Digital classic album sales in US increased 47 pct and now accounts for 7 percent of album sales, from 4.4 pct previous year

Wilson Ng
Sent from wireless handheld.
Download my free e-book at www.itsngenius.net/book

According to Careerbuilder.com, 22% of managers screen their staff using social networks like Facebook,

Companies make more dramatic gains and losses in recessions than in boom times, and those that make major gains are more likely to sustain them.

We need to constantly remember this, and if we are confident, there is every reason to think that it will work out — the idea is not only to gain more against your competitors during good times, but to manage so that you will lose less than your competitors during bad times.

Elvis presley was reputed to make about 51 million dollars last year' thirty years after he died. This was reputedly even more than madonna.

What was surprising was albert einsteins heirs who made 18 million from licensing little einstein. I guess fame and being known for excellence has a way to monetize.

I havefound out that there are a lot of free music in the internet. If you go to myspace, you practicqally can do a search for your favorite artists, and more likely than not, come up with a few songs.
Someofthe qualitythough is not good, while some are improperly labelled and documented.

If you are a facebook user, you can go to music player, and can listen to many songs– for free too, though you cannot download it.

However, the quality also leaves much to be desired, but then again, if you just want to listen to some songs to see if its good enough to buy, at least, you can. Some of the songs also play only a segment, not the whole song.

The last few weeks, I had the need to study and therefore listen to lots of kind of music, primarily instrumental and classical.  So I started to get active on the internet… what can it do?

As you may have noted, Napster and MP3 have changed the scenery of the way people sell music.  In fact, music sales has been in the downtrend the last few years because of it.  While before, the only way was to go to the music store, and get the CD, now most music can be downloaded through the internet.

Apple iTunes changed the way you get legal music.  They had a great price at that time which was 99 cents per song, and they are selling now music by the millions.  Of course, millions of songs are also available through file sharing networks without any licensing.

The greatest offer came from providers like Zune.Net and Real Rhapsody.  I was very very tempted.  What it does is it offers you unlimited number of songs ( they say that they have upwards a million songs), and for the amount of about 12 to 15 dollars per month, you can download any number of songs, and listen to it.  However, you have to pay per month, and the songs have usually DRM ( digital rights management ) limitations.  The songs you download can be played only in about 2 or 3 computers or designated mp3 players.

The good things is as long as you are paying per month, you can listen to the songs as many as you want, but once you stop paying, then all the songs you download will not play also — that means you have unlimited selections but only if you keep paying!

But even then, I got so excited about it – after all, we have to get over the fact that we don’t have to own the songs perpetually, but just be able to listen and study it.  However, there was a big letdown – the music subscription service would not accept your payment and registration if you are not a resident of the United States.

Maybe it is understandable – maybe the record companies want to release the music but even with DRM, they were still reluctant to release it to the world.  But that goes to show that we are at a disadvantage when you are not known to respect IPR – such great deals are not available to you!

After some queries, I decided to register to emusic.com.  It is not a all you can listen model but they have upwards a million songs. You can listen to a segment of it ( usually about 30 seconds), and if you like it, you can buy it.  They have several plans, and the plan I choose was that you pay 15 dollars per month, and you can download 50 songs every month ( that means each song is about 30 cents which is cheaper than iTUnes or Amazon.com).

I have been very happy with it.  By the way, lately, I also find out that if you go to myspace.com, it has a very rich music library.  If you do a search on most tracks, you can find most selections, and although you can listen to it, you cannot download it.  However, many of these songs were registered and uploaded by users themselves, so some are not properly labeled, or some are not so nice.  But nevertheless, if you just want to know some music group, and test their music, myspace.com has probably one of the biggest sources, even Philippine song groups.

I also found out that if you are a member of Facebook, you can load an application called Music Player, and that allows you probably upwards hundreds of thousands of songs which you can listen to. The only drawback is that it is not very high quality, but nevertheless it is free!

I am sure millions of people go to the internet for music, and there are lots and lots of other resources.  Please feel free to inform me if you have a good one.  But unlike years ago, the internet has allowed me to buy and listen to almost virtually any music that I heard of in just a click of a mouse.

Here is something interesting ( at least to me…)

This was my name written in Russian…. I assume that reads Wilson Ng….

Read this…. The right joke delivered correctly can make you unpopular….

The wrong joke can be an embarassment….

Siasat

Research by a US linguist at Washington State University found that people who tell bad jokes often endure an astonishing outpouring of hostility from the
listeners.

There are several reasons for the strong responses.

First, such canned humour often disrupts the natural flow of
conversation. And jokes that fail to deliver humour are a violation of
a social contract, so punishing the teller can discourage similar
behaviour in the future.

Finally, a stupid joke insults the listener by suggesting that he or she might actually find it funny, Bell said.

Might as well.

sometimes, you have to commend the China model. They get things done faster.

What is fair is fair. If you are a celebrity, you don’t want somebody using your name as a website and benefitting from it - or worse - use it to malign you or promote other interest.

China limits use of Olympians’ names online - Yahoo! News

The move announced Tuesday came after companies registered the names of winning Chinese athletes at the 2004 Athens Olympics as Web addresses, prompting an outcry by sports fans.

“The move will better protect the interests of the Olympic gold medalists,” said an official of the government’s China Internet Network Information Center, quoted by the state Xinhua News Agency. It identified him only by the surname Hu.