by Jason Wilk on August 11, 2009
- BGR today reported more news today of what is in store for iTunes 9. First, Apple supposedly “has plans to tie iTunes 9 into a “Social” application that they plan to release in the future. It was said that the application (separate from iTunes) will be similar to Yahoo’s OneConnect offering and consolidate all your social networking services. (iPhone application? Desktop app? Wasn’t clarified to us). The application will also allow you to broadcast what music you’re currently listening to, allow you to share your music with people on your network, connect with your friend’s friends (no clue on that one), and update all of your statuses at the same time. ITunes 9 will let you broadcast music statuses as well”
- This seems like quite a vague rumor, but one that makes sense. The above quote from BGR makes it sound like Apple is going to launch their own version of TweetDeck that ties music playlists/reccomendations/updates directly with iTunes (I guess more of a ’social genius’ hangout). If Apple does decide to go down this route, they need to consider either making some small key acquisitions (Pandora, Last.fm, HypeMachine, etc), or opening up their API’s to let some of these applications interact within iTunes.
- When I first began using iTunes, it was the only place I’d play music. I would upload burned CD’s and download music off of people’s network from my dorm room all day to get the latest and greatest stuff. However, iTunes now has become what my Reel player used to be to me in the 90’s; a real pain in the ass and something I only open if I have to. It’s slow, my owned music has gotten boring and I think the Genius function is no more of a cool feature than Amazon’s reccomendation system that is just trying to get me to spend more money. In my entire existence, I have maybe spent $6 total in the iTunes Store (not including apps, which is somewhere around $60-70 and from my iPhone, not my desktop). Today, my friends and I spend all our time listening to music on HypeMachine, Pandora and even YouTube as opposeed to opening iTunes. This should be a serious concern for Apple as I along with my generation of 18-30 year olds are getting used to the concept of giving up ownership of our music in favor of the cloud (and not paying).
- There is no reason Apple should not be able to strike the kinds of deals that Pandora or MySpace Music have done to enable ad supported streaming to let users play the latest music for free and interact with their Facebook, Twitter, etc groups. As of right now, there is nothing social about my current iTunes catalog. As I said, it’s boring and people have heard of mostly everything in it. If iTunes was a one stop shop for my music streaming, Facebook/Twitter updates, trending music lists and social Jukebox type Kevin Rose reccomendations, I just might think about opening iTunes once again for more than just updating my iPhone (which I’m getting a Blackberry today, so you can kiss that last one goodbye). So, what is really in store for iTunes 9? There’s no saying for sure, but if I were you Apple, I’d be reading this post. Cheers
For those bored with their iTunes library, make sure you start using HypeMachine
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by Jason Wilk on June 7, 2009
- We are counting down until Apple’s WWDC Conference that begins tomorrow at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Many are still speculating that new iPhone hardware will be released. Yesterday, this photo was leaked out showing what could possibly be the new phone. Notice the picture to the left that highlights a front facing camera for video chat and other apps that could take advantage of such a feature. Are you ready for video enabled mobile calls?
by David Heyerman on January 14, 2009
- Since I wrapped up the Solar Sector in 2008, there’s been a a steady stream of new 2009 announcements coming out of the same companies covered before. The wires have been, for the most part, unfortunately flooded with negative expectations from research analysts pushing to sell, plants shutting down, and workers being laid off.
- First Solar, SunPower, Yingli Green Energy, Suntech Power, JA Solar, and Evergreen Solar all saw quick share price increases early last week. Now, they’re all down to below where they were on the 1st. Some analysts are pushing the sell because of an expected lowering of solar panel and module prices over the next year. In fact, Christopher Blansett, from JP Morgan was unapologetically urging investors to sell solar stocks because of this expectation.
- Evergreen Solar announced the closing of their Marlboro, Mass. plant. Although, they expect “continued progress” at another plant, they’ll be hit pretty hard as shutting down the plant will have cost the company upwards of $30 million from Q4 2008, into 2009.
- Suntech Power had some mixed news with a huge milestone, raising their Wuxi factory production capacity of photovoltaic cells and modules to 1 GW. This is a huge achievement, considering 2007’s output of 540 MW. CEO of Suntech, Zhengrong Shi, is expecting an oversupply of polysilicon this year, which could potentially cut their prices 20-30 percent from 3rd quarter 2008. On the other side of things, Steve Chadima, vice president of external affairs has announced that 800 people or 10% of their workforce were cut in the fourth quarter of 2008.
- Workforce cuts have seemingly been widespread in the solar industry, with layoff announcements from Day4Energy, GT Solar, Emcore, Ausra, and Advanced Energy. Even OptiSolar laid off 300 employees because of a lack of funding.
- On the positive side of things, the Federal Bureau of Land Management has seen a huge jump in the amount of applications they’re receiving for solar energy projects. The number of applications rose from 125 to 223, a 78% increase since July. All the applications were for projects over 10MW in capacity and were located in California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado.
- So on one hand, we have this industry that is experiencing such incredibly growth as far as technology and necessity goes, but on the other hand we have this pesky little thing called the economy which likes to sway industry at it’s, sometime unjustified, hand. The only thing us investors and cleantech enthusiasts can trust is that we, as a world, need renewable energy and solar is at the forefront of that effort. It is an unfortunate and as I mentioned before, ironic situation, but I’m still confident the future for solar is bright. How bout you guys?
by Jason Wilk on December 10, 2008
- When it comes to downloading movies, both Apple and Netflix come to mind as the leaders in both sales and controversy for Hollywood. The latest quandary coming from the Hollywood Studios is to force iTunes and Netflix’s download store to remove certain movies as they are nearing their launch on network TV. We all know that Hollywood has their chain of events that the life of a production sees; from theatres, DVD’s to TV and more. The Studio’s have united to control their content inside iTunes and Netflix to help time these chain of events to increase profits on their end and please the non-digital third party that is next in line to promote the product.
- Their immediate claim is that TV broadcasters pay too much money for the rights to air films coming to network TV and that having them dually available on the internet will decrease their viewers and concurrently ad sales. Sounds to me that Hollywood had no other choice but to please the TV networks with their decision, otherwise the films coming to TV may have started coming at a bargain rate. Network TV is a big money maker for the studios along with everyone involved with the production of that movie coming to air.
- The joke here is that the movies coming to TV are already available on DVD for rent, in-store for purchase and have already been available for download for months if not longer on iTunes or Netflix. So, what are the studios trying to accomplish here? We have made strides with digital streaming and downloads as a legitimate source for distribution with real revenue. Now the mid-level execs have put their genius together to try and establish control once again? Well, it won’t work. Movies on TV is already a dying breed as in this era. No one is willing to sit through a 90 minute movie with 120 minutes of commercials. Many will either digitally record it, download it illegally or just go to Blockbuster and rent it for a few dollars.
- Maybe when movies come to TV they should just try and control the all the channels of distribution. It will be like in Thailand where they lock up the alcohol from the people for 24 hours on election day. When a movie is coming network TV, they should ban it from being sold, streamed, rented or downloaded anywhere but the television. That will certainly increase profits right you dumbasses? I can’t wait to see the look on a kids face when he goes to Blockbuster to see his favorite Christmas movie locked up because it’s on network TV later. “Sorry honey, we’ll just have to watch it on TV’. ‘But, Mom I don’t want to watch commercials”
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