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Entries Tagged as 'Tech News'

Steve Jobs Macworld 2008 Keynote in 60 Seconds

January 15th, 2008 ·

Thanks Mahalo Daily!

Tags: Apple · Gadgets · Mac · Tech News · Technology · Video · iPhone

RealNetworks CEO discusses Rhapsody-Tivo

October 11th, 2007 ·

Tags: Gadgets · Tech News · Video

Sirius / XM merger – email to Sirius subscribers

February 20th, 2007 ·

Here’s the email that went out to all Sirius subscribers this morning. The most obvious benefit to customers will be being able to get all of the premium content (NFL, MLB, Howard Stern, Martha Stewart, Oprah, etc.) in one place. The big question will be the pricing. I can’t really see myself paying much more than my current monthly fee. A major increase in the monthly pricing would be hard to take, especially across multiple receivers.

February 19, 2007

To: SIRIUS Subscribers

Today is a very exciting day for SIRIUS customers. As you may have heard, SIRIUS Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio are merging to form the nation’s premier audio entertainment provider.

This combination of our two offerings will benefit you – our loyal listeners. As a single company, we’ll provide superior programming to you every day with the best of both SIRIUS and XM. Currently, XM and SIRIUS broadcast a wide range of commercial-free music channels, exclusive sports coverage, news, talk, and entertainment programming. Howard Stern. Oprah and Friends. The NFL. MLB. NBA. ESPN. CNBC. Fox News. Additionally, the combined company will be able to improve existing services such as real-time traffic information and rear-seat video as well as introduce new ones.

After shareholder and regulatory approvals, we anticipate that the combination will be finalized by the end of 2007. Until then, both companies will continue to operate independently. We will continue to provide you with the uninterrupted service – as well as the outstanding customer support – that you have come to expect and enjoy from SIRIUS. We do not anticipate any changes in your service during the merger process, however, please call our customer care team on 1- 888-539-7474 should you have any questions.

We look forward to the many benefits this combination will offer and continuing to make your listening experience an enjoyable one – offering more of the Very Best Radio on Radio.

Stay tuned,

Mel Karmazin, CEO

Tags: Tech News

iTunes 2 billion songs purchased on a graph

January 10th, 2007 · 2 Comments

Last February, I posted a graph showing the growth of the iTunes music store. Back then the big news was that Apple had sold their one billionth song. Lost in the shuffle of Steve Jobs’ huge announcements at MacWorld yesterday was the news that Apple recently sold their 2 billionth song on iTunes. That’s another billion songs in less than a year. So much for the recent speculation that iTunes sales are slowing. Here’s the updated graph…

Date

Songs Purchased (millions)

Source

05/15/2003 1 Apple
06/23/2003 5 Apple
09/8/2003 10 Apple
12/15/2003 25 Apple
03/15/2004 50 Apple
07/12/2004 100 CNN
12/16/2004 200 Apple
07/18/2005 500 Apple
02/24/2006 1000 Apple
01/09/2007 2000 Apple

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

graph created using NCES Create a Graph

Tags: Apple · Digital Music · Graphs · Tech News · iTunes

eBay reports Skype revenue

January 19th, 2006 ·

In their earnings announement yesterday, eBay provided some very interesting revenue figures for their recently acquired Skype division. eBay acquired Skype on October 14, 2005 and since that time, the Skype unit has had $24.9 million in revenues. At the end of Q4 2005, they reported 74.7 million registered Skype users.This really is tremendous growth. I did some digging around and came up
with these data points for registered Skype users:

Date Registered Users (millions)

Source

8/29/2003

0

Wikipedia
(History section)
3/11/2005 29 Wikipedia
(History section)
8/14/2005 50 Skype
Journal
9/12/2005 54 Skype
10/25/2005 61 Skype
12/31/2005 75 eBay
(1/18/06 earnings report)

Since August 2005 (5 months), that averages out to 178,000 new Skype users per
day
! Below is a chart showing the growth since the first public beta
in August 2003:

Check out Om Malik’s blog and VoIPWiki for some interesting analysis on the Skype numbers.

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Tags: Tech News