Portable video players, like Apple’s latest iPod nanos, are going mainstream, according to a report from Parks Associates. Worldwide shipments of portable video players will grow at an annualized rate of 30% over the next five years, reaching 132 million units shipped per year in 2011:

The massive adoption of portable video players, with over half a billion expected to be in use within the next five years, promises unprecedented opportunity for world of podcasting and new media.

“The video PMP market will enter a strong growth period within the next five years,” said Harry Wang, senior analyst at Parks Associates. “Video capability fuels the upgrade demand from existing device owners, and more content, especially free and short online video clips, gives consumers the incentive to upgrade.”

In North America, the percentage of flash-based video PMPs will rise from 15% in 2006 to 77% in 2011. Elsewhere, flash-based video PMPs already account for the majority of the market and will continue to expand their lead.

“Flash memory‚Äôs merits, such as durability, small form factor, and low power consumption, make it the preferred storage medium for video PMP manufacturers,” Wang said. “Barring any significant developments in the online video market, the use of hard-disk drive on the PMP platform will trail substantially.”

The music industry is working on an all-you-can-eat music model, Total Music, that is generating a lot of interest. The idea behind¬†Total Music¬†is that you’ll buy a portable music player or mobile phone¬†and either pay an inexpensive monthly fee¬†for access to unlimited music, or the cost will be hidden in either the purchase price for your music player¬†or in your monthly phone bill.

Some are hyped about this new plan, calling it revolutionary and suggesting that it could be an iTunes-killer.

In many ways, though, it looks like Total Music will be a total failure. Here’s why:

• Subscription music has failed already. The idea of subscription-based music isn’t new, and it hasn’t proven to be appealing to the public. Two earlier music industry initiatives, PressPlay and MusicNow came and went without leaving much of an impression.
• The music industry wants to trick you. What makes Total Music new is the idea that the cost of the subscription will be hidden in the price of the portable music player or rolled into your monthly phone bill. In other words, they want you to pay to rent music, but they don’t want you to think that you’re paying to rent music.
• Total Music will be totally DRM’d.¬†If the music industry is going to offer you unlimited downloads, they are going to give you double-dog DRM’d downloads. Songs will be licensed for your device and DRM will prevent you from doing things that you’re used to doing, like burning the songs to CDs or using them on other devices.
• You’ll have to pay and keep paying with Total Music. The music industry doesn’t want you to download all the music that you want to listen to, fill up your device, and then stop using their service. Because of this, they’ll make the songs expire when you stop the service. Instead of paying once to get the songs that you want, you’ll have to pay and keep paying as long as you want to listen to them.
• Total Music will cost you more. On the average, iPod owners spend about twenty bucks on digital downloads. Most of the music on portable media players comes from ripping CDs. Total Music is expected to cost about $5-10 per month. In just a few months of use, renting DRM’d, limited tracks using Total Music will become more expensive than buying the music and using it however you like.

Total Music doesn’t look like it will be an iTunes-killer, or even offer significant competition to Apple’s dominant digital music platform. In fact, Total Music is¬†likely to be a total failure, unless the music industry can find a way to use the service to introduce new users – people that aren’t familiar with the ease of ripping and handling digital music files – to the world of digital music.

The music industry is questioning its relationship with Apple and is looking for alternative business models. According to a Businessweek report, a strong contender in their vision for the future of commercial music is the idea of turning music into an all-you-can-eat service, Total Music, that would cost about $5.00/month, but would be rolled into your mobile phone service plan.

While the details are in flux, insiders say Morris & Co. have an intriguing business model: get hardware makers or cell carriers to absorb the cost of a roughly $5-per-month subscription fee so consumers get a device with all-you-can-eat music that’s essentially free. Music companies would collect the subscription fee, while hardware makers theoretically would move many more players. “Doug is doing the right thing taking on Steve Jobs,” says ex-MCA Records Chairman Irving Azoff, whose Azoff Music Management Group represents the Eagles, Journey, Christina Aguilera, and others. “The artists are behind him.”

With the Total Music service, Morris and his allies are trying to hit reset on how digital music is consumed. In essence, Morris & Co. are telling consumers that music is a utility to which they are entitled, like water or gas. Buy one of the Total Music devices, and you’ve got it all. Ironically, the plan takes Jobs’ basic strategy– getting people to pay a few hundred bucks for a music player but a measly 99 cents for the music that gives it value–and pushes it to its extreme. After all, the Total Music subscriber pays only for the device–and never shells out a penny for the music. “You know that it’s there, and it costs something,” says one tech company executive who has seen Morris’ presentation. “But you never write a check for it.”

Music services have come and gone, with none leaving much of an impression. One of the reasons, though, is that the industry was asking music fans to pay a relatively high cost for the service, make them think about managing it, and then leaving them with nothing if they cancel the service. Total Music hides the cost of the service, which could make it more appealing to users. It remains to be seen whether or not the service will get rid of usability problems and turn users on to the idea of renting music.

Madonna has reportedly joined other major musicians dumping their labels for non-traditional music deals. Madonna is close to signing a US $120 million deal with concert promoter Live Nation.

In the deal, Madonna will receive a mix of cash and stock in exchange for allowing Live Nation to distribute three studio albums, promote concert tours, sell merchandise and license her name.

The move is significant for Madonna. The 49-year-old singer has recorded for the Warner Music Group-owned label her entire career, stretching back to her 1983 self-titled debut album.

BitTorrent, Inc. today announced the general availability of the BitTorrent Delivery Network Accelerator (DNA) service. BitTorrent DNA is a peer-accelerated content delivery service. Internet TV platform Brightcove will be the first to integrate BitTorrent DNA to accelerate the delivery of broadcast-quality streaming video to their customers.

The DNA content delivery service is targeted at the needs of commercial content publishers. According to BitTorrent, DNA provides fast downloads for large files like feature-length movies, games, software programs, and makes it possible to stream broadcast-quality video.

“Internet TV started with short videos on websites, but the next step is to move seamlessly from contextual video into full-screen, full-length programming,” said Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove chairman and chief executive officer. “BitTorrent DNA addresses fundamental technology challenges associated with high-quality media delivery online, and by integrating it into a new offering in our Internet TV service, we can give our content publishers the option to easily deliver full-screen, broadcast-quality streaming video to their viewers.”

Video search engine company blinkx today launched a new service that promises to pay you for embedding videos into sites and blogs.

Based on the blinkx AdHoc video contextual advertising platform, the new widget places relevant text advertisements against embedded video from popular sharing sites such as YouTube, GoogleVideo and DailyMotion. blinkx will share 50 percent of the revenue generated from the ads with users. Payments will be facilitated through PayPal.

“We wanted to reward people for the role they played in sharing and promoting video legally on the Web,” said Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO, blinkx. “blinkx’s new AdHoc widget enables Internet users to monetize the video they choose to embed on their webpages and blogs quickly and easily.”

Internet video advertising may soon be one of the fastest growing areas of net advertising, according to a report from research firm Off The Record. According to the report, advertisers are finally taking Internet video seriously.

Highlights:

• Video ads are growing faster than ad execs expected.
• Video ads account for only a tiny percentage of overall web ads, but are expected to be the fastest growing category for the foreseeable future.
• Auto and entertainment categories are strongest, with good growth in consumer products, technology, and fast food.

Other Report Results:

• Video CPMs are declining.¬† Advertisers reported average decline of 8%-13% y/y
• Video spending is coming from budget growth and offline budgets.
• Advertisers are wary of pre-rolls and post-rolls, which they regard as the next “pop-up ads”

via SVI

Google has announced that it is turning AdSense and YouTube into a contextual video advertising service for site owners. They’ve introduced “video units”, a new ad AdSense option for embedding video ads:

“We’re excited about the launch of video units — a new way to enrich your site with quality, relevant video content in an embedded, customizable player. Simply embed a snippet of code and have relevant YouTube partner content streamed to your site. You can choose categories of video to target to your site, select content from individual YouTube partners, or have video automatically targeted to your site content. Companion and text overlay ads are relevant and non-intrusive. To further blend the YouTube player into your site, you can also customize the color scheme and layout as well as choose from three different player sizes.”

In a nutshell, video units display YouTube videos in a player that also displays contextual ads. Details are available at the Google site.

Nine Inch Nails announced at its site that it is going forward without a major-label contract:

I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate. Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008.

With no major-label contract, Nine Inch Nails is more likely to experiment with free downloads, using MP3s as promotions and other tactics that the mainstream industry has been avoiding. NIN’s move follows a similar announcement from Radiohead.

While the announcement is likely to generate a lot of this is the end of mainstream music industry posts, the labels don’t make their money from aging singer-songwriters – they make their money from young bands that make a splash before they have the clout to get decent contracts.

Blue snowflakes sound like something that might fall in an Elvis song, right before those blue memories start callin’.

But the portable Snowflake Microphone is the latest USB mic from Blue Microphones. Blue’s Snowball USB Microphone has been popular with podcasters since its introduction. The company describes the new Snowflake model as the first professional quality portable USB mic. The mic combines a USB bus powered capsule with a class compliant design to make the Snowflake plug and play on Mac and PC.

The mic folds into a compact case, which also houses a USB cable, for easy transport in a laptop bag or a pocket. Unfolded, the case serves as a desktop stand or a laptop clip.

Features:

• Professional recording quality on the go
• Unique design fits on your desktop or laptop
• Plug and play ‚Äî no driver needed
• Designed for podcasting, internet telephony, voice recognition software, movie narration, music
• Mac & PC compatible

The Snowflake will be available November 1, 2007 for $79 MSRP.