Album sales rose ever so slightly in the first half of 2011, driven by digital purchases. Recording artists probably aren't singing any more sweetly, but ways to purchase and store music digitally are improving, which prevents piracy and encourages legitimate sales.
"We're going to demote the PC and the Mac to just be a device," said Steve Jobs in his keynote address at Apple's WWDC today. "We're going to move your hub, the center of your digital life, into the cloud."
Amazon's Lady Gaga album/cloud storage deal crashed and burned earlier this week, and Amazon's wooden response didn't help matters, especially considering Apple's about to swoop into the space. But Amazon's relaunching the deal, with a sense of humor, to boot. Will it be enough?
In a cunning move, Amazon is selling Lady Gaga's new album for 99 cents, and giving the people who download it free access to its cloud-based music locker. Your move, Apple.
An Apple patent gives us some clues about the cloud-based iTunes we're all expecting any moment now--namely, how it'll make streaming content a seamless experience.
The streaming music biz in the U.S. has been more exciting, or at least mysterious than it has in Europe, with leading brand Spotify just beaten to market by Rdio. And Apple, with Lala, seems not to be playing the same game at all.
