Michael N. Dundas

Grooveshark.com rocks!  I have been using them regularly as a source of music since the fall of 2009.  A couple months ago I even purchased a year subscription I liked them so much.  Why?  Unlike Xmradio and Last.fm, they give me what I want.

I have created a play list for when I run that I periodically update.  I have a separate play list for when I workout, and another when I am in the office working.  They do not limit play lists or music listening.  They even have Grooveshark Radio which will pick songs for you based on your criteria selection and taste.  Everything is available without a subscription as well.   The difference between subscription and non subscription is advertisements.  Non subscription users will see advertisements appear on the side of the screen while music was playing.  Obviously these will go away when you purchase a subscription. But that is not why I purchased a subscription.  I purchased a subscription because unlike others they gave me the customer what I want.

My wife has an Xmradio in her car and we have a subscription.  The subscription permits you to log on via the web and listen sort of.  They have a ‘better sounding’ version you can pay extra for to listen on the web.  For basic subscribers that only have a car radio and do not wish to give them more money than we already do, there is a lower quality version if you choose to listen on the web.  In order to run it, I had to use a windows machine (the only windows machine in the house is my work one).  I had to run Internet Explorer as apparently Firefox isn’t supported.   Aside from their obvious vehicle penetration, the service is really a subset of what Grooveshark offers at a higher price point and they are difficult to deploy in the home.

Last.Fm I have already written about here and here.  My views on them have not changed.

If Grooveshark offered an ‘in vehicle’ version of their service I’d sign up.  I’d gladly give the money we pay for our XMradio subscription to them. Based on my feelings about these online services, I found the latest Google Webtrends data interesting.

Grooveshark is a slow almost constant trend upwards. Xmradio.com is the reverse (of course this represents web access not vehicle access), and Last.fm, is heading downward in 2010.

If you use online music services, give Grooveshark a try.  You won’t be disappointed.

I used to be an avid user of Last.FM until they decided that Canada as well as most other nations need to pay for its use because the Last.FM marketing group can’t figure out how to advertise effectively in these markets. Recently, I was doing some research for an unrelated topic, which brought me to this article. The graph from Google Trends caught my eye. I had not used Google Trends yet, so figured I would give it a try.

The question I pondered was if the effect of charging all but 3 countries for monthly access to last.fm had a significant effect on their subscriber base? There were many complaints about the change voiced when the announcement was made, so if the user community truly was upset and was large enough, it could cause a drop in their listening base. Unfortunately, from the perspective of Google Trends this didn’t occur.

They originally announced they would be charging all listeners in countries except the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany on Mar 24, 2009.  Last.FM explained the rational behind the change on Mar 30, 2009 – not because they wanted to, but the ‘noise’ generated from customers seemed to force them.  Finally, the change was deployed on Apr 22, 2009.  The graph above for last.FM is basically the same since April 2008.  No apparent change during the announcement and discussion phase, but there is a decline in April 2009 and what might be a trend downwards.  I included the same graph for imeem.com to compare against.  imeem.com has been in a steady downward trend since July 2008 but I suspect this trend is largely due to the removal of all personal videos and the ability to upload videos, a service that last.FM never offered as far as I know.

Unfortunately, I could not come to a definitive conclusion that the latest downward trend for Last.FM is due to the subscription model.  I personally hope it is, but I doubt it.  I would actually consider paying for for it, but I am put off by the fact they only charge certain countries.  I feel they should either charge everyone or no one.  Finally I do not know how much of their userbase was impacted by the change.  If you believe Google Trends above, then the change is not significant and Last.FM marketing did their homework well.

I used to be a big fan of last.fm.  I have been a member for close to three years and have used them quite regularly  to stream music to our kitchen during meals, our living room, and my home office.  Even when I was at my employers office, I would often have it streaming from my laptop while I was working.  It was great.  It allowed me to hear new songs.  Songs that I liked, I would make note of the particulars and check the artist out.  If I liked the songs of the artist, I would sometimes purchase the songs via the Internet.

I was not impressed with the last.fm decision to charge €3.00 per month for anyone who is not geographically located in the U.S.A., Europe, or Germany.   It is not that I have an issue with the €3.00 per month I don’t.  I have issue with two things.  First the fact that they were not transparent about the reason for this change initially.  They announced the new change and did not explain why certain countries were exempt from the fee.  Finally, after five days and many subscriber queries and complaints, last.fm decided to come clean.  While I appreciate they did finally come clean and explain to their subscribers why, I dis-like their initial dishonestly.  It gives insight into the management and their ethics and priorities.  The second is the fact that it is long over due for the entertainment industry to stop clinging to old business models and change them.  The Internet is international not national.  The laws and business models have to change and I wish they would stop fighting it.  If last.fm had said everyone must now pay the €3.00 per month, I probably would have just signed up.

As such, I started looking around.  It was easly to quickly find an alternative.  I have been trying Imeem out over the last week.  It takes a while to get used to their interface, but once you do it is not too bad.  They have deals with major record labels and I have been able to find much of the same music I listened to on last.fm.  I encourage anyone that was a last.fm user that is on the fence to try it out first before making a decision to be a subscriber of last.fm.

An article expressing concern that Skype has a backdoor. There may or may not be a backdoor. Regardless it is important that everyone that uses Skype assume there is a backdoor. Why? The client they produce is closed source so the code is not reviewed independently of the company. The protocol they used is encrypted and closed source as well. This protocol is not reviewed by anyone outside the company. The authentication servers are completely under their control. The entire functionality of the Skype system, the clients, servers, data routing, data encryption is all under their control, not yours.

Assuming the above is true, let’s pretend that Skype has inserted a backdoor. Why would they do this? There are several reasons. Testing is the first one that comes to mind. A new version of the client is being developed and the ability to test and analyze for any issues is necessary. A backdoor permits developers and testers to capture calls to check for problems, call quality and anything else that would be necessary to diagnose. Maybe the country where head office is located requires all VoIP providers to have the ability to intercept VoIP calls. If they wish to do business in this county they have no choice but to comply. I have consulted for companies where the government requires that Skype be blocked because it can not be intercepted. If Skype wishes to get presence in these countries it makes sense for it to comply.

If Skype adds interception and monitoring capabilities, and they have competition with other VoIP vendors for market share, it may not make good business sense for them to announce this publically. Especially if they have no legal reason to do so.

This problem is not Skype specific. As more and more online services such as Gmail, Google Docs, CRM vendors, backup vendors and others (this list is not conclusive and it will grow) stop offering systems to purchase and offer a ‘service’ where your data is in their possession this is a risk. Companies need to assess this risk. If you choose to put confidential client information on GoogleDocs, or use Gmail for confidential email you should always assume that someone at Google has the ability or can create the ability to extract the data if necessary. The company may state that they will not do this, but if they are ordered to by Government, Law Enforcement or the have a ‘bad’ employee that is willing to do it then you are out of luck.

A perfect example of this happening in the past is with Hushmail. The news article is here. Hushmail was considered a free email service that was ‘secure’. They originally sold themselves as using encryption where only you had the password to unlock the data. They stated that even Hushmail and its employees could not unlock the data without your passphrase. Then one day ‘surprise’ they provided a bunch of CDs containing unencrypted emails of a Hushmail account to officials when requested. If you think about it, the ability to do this makes complete sense. They offered a Java program where an individual would type in their passphrase which would unlock the encryption key stored on the Hushmail server and permit the java program to decrypt the stored e-mail to display in clear text. It would be trivial to write the code to include a ‘switch’ on an account that would send a copy of the passphrase to Hushmail when the user keyed it in. Now on the Hushmail servers is the encrypted secret key and the passphrase to decrypt it. Using this key, they can now decrypt all your email which is stored on the servers and do with it as required.

At any point if a company chooses to store its data off site, use programs or services from third parties that have control of the source code and/or the associated services there is a risk of data being lost or ending up in unintended hands. This is a buisness risk that needs to be evaluated in each case. These type of issues will only increase as more and more services are offered over the Internet.

This article caught my attention. A decision against Universal Music Group (UMG) who was attempting to sue an individual for selling promotional copies of a CD that was distributed on Ebay. The reasoning for the decision was interesting: