Recently, I was considering trading in my broken iPod for another type of MP3 player…that is; until I ran across an article from Wired stating that I'd better hold on to at least one Apple product.

According to InStat, by 2012, 40% of all music purchased is going to come from digital music downloads.  Most impressively, the vast majority of those downloads come from Apple iTunes.  Almost 30% of the computers in the world have the download software, according to Digital Music News.

I personally buy nearly all of my music through iTunes.  For me, it seems easy, safe, and quick.  I like the fact that I can purchase a single song from an album, and the fact that an entire album on iTunes is typically less expensive than a CD.  Do I hate the fact that Apple controls yet another aspect of the computer market? Yes.  Will that hatred stop me from downloading the latest free single of the week? No.

It will be interesting to see if these predictions from InStat and Wired are correct.  I would like to also predict that by 2012, Apple will have released another five ‘upgrades' to the design of the iPod.

[This is cross-posted at The ImpactWatch blog.]

J.W.'s American Idol Twitter prediction about which contestant would end their run last night was wrong.  Brooke White did not go home despite having a disastrous restart during her song while Carly Smithson performed well this week — even garnering praise from Simon Cowell.

I think that J.W. had a novel idea, but why was his prediction wrong? 

There's an excellent chance that those who use Twitter aren't representative of the ardent American Idol voter.  While I don't know the demographics of the voting population, Twitter is new and geeky enough that it wouldn't surprise me if this was the case.

Here's an anecdote about why I know Twitter isn't that widespread yet. Twitter inputs my tweets into Facebook and lists them in my status updates.  My friends see: "Steve Petersen is twitter: …"  Although my friends do show social media tendencies by using the site, some of them have no idea of what Twitter is.  One asked me, "What's with all this twittering?''  While another wondered if I was constantly nervous.

Now, I'm not saying that my friends accurately represent the American Idol voter, but they probably are more like the voter than a group of people who use a geeky (I use that with pride) site.  If some of my friends understand and enjoy social media enough to use a social network but are not aware of Twitter, then tweeters are in a smaller subset of the population than my friends who use social networks.  Needless to say, I have many friends who either don't want a Facebook account or lack the desire to social media (let alone Twitter) on-line.

Further, I doubt that everyone who positively tweets about a contestant votes for that person.  Also, I know people who vote multiple times for the same person each week, and even if a Twitter user voted for the contestant whom they wrote about, how are we sure that they voted once, twice, or nine times?

My predictions were absolute rubbish, it seems.  Apparently, tweets cannot be used to accurately predict who is going home from American Idol.  In fact, two of the top three positive tweet-getters were the ones that were unceremoniously in the Bottom Two.  Syesha Mercado and Carly Smithson had the least votes after their performances on Tuesday night, despite having the most positive tweets found during my Tweet Scan.

Interestingly, Mercado and Smithson were the two contestants with the fewest positive tweets BEFORE their performances of this week.  This may indicate that overall twittering can predict the voting habits of America better than spur of the moment written notions.

Will we ever find a way to predict American Idol?  I researched some of the other methods previously mentioned in this post, and none of them predicted a Carly elimination.  With that, Fox Television continues to remain a mystery.

For the second part of my study concerning whether tweets from Twitter could be used to predict the losing contestants of American Idol, I decided to wait until noon to make sure that there were enough new tweets to equal the amount used in the analysis last week.  Fortunately, there were more than enough fresh, unique tweets discussing last night's episode.

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Once again, the Internet is abuzz with predictions and theories about who is going to win American Idol.  In the early days of the competition (back when Kelly Clarkson was still a nobody singing karaoke and we only hypothesized that we hated the British without actually knowing it through Simon Cowell), there was much less web traffic about the show.  This season and the previous one, however, it's all the Internet can talk about.

This leads people in finding numerous ways to predict who of the now-6 remaining contestants will be voted off each week.  After all, this is a show that purports that the American public gets to decide who is going to stay and who is going to go.  Polls, blogs, and fansites may all play an important role in deciding the overall victor, much like a modern day political campaign. 

TV Squad, a popular television site, uses polls from various sources as well as their own intuition to predict the next bootee.  Most of the polls incorrectly predicted Syesha Mercado's demise, while the real loser was Kristy Lee Cook.  Obviously, this is not an accurate way to predict the contestant with the lowest votes.  The polls are simply too specific in the sense that only those Internet snoopers that come across them will actually get a chance to vote in the poll.  This does not represent an accurate view of the American public.

DialIdol.com has found a more inventive way to predict the successful contestants.  Their software measures the busy signal of each phone line to determine who is getting the most votes.  They started the program during the previous season, but achieved only moderate success in the predictions.  The company also sells software to enable one person to vote many times for a contestant.  Many sites have reported that the software is now known by the American Idol producers and rarely works anymore.

Tivo also found a creative way to measure the votes.  The company claims that they can predict who is going to be voted off by which minutes of the recorded programs are re-watched.  The theory is that Idol favorites will have their performances re-watched by their adoring public, while soon-to-be eliminees will have fewer views.  Unfortunately, the system seems to not be altogether accurate, since Tivo has incorrectly predicted Mercado two weeks in a row.

Another social media company, BuzzLogic, uses their "influencer blog" ratings to follow the entire competition via their blog.  I was impressed by the fledgling company's efforts at first glance, but upon closer inspection realized that few, if any, of their predictions have been true.  In addition, BuzzLogic gives very little explanation when they are incorrect.  This does, however, bolster my recent opinion that Katie Paine's connection between online activity and offline activity is flawed.  Many ‘influential' bloggers may be writing about certain candidates for American Idol, but that does not necessarily mean that they are voting for them, or voting at all.

I decided to tackle the task of predicting American Idol, ImpactWatch style.  Instead of using news articles, I used Tweet Scan to analyze 90 tweets per remaining contestant, using two separate searches for each.  I searched for each contestant's full name as well as their first name and the phrase "American Idol".  I read and ranked each tweet post as positive, negative, or neutral.

There are two reasons why I believe this method to be more valid than the other ways that were described above.  First, tweets represent impulses and first impressions, which I assume mirrors the mindset of actual voters.  Secondly, this is the only method that ascribes a positive or negative take on the information.  Polls just rank the favorite, while the Tivo system lacks any real information about why certain parts of the show are re-watched.  BuzzLogic's system has merit, but suffers from the need of personal input by its bloggers to explain anomalies in the amounts of influencer blogs.

Using my ImpactWatch inspired protocol, I found that David Cook and Jason Castro have the highest amount of positive tweets.  Sure enough, after doing some extended research, I found that the two received much praise for their performances last week.  All three females had an identical number of negative tweets (45), but Mercado has the lowest amount of positive tweets at a scant 30.  This is preliminary, but on Wednesday morning, I will post an updated tweet analysis (since Tuesday is when the contestants will perform their new songs).  Voters will most likely be tweeting away while they are waiting to vote.  Let's see if I can accurately predict which Idol will fall.

My current results are summarized below, using a graph created using ImpactWatch.

I currently own a fifth-generation iPod that is about to breathe its last breath.  After damaging the screen over a year ago, I have been waiting for the release of the next generation of iPods so that I could justify buying a new one.  Now that the iPod Touch is releasing a 32GB version, I figure the time is nigh.  But what to do with my old iPod?  It has given me many years of dedicated service in avoiding the awful remixes played at the gym, so it deserves a proper afterlife.

Unfortunately, according to Second Rotation, I would not receive a lot, if anything, for my poor MP3 player in resell.  I suppose that this hilarious parody from MadTV should have tipped me off sooner.

Fortunately for me, there will soon be another option for my dilemma.  According to the PR Newswire, The US Post Office is going to start a "Mail Back" program that will be featured in approximately 1500 post offices across the nation, including locations in San Diego, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC.  Consumers will be able to use free envelopes (postage-paid) to mail in inkjet cartridges, PDAs, Blackberries, digital cameras, iPods and MP3 players.  Postage for the envelopes is paid for by Clover Technologies Group, a company that recycles, remanufactures and remarkets inkjet cartridges, laser cartridges and small electronics. 

The Group refurbishes and tries to resell your mailed-in item.  If this cannot be done, its component parts are reused to refurbish other items, or the parts are broken down further and the materials are recycled. Clover Technologies Group has a policy that the company does everything it can to avoid contributing any materials to the nation's landfills.

Sounds good.  I know where my current iPod is going once I purchase the iPod Touch (which will be obsolete in two weeks, I estimate).  Next step, saving up $500 for the new one.

These are probably the hottest electronic gift items for the 2007 holidays. We've got a little bit of everything in here. Personally I'm waiting for the 3G version of the iPhone so that's not on my list. So instead I asked for an ASUS EEE and got it early! I'd review it but there's so much written about it already I won't bother. Suffice to say that it's tiny and light and fine for basic computer usage.

What? The item you lust after most is not in our poll? Feel free to complain in the comments area!

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MySpace (do I really need to link there?) is going to be offering a pay-for-friend model to record distributors. The catch for the record distributor? Give them the user the music for free. We're talking about commercial music that is also distributed in record stores here, not music from some obscure band.

So how does this work exactly? A user "friends" a record label and in exchange they can download an album. The user has the music they want, the record label has an audience for their brands that they can capitalize on, and MySpace gets a little change in it's pocket. Win, win, win? Maybe. I have my doubts as to whether people are really going buy in to an unfamiliar brand because they were able to download some music for free. But it's an interesting idea and definitely worth a shot. Frankly anything that takes current music business models in a different direction is worth a shot. Hats off to MySpace for the imaginativeness.

Speaking of obscure bands, the first band to try this out on MySpace is a band called Pennywise, via their record label Textango's MySpace profile. This will happen sometime next March.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Via AdWeek.

Let's stop and think for a moment.  When was the last time you heard a song on the radio and thought to yourself, "I have just got to get to the store and buy this CD!"?  I honestly cannot remember the last time this happened to me.  Now, it's much more likely for me to browse the net, see a song on a friend's Facebook or MySpace profile, and head over to iTunes to download a digital copy of that song.  Times have changed, haven't they?

According to a recent study by Entertainment Media Research, this pattern of browsing and buying digital music is becoming more and more commonplace.  This company argues that social networks are in essence changing the way people browse and purchase music.

In June, Entertainment Media Research (from now on, EMR), conducted an online survey of 1,700 people in the UK to judge how music consumers use social networks to obtain music.  Here are some important points from the research:

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With all the hype surrounding tomorrow's release of Apple's iPhone, I had to throw my two cents in.  There are reports that both praise and criticize Apple's newest addition to its family of trendy tech products, and both sides have some good points.  The pro-iPhone camp is excited about having a sleek, attractive, all-in-one device that offers a fantastic web browser and a great screen.  Those hesitant about the iPhone argue that the device is overpriced, unproven, lacks sufficient storage, and limits customers to signing a two-year contract with AT&T.  In addition, questions about the device's "keyboard" still remain.

For me, I think it would be fantastic to have one device that combines my phone, iPod, and web browsing in a pocket-sized package.  However, I can't see myself shelling out $600 for the phone and $2,000 over two years for the service. The phone's 14-day return policy also makes me a bit wary.  I, for one, will definitely be waiting for at least version 2.0 before I can even seriously consider buying this smart phone.

Still deciding?  Check out these CNET videos: Top 5 Reasons to Love the iPhone and Top 5 Worst Things About the iPhone .

What about you?  Will you be waiting in line on Friday?

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I was against promoting Ajit’s music on the blog.  But then his cover of Gnarl Barkley’s Crazy got over 10,000 views on YouTube, so I realized we needed to jump on the bandwagon and support our own.  So here’s our Senior Director in charge of Impactwatch, Ajit Verghese, singing Crazy:

Listen to Ajit.  Buy ImpactWatch. Love the Bivings Group.

Ajit and Erin’s recent posts about creative uses of text messaging got me thinking about Mozes, a cool texting product I played around with a few months back. In brief, Mozes allows you to create a free account and then register the keywords of your choice. People who send a text message to 66937 (MOZES) with your keyword as the message will get back a custom message of your choosing. In addition, you can use Mozes to encourage users to subscribe to your keyword and you can then send out broadcast messages to all your subscribers whenever you want.

So, I set up an account and registered the keyword “ajitmusic” as an experiment. Ajit is a friend and colleague here at Bivings and, more importantly, a talented musician who plays gigs around DC. Check out his website. Plug. Plug. Plug. Text the message “ajitmusic” to 66937 and you’ll get back a custom message and also an invitation to subscribe to broadcast messages from Ajit (or me I guess - :)). Give it a whirl. (more…)

Podcasting is about creating audio or video content for an audience that wants to listen or watch when they want, where they want, and how they want.

There are now several podcasting tools designed to make podcasting hassle-free and one of the more promising sites is Evoca.

Evoca makes podcasting easier than ever by allowing users to upload an audio file of a previously recorded content or more interestingly in my opinion, record a live phone interview from which a podcast can be created and hosted on the Evoca site.

The way this works is that users need to sign up for an account on Evoca.

By setting up the account, you will be provided with a phone number that you can dial into to begin recording your podcast.

This would work exactly like a conference call, with the added bonus of having your conversation recorded.

Once you are finished recording and hang up, the file will be automatically added to your Evoca account.

Evoca also provides you with the necessary HTML code to place a link to the podcast directly on your website.

You will also be provided with a URL to your own RSS feed, which will allow users to subscribe to future podcasts.

Transcriptions can also be provided and are charged based on the length of the recording in minutes. There are 2 types of transcriptions available:

• Executive summary ($0.80 per minute)
• Word-for-word transcription ($0.60 per minute)

Transcriptions can be purchased and added to the website after each podcast.

Cost for Evoca are minimal. There are two types of accounts.

• Free Account - Allows you up to 100 minutes of recording.
• Professional Account - 500 minutes of recording for $4.99 per month.

The following Yahoo stock graph speaks for itself. Over the last two years Apple’s stock has soared, increasing by nearly 400%. Microsoft’s has barely budged. One’s a growth stock, the other a value stock — like a utility, I’m told. With Microsoft’s market capitilization ($286 billion) being about five times that of Apple’s, and its revenue last year ($40 billion) nearly three times the iTune maker’s, I had a strange thought. Why doesn’t Microsoft buy Apple? Certainly has the money to do it. Seems I’m not the only one with this ’strange’ idea. See this article at TechNewsWorld.

A few days ago I stumbled across this great article via Slashdot about a musician named Sandi Thom, who in lieu of physically touring to support her new album, uses an online service called Streaming Tank instead to host a nightly concert. Initially I had visons of some online cable access show that had all of 3 viewers (think Wayne’s World), but upon reading the article I was surprised at how many people were tuning in to hear her play.

“Audiences have grown strongly since just 70 people logged on to her website to watch her first (free) concert on February 24. Last Thursday night, the figure was 62,138.”

Now, I myself am a singer and musician trying to promote my own music and I have traditionally stuck to playing live shows that are just a short drive away. This limits my exposure to the community - but I don’t currently have the means to do much beyond that. Sandi’s use of existing web technology seems to say that you actually don’t NEED much to get beyond the confines of your automotive radius. (more…)