” and see what Bob Lefsetz has to say: Rental, and make no mistake, SpiralFrog is rental, it’s just that you pay for it with your eyeballs/time as opposed to cash, has been proven to be a failure. . . . ...

This is the second in a series of posts about eMusic’s pricing strategy. (See also part 1.) In this post I discuss the possible motivations behind eMusic’s price points for the various subscription plans and booster packs, and including selection of the price points and the spacing between them, selection of per-track prices, and the use of “.99” prices. As every eMusic US subscriber knows (or should know), the three subscription plans offered by eMusic in the US are $9.99 for 40 tracks, $14.99 for 65 tracks, and $19.99 for 90 tracks. I suspect that eMusic first chose $9.99 and $19.99 as psychologically attractive price points, and then interpolated $14.99 as the “Goldilocks price” halfway in between. I also presume that eMusic first selected the number of tracks for the $9.99 price point to achieve the magic figure of 25 cents per track, and then chose the number of tracks for the $14.99 and $19.99 price points to show a clear discount from the base plan. ...

I happened to read a blog post by a John Zorn fan ruminating about whether to buy albums from Zorn’s Tzadik label from eMusic or elsewhere. So he asked Tzadik for guidance: I emailed Tzadik to ask if they had a preferred way that fans buy their music. I was told their preference was “definitely the purchase through our own web site.” In regards to eMusic, I was told that they offer downloads as an “alternative.” ...

This is my report on activities of the Mozilla Foundation for the week ending August 25, 2006. Projects for the week Here’s a partial listing of what I and others at the Foundation did this past week: Sunbird and SeaMonkey. I did some more work related to trademark issues for Sunbird and SeaMonkey (working with the respective teams), including creating a EULA for Sunbird similar to the Firefox EULA. Next action(s): As appropriate. ...

In my original post on eMusic Europe I noted that the prices for the Basic plan in Europe increased significantly more versus the US price than the corresponding prices for the Plus and Premium plans: the Basic plan price for eMusic Europe (excluding VAT) was 42% higher than the US price, while the Plus and Premium prices were 24% and 23% higher respectively. The price differential for eMusic UK was even higher: 46% higher for the eMusic UK Basic plan (excluding VAT) vs. 30% and 22% higher for Plus and Premium respectively. ...

Thanks to the persistence of dhaith we now have more definitive information on how eMusic will be handling existing UK and Europe subscribers on the annual and 2-year price plans. According to dhaith, “Keeping your annual subscription at the orginal US rates is not an option for European customers according to eMusic Customer Support.” Instead when their current subscriptions expire existing UK and European subscribers on annual and 2-year plans are being offered the option to be converted into monthly subscribers to eMusic UK and eMusic Europe respectively at a plan level of their choice (i.e., Basic, Plus, or Premium) with a discounted monthly price for the plan equal to the current US monthly price plus VAT. ...