Filed under: Products and services, Amazon.com (AMZN), Marketing and advertising, Technology

The marketing and release of digital-only albums before a physical copy is available received another significant boost this week when the instrumental Nine Inch Nails album Ghosts I-IV brought in $1.6 million in revenue in its first week. Billboard reported the news, and indicated that the revenue comes from around 800,000 transactions, which includes free and paid downloads and pre-orders for the physical album to be released next month.

Unfortunately, sales figure to compare to “traditional” releases will not be made available to the band; similar in style to the road Radiohead took last fall when the band pioneered this style of release with seventh album In Rainbows.

Nine Inch Nails had eschewed the record label method of releasing albums after numerous problems arose with the band’s previous album Year Zero last year. Much of the strife between band leader Trent Reznor and label Interscope Records, a part of the Universal Music Group, revolved around exorbitant prices for the album in international markets. Reznor deplored the pricing in places like Australia and China where fans were expected to pay the equivalent of $30 for the CD, which sold in the United States for around a third of that price.

The new album was released via the Nine Inch Nails website and utilized the same methods Radiohead had used back in October, albeit with higher bit-rate files. Now that two prominent bands have chosen this route to distribute their new music, perhaps this trend will catch on. Additionally, since it has been released, the album has also been added to Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN)’s MP3 Store.

Share This

Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Time Warner (TWX), Marketing and advertising, Film

The Wall Street Journal reported [subscription required] this morning that Time Warner (NYSE: TWX)’s Warner Bros. Pictures plans to film the adaptation of the seventh “Harry Potter” book in two parts. The first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be released during the holiday season of 2010 and the second part will follow six months later. A similar proposal was made for the filming of the fourth book, before enough material was cut from the book to facilitate a single film. Warner Bros. Pictures said that filming the book in two parts was “necessary to stay true to the tome.”

The five “Harry Potter” films released thus far have grossed $4.5 billion according to the Journal, and expectations are high that the sixth film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, will repeat that success when it is released later this year. Current director David Yates will stay on board for the final two installments, after directing the fifth film and the upcoming sixth film. In addition to “staying true to the tome,” WB President Jeff Robinov admitted that “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is ‘packed with vital plot points’ and that ‘the best way to do the book, and its many fans, justice is to expand the screen adaptation.’”

Clearly, part of the scheme of adding an eighth film to the series is to continue the success the films have seen, as well as the record-breaking sales that the book’s have enjoyed as well. Fans will likely welcome the decision, although not the time lag between the films, and question why similar methods were not taken for the longer fourth and fifth books. At the same time, they may also question the economics of it but the films will likely still do quite well and bring in further revenue that Warner Bros. looks toward.

Share This

holy_calamity writes “A US government program is in the works to design small nuclear reactors for use by developing countries. The work continues despite fears about security and nuclear proliferation. Plans include having reactors supplied with fuel by the US and other trusted nations, or to build reactors with their whole lifetime of fuel packaged securely inside — like a giant non-user replaceable radioactive battery.’ ‘”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share This

museumpeace writes “In the NYTimes book review blog, David Itzkoff takes a look at a new book devoted to predicting which ’science fiction’ technologies might really fly some day. The author is Michio Kaku, one of the inventors of string theory, so he bears a hearing. His picks include light sabers, invisibility and force fields.” Which sci-fi tech do you think needs to get invented over the weekend?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share This

Share This

RemyBR writes “Controversial scientific research happens all the time, but a review conducted by scientists in Japan uncovered a list of ‘bizarre’ trials - including one program designed to crossbreed cows with whales.’Scientists have analyzed 43 research papers produced by Japan over 18 years, finding most were useless or esoteric. The scientific research included injecting minke whale sperm into cows eggs, and attempts to produce test-tube whale babies.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share This

Share This

Filed under: Bad news, Economic data, Housing, Recession

Home foreclosure activity dipped 4% in February 2008, as fewer default notice, auction sales notices and bank repossessions were reported than the previous month. However, overall activity remains 60% higher than a year ago, research firm RealtyTrac announced Thursday.

From February 2006 to February 2007 foreclosure activity rose 19%, RealtyTrac said.

Foreclosure filings totaled 223,651 in February 2008, a 60% increase from February 2007, with 1 in 557 U.S. households receiving a foreclosure notice during the month.

State foreclosure rates

Nevada (1 in 165 households) had the U.S.’s highest foreclosure rate, followed by California (1 in 242 households), followed by Florida (1 in 254 households). Vermont (1 in 76,836 households), West Virginia (1 in 22,364), and North Dakota (1 in 13,839) had the nation’s lowest foreclosure rates.

Meanwhile, California reported the most foreclosure filings, with 53,629, a 131% increase from February 2007. Florida was second, with 32,447, a 69% increase from February 2007.

Housing Sector Analysis: The key statistic, obviously, is the alarming 60% increase in foreclosure activity year-over year — February 2008 compared to February 2007. When comparing February 2007 to February 2006, activity increased 19%, hence the rate of foreclosure activity has more than doubled during the two periods surveyed. In addition, the month-to-month — January 2008-to-February 2008 — dip must be qualified: the decline, which also occurred during the same period in 2007, most likely reflects difficult comparisons with the January month, which is historically always high due to banks/lien holders cramming a great of foreclosure work into the year-end month of December to meet tax filing and related end-of-year deadlines.

Finally, RealtyTrac said the 60% increase in foreclosure activity indicates that the nation still has not reached the peak of foreclosure activity in this housing cycle; the view from here is that the conclusion is reasonable.

Share This

Filed under: Products and services, Wal-Mart (WMT), Marketing and advertising

Just in time for the Easter holiday, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) will be rolling back thousands of prices to lure shoppers into stores for that special event shopping visit. This time, though, it’s Wal-Mart’s Canadian stores that will be rolling back the prices on hundreds of store shelves at each location.

The Easter holiday falls in March this year, as well as “Spring Break” for many kids (and many parents who scheduled vacations as well). As such, the mode to capitalize on a portion of this month certainly was not lost on the world’s largest retailer. So, Wal-Mart will be promptly lowering prices on over 3,500 products in its Canadian stores due to Easter being the third-largest holiday shopping day of the year.

With Easter falling on the earlierstdate than in almost 200 years, this seems like a unique merchandising opportunity for any retailer. A fact that Wal-Mart recognizes is that two shopping dates — Easter and Spring Break — are so close to each other that it could press the wallets and purses of financially-strapped shoppers. The “price rollback” to the rescue, though. Wal-Mart’s du-jour policy of competing mainly on price won’t be taking a break this year.

Share This

Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Best Buy (BBY)

In Idaho Falls, Idaho, consumer electronics retailer Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) is doing something quite neat. The largest electronics retailer in the U.S. is providing free technology classes to customers in order to demystify all the high-tech gadgets like digital cameras, HDTVs and even the digital television converters that will allow recent, non-digital televisions to receive digital over-the-air TV broadcasts. Seeing as though the 60+ year old analog television signals will be gone as of next February, this is quite an important deal to millions of American consumers.

Just picking up a newer digital camera can leave many customers feeling like a rocket scientist. The amount of features crammed into these tiny devices can overwhelm the average customer — and reading the owner’s manuals that seemingly were created by engineers for engineers can leave some feeling lost and alone with that new piece of equipment. So, like home improvement chain The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE: HD), Best Buy in Idaho Falls will offer free seminars on how to use all this new techie stuff. Think of it as the “owner’s manual” for the average customer.

This is a great idea — and Best Buy should roll out this “free tech classes” idea to every store it operates in the U.S. if is hasn’t already. This is a very unique way to build customer loyalty above and beyond the service levels Best Buy already has. Best Buy employee Stina Hardin from the Idaho Falls location says “They want to take advantage of the full features of everything they buy of this new technology. We want to let them be empowered to know that this is a little new but you can handle it you can do it.” That says it all — and it’s part of the reason Best Buy’s progressive thinking has made it the first stop in consumer electronics for millions of customers.

Share This

coondoggie writes “Eleven university solar research projects aimed at developing advanced solar photovoltaic (PV) technology manufacturing processes and products got a $14 million boost today from the Dept. of Energy. Photovoltaic-based solar cells convert sunlight directly into electricity, and are made of semiconductor materials similar to those used in personal chips. When sunlight is absorbed by these materials, the solar energy knocks electrons loose from their atoms, allowing the electrons to flow through the material to produce electricity.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share This

Share This

ZonkerWilliam writes “Newscientist has an interesting article on tapping the nerve impulses going from the brain to the vocal chords, allowing for ‘Voiceless’ phone calls. “With careful training a person can send nerve signals to their vocal cords without making a sound. These signals are picked up by the neckband and relayed wirelessly to a personal that converts them into words spoken by a computerized voice.” It’s not quite telepathy, but it’s pretty close.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Share This

Share This