Australians are being charged far more for products than overseas consumers — and not just by bricks-and-mortar outlets. Crikey examines the expensive goods and the retailers’ hypocrisy.
ITunes
Bartholomeusz: is a Facebook bubble brewing?
There is a raging but inconclusive debate occurring in the US as to whether soaring valuations for so-called “social” companies are reflective of a boom or a bubble.
My Cup Of Tea: Day the music died (for EMI) is more trouble for industry
EMI is in the hands of its bankers after the iconic British record label was repossessed by Citibank earlier this week. The music industry’s problems are not going away.
lol 
Mac in the USSR: Beatles in the 21stC
After years of negotiating the songs of The Beatles are finally available for purchase on iTunes. To celebrate, The Guardian indulges in some word play, rewriting Beatle’s song titles for the iTunes age. Think: ‘While My Guitar Gently Tweets.”
Apple’s strict app diet
I can’t think of many markets where a single corporation gets to decide if a product is fit for sale, based on something as notoriously difficult to judge as good taste.
From the projects to YouTube to the music charts
Every so often a YouTube video becomes more than just a quick giggle and actually makes money. This video — a comical interview with the brother of a sexual assault victim, turned into a song (seriously) — has been racing up the iTunes charts.
The fix is in: website will pay to rort the ARIA music charts
A mysterious website claims to be able to rig the ARIA music charts by paying people to download tracks from iTunes. But ARIA says any artist caught using the site will be disqualified from charting, writes Crikey intern Alexander Hammond.
How much do musos earn?
Ever wondered how much money a musician can make through the various traditional and new media outlets? Depressingly, a lot of last.fm plays need to be had for a muso to earn a decent wage online.
Cheap, awesome TV: anywhere, anytime? Tell ‘im ‘e’s dreamin’
Any TV show, any screen, anytime. Free or cheap. “That’s the dream” says Gizmodo — but it may be just that. TV shows cost a lot of money to make, and the likes of Hulu and Apple haven’t quite worked out how to make it back.
iTunes names the best apps of 2009
Apple’s iTunes has named the “best” (in its staffers’ opinions, presumably) and top selling apps for 2009 — everything from Jamie Oliver’s 20 Minute Meals to the obvious Flight Control to Crikey favourite Tweetie 2.
YouTube’s assault on iTunes
YouTube is apparently in talks with the TV industry to offer streaming video of first-run shows, with no-commercials, at US$1.99 a pop. Apple’s iTunes already offers cheap TV downloads, but the Google-backed YouTube is a serious brand name with which to contend.
iTunes for print? Selling the story instead of the magazine
Online aggregator Maggwire.com is planning “to do for magazines what iTunes did for music”, by selling “premium” magazine articles for a few bucks online. It may save the companies, but could it kill off the printed versions in the process?
Creating an iTunes for print
Magazine publishers are worried Apple’s upcoming tablet computer could do to their industry what the iPod did to music, taking away their control over the product and cutting into their profits. Can the industry band together to create a united “shop-front” as its content goes digital?
ACMA iTunes and the failure of net filtering
The underlying Australian internet censorship process is unworkable, and always will be. Opponents of the filter are busy proving it, with complaints about iTunes selling MA15+ films without requiring age verification.
Why the old media dinosaurs aren’t extinct yet
The internet sneered and jeered at Rupert Murdoch’s announcement that News Corp will start charging for online news: “We won’t pay”. But the success of Apple’s iTunes and App store proves they will pay, says Leslie Nassar. Maybe the old man isn’t such a dinosaur after all…
From social to solo: the evolving music experience
Growing up, music was a social experience. You got an album, went to someone’s house, and anywhere between two and twenty people would cram into someone’s bedroom to listen. What happens now? asks Tim Dunlop.
Resurrecting the album on iTunes
Apple is working with four record company heavyweights — Sony, Universal, EMI and Warner — to encourage full album digital sales. Albums will be bundled with an interactive booklet, sleeve notes and more.
Why bagging The Chaser is bad policy
While the pollies and the tabloids have been going nuts over the ABC Chaser team’s celebrity obituary song, it seems the voters (or at least the viewers) couldn’t give a dead rat’s ars-hole, writes Irfan Yusuf.
Crikey competition: what would you pay for your Top 5 albums?
Radiohead has told fans they can pay what they want to download their latest album, In Rainbows. Inspired by the gesture, we asked Crikey readers to tell us five of their favourite albums — and what they’d pay for them now. (Our Top 5 entrants will win $25 iTunes vouchers).
Media briefs and TV ratings
Red Kez’s blues … Murdoch turns his gaze to the “Gray Lady” … More welfare for poor TV networksSeven kills the Wednesday night movie … It’s a crime … Sideshow side-swiped, Parko parked … More evidence of Foxtel’s double-speak on ratings … Last night’s TV ratings.
FaceBook: with friends like these, who need friends?
Wow, when things hit critical mass these days, they really do it bigtime. Halfway in and there doesn’t seem much doubt that 2007 is going to be the year of Facebook.
Election ’07: Reading between the polls
Subscribe to Crikey and you read on Friday that the latest Morgan Poll has the ALP two party preferred vote at 58.5 to 41.5% for the Coalition; a drop of 0.5% for the ALP since the last Morgan telephone poll.
Apple v Apple
Is Apple’s iTunes music store becoming the most powerful retailer in the history of the world?
