Today SpiralFrog announced a free subscription-based music service. Subscribers will be able to download music to their music playing devices, but will need to listen to advertising presented on the SpiralFrog site periodically, to keep the music authorized. It sounds like the downloaded music would be WMA files, using Microsoft Windows Media DRM.
A couple of days ago, Engadget pointed at FairUse4WM, a Windows Media DRM 10 and 11 removal utility with a user friendly interface.
This FT article says that iPod+iTunes has the largest market share for legally authorized music at 80%. At the same time, it notes the growing number of non-iPod MP3 and other music players coming to market. I suspect it won’t be long before there’s a one-click utility to remove the Windows Media DRM, transcode the WMA file to MP3, and import them into iTunes so subscribers can listen on their iPod or whatever device. It probably won’t be from SpiralFrog, though.
In the past ten years (1996-2006), the NAHB homebuilders index tends to lead the performance of the S&P 500 by 12 months. The index goes from is based on a survey of homebuilding companies views on current sales, the outlook for the next 6 months, and the current level of prospective buyer traffic. This month was the 7th monthly drop in a row, and is a 15-year low.
In the period from 1985 to 1996, there is no correlation between the housing and stock market, so this could optimistically be viewed as a temporary coincidence. On the other hand, asset class correlations have been going up for a while. Draw your own conclusions, but real estate prices, home builders, and mortgage lenders are clearly having a difficult time recently.
John Mauldin has pulled together some observations on the housing market in his newsletter this week, leading with the graph above from David Rosenberg at Merrill Lynch. (Free e-mail registration required, but worthwhile reading.)
“Indexed” features sketches on 3×5 index cards, heavy on graphs and Venn diagrams. If you’re reading this, there’s probably something in there for you. (via Korean Jurist)
See also Gaping Void (blogging / tech cartoons drawn on business cards) and xkcd (math / grad student humor).
Today is the first day of school in Palo Alto. It feels like we just started summer vacation, but it’s fun seeing everyone after the break. I’m always surprised by how much the kids grow in just a few weeks.
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Amidst the speculation about the Amazon Unbox video download service, Amazon has quietly launched aStores, a service providing custom online storefronts for Amazon affiliates. (You may not be able to view the link unless you’re an Amazon affiliate.)
aStore by Amazon is a new Associates product that gives you the power to create a professional online store, in minutes and without the need for programming skills, that can be embedded within or linked to from your website.
Here’s a link to their demo store.
You get to pick up to nine “featured items” to put on the home page of the store, choose product categories, and add reviews and editorial content. The shopping cart and fulfillment are handled by Amazon, with standard referral fees going back to the affiliate. There’s a browser based interface for building a store on the Amazon Affiliates site. The resulting store can be hosted by Amazon or on your own site.
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