JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Mentor Questions Forum Newsweek Interview with Michael Laskow

Hi Folks,

Though ALL the details are still not available to the public yet, here's a great interview that blows some of the naysayers out of the water on these issues. The future of this model is basically now. I still can't share everything I know (and there are many things I still don't have all the info on either as they are confidential) here's a very public interview announcing the launch of the technology that makes all of this possible. It's with Zak Zalon, the President of Radio Free Virgin and now the new Virgin Digital. JPF already has a very close relationship with these guys meaning guess which "filter" is going to get a lot more attention on the cutting edge of this techology?

Because I've known about the info in this interview for a while, perhaps you can undertand why people like Ed and his constant "man isn't meant to fly" type of dogma has become tiresome. He's dead wrong. This is the tip of the iceberg. Portable on-demand is already available. As I have said from the start, the missing link is for the major labels to release the remainder of their catalogs for a truly "any song, any time" music world to exist. Virgin Digital is launching with over 700,000 songs. And guess who will be included? Yup. Many of your peers here at JPF.

(Oh, and by the way, the number they are bouncing around for subcriptions? 50,000,000!)

Using Laskows idea of a penny per play, that's a LOT of potential pennies! I am sure that there are other ideas in addition to Laskows that will surface. But regardless, for us, the on demand world has arrived. And we're (JPF) right in the thick of things.

Brian

Today’s guest on Inside Digital Media is Zack Zalon who is the CEO of Virgin Digital which is a new online subsidiary of the Virgin group of companies. Perhaps the most familiar operation of the parent company is the Virgin Megastore CD retailers which are not part of Virgin Digital but are part of the Virgin Group.



Among the questions that we asked Zack are the following:

After so many years of success with brick & mortar retail CD stores, why has Virgin decided to jump vigorously into the online digital music market?
When will your store (Virgin Digital) start operating?
How will the Virgin Digital store be different from the legitimate online stores that are already in operation?
How are you going to tie-in the consumer experience at Virgin Digital with that of a Virgin Megastore?
How will you link-in the experience with your Virgin mobile phone and airline business?
How many tracks are you expecting to launch with in your catalog as compared to the number of tracks at the other legal online music stores?
When will you launch in Europe?
Why have you chosen to commit to the WMA format?
Are you going to have both a subscription and an al a carte download option?
Will subscribers to the monthly service be permitted to transfer any of the tracks in the catalog to portable digital players?
Which ones?
What happens if their monthly subscription lapses?
Why did you think it was important to announce the initiative before you actually launch it?
Owing to your connection to Echo Networks, why have you chosen MusicNet to run the business under the hood?

Today’s interview is audio-only and requires the Real Player in order to hear it. To listen to the show visit www.insidedigitalmedia.com and click on Zack’s interview.

[This message has been edited by Brian Austin Whitney (edited 03-10-2004).]