Phone Tones 'to Beat CD Singles'

"Sales of mobile phone ringtones are set to overtake CD singles, according to new figures - providing a much-needed 'shot in the arm' for the music industry.

Sales of ringtones - which are more profitable to record companies than singles - are expected to rise 60% this year, said the Mobile Data Association (MDA).

An estimated £70m of ringtones will be sold in 2003 - up from £40m in 2002 - according to the MDA, a non-profit trade group.

Music company Universal told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the profit margin for recent Sugababes hit Round Round was larger on the ringtone than the single....

Mark Stannard of ringtone seller Buongiorno Vitaminic said they were the latest gimmick to be big with children and teenagers.

'A lot of the things they used to do, like swapping football cards, have changed now to getting the latest ringtone, the best ringtone,' he said." [BBC News, emphasis above is mine]

Yeah, cry me a river for the music industry.

Researcher Confirms Existence of 'Earworms'

"It's official: 98% of people have had songs stuck in their heads.

Research has helped define, but not explain, the experience. A recent study by the University of Cincinnati looked at the affliction, which the author, James Kellaris, calls 'earworms' from the German word ohrwurm. The ear part is obvious, but the worm part isn't incidental. Kellaris, a consumer psychologist, says it conveys the parasitic nature of the travel of songs into their listeners' ears, only to then get lodged and played on mental continuum.

He found that some 98 percent of listeners were at one time or another bothered by a tune that wouldn't leave their heads. The study also found some common offenders, including the Kit-Kat jingle ('Gimme a break'), 'Who Let the Dogs Out,' Queen's 'We Will Rock You,' the theme to 'Mission: Impossible,' 'YMCA,' 'Whoomp, There It Is,' 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' and 'It's a Small World After All....'

The 559 students used in the study had lots of trouble with the Chili's jingle for its baby-back ribs and with the Baha Men song 'Who Let the Dogs Out.' But Kellaris found that most often, each person tends to be haunted by their demon notes." [SFGate.com, via MetaFilter]

dead mouse, by the house

"What if in the future, librarians are to design chips for 'people' so that they can better distinguish and use the information that is beaming all around. I'd like to make RSS feeds for the brain." [Lazyitis]

You'll have to read Aaron's whole post on his photoblog to get the connection....

"If you're one of those people that reads the newspaper while you're driving to work, could you please leave me a comment and explain why? I'm all for multitasking, but this one is just a bit too much for me and I don't get it."

Driving to work this morning, I followed a guy that was reading the newspaper while driving, so I knew I would post this question when I got here. And I knew that I wanted to point out that I think multitasking can be a good thing, but I also wanted to point to the opposite view, specifically a recent article in the New York Times that said multitasking can be bad. (Looking for the cite....)

I knew I could find it easily enough, but then I couldn't remember how that whole "open NYT archives good" versus "closed NYT archives hidden behind fee" fiasco had gone, so I wasn't sure I could directly link to the article. But I should be able to link to it because your public library subscribes to a database that provides a searchable archive of the NYT (all of them do). You should have a library card and then you could access it for free.

But I can't link directly to an article and let you login to see it using your library barcode number, and all of a sudden I'm thinking what a waste that is. This whole blogging revolution thing is going on and the database vendors are totally missing it. Just think if they worked with bloggers (especially high profile ones) to provide direct links to the full text of articles via library subscriptions?

What would that require? Partnerships with bloggers, partnerships with libraries, a remote authentication scheme (which most vendors already offer), and PURLs for individual articles. Alongside the "print this article" and "email this article" buttons within the database should be a button for "link to this article." The blogger could use that link, and when readers click on it, they could enter their library barcode number to read it. It's a little clunky, but think how much more of the universe of information would open up to the web. Maybe even use cookies for persistence for those that access full-text articles a lot.

Do any aggregators (database vendors, not RSS news readers) provide this type of functionality now?

Update: Thanks to Daniel G. for reminding me about Radio's deal with the NYT to provide access to their archives for bloggers that use specific links. It's a start, but it skips libraries and works only with the NYT. On the bright side, I've heard from a vendor who is indeed working on this, but I don't know yet if I can blog it.

500,000 Kids to Get Mobile Phones

"Half a million kids in the UK under the age of ten will have a mobile phone by the end of next year, according to research published by market intelligence outfit mobileYouth.

Today, one in nine (400,000) children aged between five and nine has a mobile phone. In 2000, the number was less than 80,000.

The increase in mobile phone usage by young children is not limited to the UK.

Indeed, mobileYouth found that this latest trend in the UK is merely mimicking what's happened in other countries such as Japan and those in Scandinavia." [The Register]

Camera Phone Sales to Outstrip Film, Digital

" 'Sales of mobile phones with cameras embedded could reach 50 million units and phones that have cameras as a separate attachment could see another 40 million units,' [Tony Henning] added. 'So this year is probably a toss-up as to who sells more, but next year is no contest.'

The United States, said Henning, is again playing catch-up, especially relative to Japan, where 'electronic gadgets are a way of life.' " [infoSync]

Real Video Comes to PCS Vision Network

"Sprint wireless subscribers are now able to catch brand-name multimedia content delivered by RealOne on their PCS Vision phones, as a result of a recent agreement between Sprint and RealNetworks. Among the content now being offered in the shape of streaming video to PCS Vision users is breaking news, market reports, sports highlights and weather forecasts as well as and additional entertainment services such as horoscopes and movie reviews of the day....

RealOne currently provides subscribers with more than four hours of new A/V content each day, which is available for $4.95 USD per month to subscribers with any full-color J2ME-enabled PCS Vision Phone." [infoSync]

Kalamazoo PL Quotable Quote

"Libraries have to get on the bandwagon with this digital stuff -- MP3, CD Burning, etc....or we are out of the picture." [Tame the Web]