"Music Matters, Day 2: What I've Learned Today"
1. MP3 players are dead
So says Tommi Mustonen, director of Nokia Nseries Hear New, Multimedia, in talking up the music capabilities of the Nseries:
"With more phones coming out with music capabilities, standalone MP3 players will be gone. We're the largest MP3 player manufacturer and FM radio manufacturer in the world."
Ian Chapman-Banks, GM of marketing and business development for Motorola Mobile Devices, North Asia, said as much whilst pointing out that in China, by 2010, there'll be a billion users, 70% will be using GPRS, and their first Internet experience will be on a mobile phone.
"Their next PC or DeadPod will be a mobile," he said.
Heh. DeadPod.
2. Ringback tones are evil
Because Sandy Monteiro, VP of digital, SEA, Universal Music Group International and MD, Universal Music Malaysia, said so during a panel session on mobile music:
"Ringback tones are the work of the devil. For carriers, the returns on ringback have been phenomenal - so much so that's it's become easy to be reticent about rolling out anything else. The mindset's become so focused on how to do more ringback tones, and there's so much more to mobile music than ringback."
In other words, that Gorillaz track you hear when you call me will send you straight to Hell.
3. Steve Jobs is a bad man
Best off the record quote I've heard in ages (from an anonymous record label exec, concerning the EMI/iTunes/DRM-free kerfluffle):
"I'm absolutely bemused that EMI did something as dramatic as they did without any research whatsoever. I think Steve Jobs has waved his magic wand and somehow he got into EMI's offices, and I don't know what he put in the coffee, but he came out of there with the interoperability issue solved for the European Commission."
Meow!
Coverage concludes tomorrow.