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<title>Haaze.com / lacytolayt / All</title>
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<pubDate>Fri, 20 May 2011 07:10:13 +0000</pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Apple's cloud music hang-up]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apples-cloud-music-hang-up</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apples-cloud-music-hang-up</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 20 May 2011 07:10:13 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>lacytolayt</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apples-cloud-music-hang-up</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Apple has deals with three of the big music labels to license a new cloud music service. And it is in talks to close a deal with holdout Universal Music Group, the world's biggest music company.But when Apple gets its Universal deal done, it still won't be ready to launch.That's because Apple has yet to nail down terms with the big music publishers, who own a separate set of rights. And Steve Jobs will need their sign-off, too.While Apple came to terms with Warner Music and EMI Music weeks ago, and has now struck a deal with Sony Music, industry sources tell me the company doesn't have agreements with the labels' associated publishing companies--Warner/Chappell, EMI Music Publishing, and Sony/ATV. The deal Apple is about to sign with Universal also won't include publishing, I'm told.The distinction between music labels, who own the rights to music recordings, and music publishers, who own the rights to songs' underlying compositions, seems small and technical. But it's an important one.The two groups each get paid when their work is used, at different rates. And while all the big music companies have both a recorded music arm and a publishing arm, the two operate in different silos, and don't always share the rights to the same music. The Beatles' recordings, for instance, belong to EMI Music, while the bands' publishing rights are controlled by Sony/ATV.The fact that ownership of a single song can be shared by lots of people is one of the reasons it's so hard to get anything done in digital music (recall that Google and Amazon both bailed on getting any rights at all for their cloud services). But the complexity isn't a deal killer, either.In Apple's case, I'm told that the company doesn't have any theological hurdles to clear with the publishers. It simply started talking to the music labels first, and has only recently started negotiating with the publishers.The only issue to hammer out is just how much Apple will pay for its service, which will let users move their music to Apple's &quot;cloud&quot; servers and then let them stream their songs back to different devices. But the two sides are at least &quot;engaged&quot; over the issue, says an industry source.In many ways, this seems like a rerun of Apple's move to extend the length of the song samples it offers at its iTunes store. Apple planned to increase the duration of its samples from 30 seconds to 90 seconds last September. But it didn't get clearance from the publishers, and negotiations kept it from super-sizing the samples until December.Music industry sources I talk to think Apple wants to launch--or at least announce--the cloud service at its developers' conference in early June. And if the hang-up is truly just about money, then that still gives dealmakers time to hammer things out. But remember that this is the music business, and simple things always take longer than they should.Story Copyright (c) 2011 AllThingsD. All rights reserved.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Plaxo gives up on social networking, refocuses on address books]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=plaxo-gives-up-on-social-networking-refocuses-on-address-books</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=plaxo-gives-up-on-social-networking-refocuses-on-address-books</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>lacytolayt</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=plaxo-gives-up-on-social-networking-refocuses-on-address-books</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Comcast-owned Plaxo used to have a straightforward goal: It helped users maintain their address books. Over time, however, the site has wandered into becoming more of a general social networking tool with its Plaxo Pulse service. Now, chief executive Justin Miller told me Plaxo is going back to its address book roots.Co-founded by entrepreneur and investor Sean Parker (whose role in the early days of Facebook has become famous thanks to the movie The Social Network), Plaxo originally aimed to convince everyone to create an account with the their contact information, then connect those accounts to the friends&amp;' accounts. As people made more connections, they&amp;'d have a larger and larger network in Plaxo with completely up-to-date contact information.That plan stumbled on the reality that not everyone created an account, and that not everyone kept their account up-to-date, limiting the contact information in the service and its usefulness as an address book, said Miller, who joined Plaxo about 18 months ago. So as a contact finder Plaxo wasn&amp;'t always effective, and instead it jumped on the social networking bandwagon. Yet it faced new obstacles &amp;8212' namely the fact that Facebook and LinkedIn exist, so that Plaxo users were already &amp;''satisfied with the products solving their social networking and business networking needs.&amp;''At the same time, Plaxo&amp;'s original goal of preventing the &amp;''decay&amp;'' of address books, still hasn&amp;'t been solved, Miller said. (He isn&amp;'t the only one to make that argument &amp;8212' WhitePages just launched its own app for cleaning up address books, called Hiya.) And the company still had some contact management products that were popular among Plaxo&amp;'s 50 million-person userbase. So with this relaunch, Plaxo is moving its existing address book tools back to the forefront. It&amp;'s launching a new product called the Plaxo Personal Assistant, and it&amp;'s announcing plans to phase out its non-address book products.Plaxo&amp;'s existing services in this area include Plaxo Basic, a free online address book that now includes the Plaxo De-Duper (previously a paid product) for removing duplicate contacts' Plaxo&amp;'s mobile apps' and Plaxo Platinum Sync, a paid product that updates all of a user&amp;'s connected accounts and devices when they change someone&amp;'s contact information.Meanwhile, the new Personal Assistant (another paid product) returns to the out-of-date contacts problem that Plaxo tried to solve earlier. Instead of expecting everyone to create a Plaxo account and keep it up-to-date, the Personal Assistant checks public data sources and notifies users when a connection&amp;'s contact info seems to have changed. Then users have the option of updating their address book to reflect the change.Plaxo is based in Mountain View, Calif., and was acquired by Comcast in 2008.Next Story: Quirkat to develop games for the Middle East market Previous Story: 7 ways to help your games go viral on FacebookPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: address books, Plaxo Personal AssistantCompanies: Comcast, PlaxoPeople: Justin Miller, Sean parker          Tags: address books, Plaxo Personal AssistantCompanies: Comcast, PlaxoPeople: Justin Miller, Sean parkerAnthony is a senior editor at VentureBeat, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining the site in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. (All story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com) You can also follow Anthony on Twitter. Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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