Contentinople - Erin Barker - News Bits: BSkyB to Challenge iTunes

Written by Erin Barker

Monday, October 12. 2009 at 11:10 AM EDT 1 comment

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BSkyB Ltd. (NYSE, London: BSY) is launching a digital music service to compete with Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL)'s iTunes in the U.K.

The service, called Sky Songs, will be unveiled next week with music from EMI Group plc (NYSE: EMI), Sony BMG , Warner Music Inc. , and many independent labels.

Sky Songs will operate on a subscription model. There are two subscription options, which both come with unlimited streaming: a £6.49 option that includes 10 song downloads or one album download; and a £7.99 option that includes 15 song downloads or one album.

BSkyB is hoping this model will give it an advantage over iTunes, which charges per track or album. But critics so far are skeptical, saying it's too soon to call it an iTunes killer.

In other news:

Twelve different e-reader devices will be available by Christmas this year, the Silicon Alley Insider reports. They all offer e-ink style screens, and some have features like touch screens. However, Forester is still predicting that Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) will claim a 60 percent share of this year's e-reader sales, which the research firm expects to total 3 million.

Contrary to a recent report from the Telegraph, Twitter Inc. will not be introducing video Tweets, co-founder Biz Stone told Mashable over the weekend, saying "Haven't read the piece but no video hosting. 140 characters of text including spaces. You know the drill!"

In other Twitter news, Miley Cyrus has left Twitter!!! (OMG WTF!!!) Cyrus raps her explanation, below (view at your own risk):

Tags: Amazon, E-books, iTunes, Kindle, MP3, Twitter, Video

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itunes killer?
adamhodge
Rank: Vizier
Monday October 12, 2009 12:55:03 PM

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Why does every new site, application or piece of hardware released these days need to called a 'apple/google/amazon/microsoft killer'? Are tech journalists really that lazy that rather than discussing how a new product could fill an existing niche or provide a different or alternative option to customers, they can only compete 'to the death'...... The measure of success for something like Sky Songs might not be limited to its ability to slay other digital music offerings but rather to build a customer base sufficient to provide profit to it's owners and value to users.

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