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Ticketmaster and iTunes launch ticket + music promo

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new media newsticketing company Ticketmaster and online music store iTunes Store have expanded their music + tickets offerings by launching a special dollar-off discount applied to every digital album sold on Ticketmaster and fulfilled via the iTunes Store now through December 29, 2007.

Music fans purchasing tickets at Ticketmaster.com to live performances by participating artists will be given the option of adding a digital album to their purchase for one dollar off the album’s price through the end of the year. Ticketmaster.com will provide a direct link that will take the user to the iTunes Store to download their album in full.

Ticketmaster and iTunes are also delivering special Ticketmaster + iTunes gift card packs now available exclusively at Target stores throughout the US. The dual card packages include two $25 gift cards: one redeemable toward tickets at Ticketmaster.com and one redeemable for digital music at the iTunes Store.

Originally posted on November 9, 2007 @ 4:56 am

AT&T introduces new international iPhone data plan

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att.pngAT&T Inc. announced a new international plan that gives iPhone users 50mb of data per month to browse the web, check e-mail and access other information in more than 29 countries, including Canada, China, Mexico and in areas throughout Europe and Asia.

The new Data Global Plan is available to iPhone customers for $59.99 a month, which is in addition to the domestic voice and data iPhone plan they purchase during iPhone activation. The Data Global Plan enables international voice and data roaming, as well as international long distance dialing from the United States at standard rates.

The plan requires customers to first purchase a domestic voice and data plan for the iPhone and is not available as a stand-alone offer. Normal eligibility requirements for international plans apply. Should customers exceed the 50MB bucket in the 29 countries where the plan applies, they will pay $.005/KB. Outside those countries, consumers will simply pay for their data usage by the kilobyte, at rates starting as low as $.010/KB.

AT&T also offers a 20mb Data Global Plan for iPhone customers for $24.99 a month. The 20mb bucket applies to usage within the same 29 countries, with overage rated at $.005/KB. Outside the 29 designated countries, the data usage rate is $.0195/KB.

Travelers can visit www.att.com/wirelessinternational to see whether service is available in the countries to which they are going.

Originally posted on November 5, 2007 @ 11:30 am

NBC chief accuses Apple of destroying the music business

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new media newsIn what I believe a desperate move to woo other media companies to support its startup venture Hulu.com, NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Zucker has accused Apple of destroying the music business with its parity pricing strategy implemented in iTunes stores.

Moreover, Zucker believes Apple will also “destroy” the online video business if the traditional media companies will not take a stand against this pricing policy.

You might remember that last month iTunes stopped selling NBC TV shows due to disagreement over price. According to Financial Times, Mr Zucker said “he urged Apple for months to price one programme at $2.99 per download – as opposed to the current $1.99 – as an ‘experiment’ but was rebuffed by Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive.”

What is apparent in Zucker’s remarks is his big concern for profits over consumers’ welfare. If this is a reflection of Hulu’s future direction, Zucker might have a hard time finding suckers who are willing to pay more.

Originally posted on October 30, 2007 @ 10:55 am

iTunes Plus now offers 2 million tracks for just 99 cents

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itunes.jpgApple announced that it has expanded its iTunes Plus offering to over two million tracks and lowered the price of all iTunes Plus tracks to just 99 cents. All iTunes Plus tracks feature DRM-free music with high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings. The iTunes Plus catalog is now the largest DRM-free catalog in the world.

With the expansion of iTunes Plus, customers can now download tracks from a variety of labels without limitations on the type of music player or number of computers that purchased songs can be played on. iTunes Plus songs purchased from the iTunes Store will play on all iPods, iPhone, Windows or Mac computers, widescreen TVs with Apple TV, as well as many other digital music players.

Originally posted on October 17, 2007 @ 12:25 pm

iPhone will open to third-party developers this Feb 08

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901am.com Apple’s Steve Job is finally opening its doors to third party developers on iPhone and iPod Touch. The SDK will be available this coming February 2008.

“We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers,” said Jobs in Apple’s Hot News.

Moreover, the company is taking some precautionary measures to protect iPhone users against silently spreading mobile malwares and viruses.

I guess the big hindsight question, as Nik Fletcher at tuaw.com adequately put, is: “What took you so long to let us at your beloved devices?”

Originally posted on October 17, 2007 @ 1:01 pm