The James Kilgour BlogA Life Blog.

Qtrax, the fledgling free music download service has finally announced its intention on launching… this time for real. I’ve written about the company previously, regarding it’s many failed launches and missed deadlines. However, this seems like the real deal.

I’m excited.

Yesterday, I listened in on an online press conference with the CEO Allan Klepfisz.  I also posed my questions on the upcoming world launch to him. The first country to launch will be Australia/New Zealand on November 5th, with a new Asian-Pacific country launching every Thursday until Christmas. According to Klepfisz, the decision to launch in  this region first is down to the high illegal download rates; over 95% of music downloads are illegal. I asked Klepfisz regarding his US and UK/European launch plans; he responded that the US would be live in Q1 next year, and the UK by February. He also noted that Qtrax had music licenses for 77 Countries worldwide; more than any other global music service. Notably, Japan has not been included in this, although India  and other majors will be.

Klepfisz also announced a partner deal with Baidu search; China’s largest online search engine, with a 70% market share. From the Chinese launch (17th Dec), visitors to Baidu’s Entertainment Portal and Qian Qian Music Online software will be redirected to Qtrax artist pages; thus providing huge numbers of traffic. Klepfisz highlighted that Qtrax would work with other local partners in other territories to gain similar deals, as well as viral marketing to gain users. The motives behind this deal seem to be China’s tightening up on Copyright Laws. Klepfisz predicts that this will further aid Qtrax in gaining users and thus revenue. Baidu is notorious for linking to millions of illegal music downloads, something that has been a major source of criticism and investigation from the copyright bodies.

Obviously revenue in an important issue to Qtrax. Spiral Frog was another free download service that failed to gain revenue, and collapsed several months ago. Klepfisz revealed that the company had managed to acquire sufficient funding, and hopes to raise a further $50 million through their financial partners in China. Lance Ford, Chief Marketing Officer highlighted their plans to utilise ads for revenue; he “forecasts good advertiser pickup” with “high quality revenue from day 1”. Both Ford and Klepfisz believe that they will “hit the ground running” through a mixture of network ads and premium ads from blue chip advertisers; they noted that the two types of ads will integrate seamlessly into the Qtrax software to engage users, not repel them. 

I was also interested in how Qtrax is different from other services, such as the massively successful Spotify. Klepfisz responded that Qtrax would use Local Music to attract visitors. Other global services are very western, and do not utilise regional music. He highlighted that only 15% of music sales in China were for Western Artists. He also pointed out that Qtrax is a download site, and not just another Spotify. He did however preach his like for the Streaming Service, but also mentioned that Qtrax is “the ultimate step”. Furthermore, he identified that Qtrax will be easy to use with Social Networking features built around Music (as opposed to Facebook/MySpace etc, which uses music as an add-on).

Next, Klepfisz talked on the ability of Qtrax to attract users from illegal services, such as BitTorrent. His argument was that Qtrax will provide a superior user experience; a highspeed browser with “10 second downloads”, a good quality site and a full music catalogue. Another feature shows was the link in with other sites; Qtrax will link artist pages to sites such as TicketMaster and Amazon, providing users with the ability to buy merchandise and concert tickets from within the software; something that will also serve as an additional revenue stream. Next Klepfisz mentioned that Qtrax will have more than just downloads like a BitTorrent site; ie. Artist Information (nothing groundbreaking).

A final point I asked the Australian CEO was about DRM and Portability. Unfortunately Qtrax will use the system to track music usage. In addition, music will only be playable within the Qtrax player, (in order to keep users within the environment). A good piece of news on this subject was however that Portability would be available up to two weeks after each territory launch. Unfortunately, iPods won’t be supported at immediately, however Klepfisz promised that Qtrax will investigate possible deals with Apple on the issue. He promised that an iPhone App was in the pipeline. 

It’s great to hear that Qtrax may finally be coming. The service has been several years in the making, and has always been hope that free, legal music would happen. My only concern now is on uptake. If the company can do a ‘Spotify’ and capture the youth market, then may have a hope. A large user base would be the necessary bargaining chip for the company to survive and ultimately succeed in a notoriously tough industry. After all,  that’s Show Business.    

JK  

Qtrax, a service hoping to offer unlimited free music downloads in exchange for ads, is being sued by Oracle USA, in a lawsuit filled in the California Northern District Court, on July 21st.

The service, which has been riddled with setbacks and delays, had finally announced a Global Launch on the 22nd July 2009. However, the company failed to reach this, with the site still advertising it’s Preview version, with downloads suspended since the 21st: the date of the lawsuit. Are they related?

Qtrax uses Oracle software to power it’s music database. The exact reason for the lawsuit,  is as yet unknown, and Qtrax has kept tight lipped. Unfortunately, it looks like Qtrax will yet again fail to launch.

JK

Blyk, the fledgling MVNO offering free calls and texts to young people in exchange for ad messages, has denied that it will shortly be terminating service, and moving consumers over to the Orange Network. In a conversation with myself and Blyk Member care, I was given the following response:

James says
    Hi
4421421 / Kyle says
    Hi you are through to Kyle at Blyk, how can I help?
James says
    Hi. Is it true that Blyk will shortly be terminating service and licensing to Orange?
4421421 / Kyle says
    No it is not. If you want company changes you are best off checking the corporate website, Blyk.com.

 

I was myself a member of Blyk for around a year (see here), in which time I experienced numerous problems with the service. Recently, rumours have been spread of a possible Licensing Deal with Orange, for them to provide a free, ad-supported service, basically a repackaged Blyk, see here.

I do however still see this happening. In this recession, startups like Blyk are in danger. Their recent reduction to £15 a month free credit indicated a poor financial situation. Joining leauges with a major player like Orange would be hugely benneficial. We’ll have to wait and see.

JK 

We’ve all heard the Apple ad’s, I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC blah blah blah. In my opinion, Macs and PCs are all pretty much the same. They’re both computers, they can surf the web, write documents and organize photo collections. Why does there have to be such a big deal made out of  the difference?

I primarily use a HP Compaq Desktop PC, for day-to-day uses. It has an AMD 64 Dual Processor, 1gb of ram and an 120gb hard-drive. I also have a Acer Netbook, running Linux, and an old eMac, running OS X Tiger. While all three computers run and look differently, they all do the same things. 

On my Desktop, I use Windows Vista. In my opinion, it is a good OS, and I’ve never really had a problem, except once when I installed a bad driver. Lesson learnt. The whole world though seems to be against Vista and why? It’s really not that bad! 

I think perhaps if people actually gave it a go, without having preconceived ideas, built up by those dam Apple ads, then they may feel differently. I’m looking forward nevertheless to Windows 7. As I wrote in my review in January, Windows 7 is an excellent upgrade to Vista.

JK

I’ve written about Blyk a few times over the past year, since taking up the service. Basically, if you’re not familiar, Blyk is an ad-supported mobile network, which provides £15 free credit each month. See my other Blyk posts here.

Recently, Blyk changed to this £15 credit, from the previous offer of 217 texts and 43 minutes free each month. The new deal is actually a loss of around £10! Also, Blyk increased prices: 15p/min up to 24p/min! (They did reduce texts from 10p to 8p).

Next, Blyk started charging £10 for replacement sim cards if they are lost or stolen. Something that other UK networks don’t do. Also, they stopped the Text Balance enquiry service, and have also stopped issuing invites to the service!

It asks the question, is Blyk financially secure at all? Yes, we are in recession, but these steps are those of a company in dire straights. Hope Blyk will weather this storm that they seem to be in; Blyk is a good service, offering excellent value. I’ll be watching in the next few months.

JK

PayPal offers “a safe way to pay”, being owned by eBay, and offering millions of users Internet payment facilities. It is the most popular service of its type, and all eBay auctions accept PayPal: it’s compulsory!

I recently sold an unwanted Christmas Gift on eBay; it quickly sold for £30.00, which I was quite happy with. eBay charged me 50p for the listing, (I’m quite happy to pay for this). As per the eBay rule, I accepted PayPal on my listing, and promptly got paid. When I checked my account, I found out that actually, PayPal had charged me another £1.25 in “Charges”. What for?

I had already paid eBay, (the owner of PayPal), the required fees, and now they were effectively charging me again! I make hundreds of fund transfers form my bank account each year, and never get charged a penny. Why should PayPal do any different? It’s not like they even provide good customer service: they are useless!

PayPal should have the sense to stop charging its customers, who don’t have a choice on whether they use the service or not. eBay seem to have a powerful position here: and quite frankly I don’t like it. I will have to think whether I use eBay for sales again: it’s not even the cost so much, but the principle.

JK

Blu-Ray; the latest development in Video-Disc technology. Offering 50gb of storage; enough for full HD Video films and TV-Shows.

The technology is principally backed by Sony, being offered in the PS3. This multi-national company promises the next generation of Film Quality; you can actually feel like your there. The price difference? Well, for a good Blu-Ray player, the price is around £180-£250, and each Blu-Ray disk is around £5 more than their DVD counterpart. (Usually around £20)

But I don’t think it’s worth it. I recently visited Sharp Laboratories of Europe, who are often regarded as one of the best makers of LCD screens, (they make screens for iPods). They showed me two identical HD TVs, one plugged into a standard DVD player, and the other into a Blu-Ray player with a Blu-Ray disk. While the latter picture was slightly sharper, the difference was nominal! It was only something you would notice if you looked carefully, and I can get a sharp picture like that from my Up-scaling-DVD player anyway!

The thing is, not only would I need to spend extra on buying a player, but also the disks are much more expensive. And, I would need a Blu-Ray player connected to every TV in the house if I wanted to play them around the house; not to mention that 1 of the TVs isn’t HD, and 2 of the HD ones are only 17/19 inches, (the difference would be impossible to see on these). Now that I think about it, I also have my laptop and desktop PCs; these don’t have Blu-Ray drives in them.

To me, Blu-Ray does seem like just a way of Sony and it’s huge consortium getting people to replace all of their old DVD players, disks and old TVs, just to fill their greed for profit, Well, I’m not playing. Not until the price of these players and disks are at an affordable rate for this economic period.

JK

Internet Explorer, the world’s most popular browser, with a 68% market share has now been upgraded to version 8, with the Release Candidate now available. With the upcoming lunch of Windows 7 which will be bundled with IE8, the European Union is launching an antitrust case.

An article on the BBC news website says the following:

"Microsoft does have the advantage of its browser being shipped with its operating system so people that want to shift have to do a lot of work to shift," said Mr MacDonald, a vice-president of analyst firm Gartner.

The EU last week accused Microsoft of harming competition by bundling its IE browser with its Windows operating system.

I personally think this is ridiculous, and is fueling these antitrust claims. Switching to Firefox, Safari or Opera is easy! It’s just a matter of downloading the program, and taking a minute to install it. Plus, a lot of OEM Manufacturers bundle Firefox with their PCs anyway.

I don’t see the problem with using Internet Explorer anyway. IE8 RC1 is a fine browser, and for those who want to switch, they can. It’s not like the browsers make profit for Microsoft or Mozilla. The EU should spend their time doing something more worthwhile.

JK

Blyk, the free, ad-supported mobile network has been running for over a year now. The network offers 217 texts, and 43 minutes each month, in return for receiving up to 6 brand text messages each day. Read my review here.

Blyk has now announced that it will be changing the top-up system to £15 free a month, instead of the old text and calls allowance. This system has caused considerable uproar from Blyk members, with several petitions and hundreds of forum posts complaining. Especially as Blyk is saying that “You asked, Blyk listened”, claiming that members asked for this change. In addition, calls have gone up to 2p per minute, (texts are cheaper at 8p though). 

What this change shows is perhaps Blyk isn’t very secure financially. In the tough recession times, they can’t be blamed. Will Blyk be available for users in the future, or will the MVNO disappear like so many before them? They have halved the free allowance, so problems must be there.

£15 free credit a moth is still a good deal, but for me personally, it is not enough enticement to switch to them full time, (I currently use it as a second phone). The difficulties I face as a Blyk member are too much for a measly free £15 a month. For example, right now I can’t login to the “Your Blyk” website, and I still haven’t be able to top-up with my debit card yet, despite trying every day for two weeks!

JK

Windows 7 is the next major update of the Windows Operating System; the most popular in the world.

I have now been running the beta version of the OS since Saturday, and I have used copies of previous builds in VMware.

The Installation ii the first noteworthy update; a clean install on my PC into a partition took under 10 minutes! First run of the new OS too was very quick; it started quicker that my copy of Vista Home Premium, and boasts a much nicer start up, with cool graphic effects.

The UI of Windows 7 is one of the most obvious differences. The new taskbar reminds me of the OS X Dock; something I’m not all that fond of. I find it a little bulky to use, with it becoming a clutter of icons and running apps. I hate the fact that it groups similar windows together, like Messenger and Internet Explorer ones. This is really annoying. It seems to take twice as long to open windows, and I just don’t see the advantage.

A lot of the new features in Windows 7 are very minor indeed! Aero Snap for example, and the detachment of the Sidebar. Jump Lists; hardly revolutionary! These are nice additions, but nothing that couldn’t just have been added to Vista in a service pack.

Some features of Windows 7 are quite new; for example the ribbon in Paint and WordPad. I personally find this an excellent choice, as I love Office 2007. For some though, this will be a nightmare. Perhaps Microsoft should give the user the choice on which system they use.

I do get the feeling Windows 7 is less temperamental than Vista. It runs faster, and it hasn’t crashed so far. Wireless networking seems improved as well, with the network selection menu being added to the taskbar. One thing I dislike though is icons being hidden in a new menu. It seems to do the same as the old hiding system, but seems to work worse, with it being harder to tell what icons represent which programs. Is this an improvement?

Aero Peek though is very cool! It looks great, and is something I’d show people. Do I need it functionality wise? Nope, it has no purpose but to look nice, and lets you see those desktop gadgets, which I never use.

Windows 7 worked flawlessly with my current Wireless Adapter and the Vista driver. One thing I can’t get to work is the new ‘Devices and Printers’ screen. It doesn’t seem to recognise the other network PCs or Printers in my household. By default, the only when I can see these is If I go through the Control Panel. In Vista, there is the useful ‘Network’ Menu. Why did they get rid of it by default? Why is ‘Default Programs’ there?

Many have said Windows 7 is just a service pack for Windows Vista. While Windows 7 adds a lot more core stability, speed and refinements, it is far from a brand new OS. This is what Vista should have been. Yes, Windows 7 provides more functionality upgrades than a standard service pack, but does it warrant a new OS? How can Microsoft justify a price tag over £30?

I think Vista users deserve Windows 7 as fast as possible, and as a free or heavily discounted upgrade. After using Windows Vista for the past two years, I know first hand that it hasn’t been a perfect experience. Not as bad as it has been said or appears in the infamous ‘Get a Mac’ ads, but still not quite perfect. Windows 7 fixes this, and returns Windows to it’s former “glory”. And this is only the beta!

JK