subscriptions

Here's a message that Spotify and Rhapsody will surely forward to the handlers of Adele, Coldplay, Tom Waits, Paul McCartney, and especially those guys in The Black Keys: Subscription music services saw revenue increase 13.5 percent last year, while the number of the sector's paying customers climbed 18 percent.

That's according to the Recording Industry Association of America, which yesterday released year-end music shipment statistics for 2011. The RIAA reported that subscription revenue went from $212 million in 2010 to $241 million last year. The number of users rose from 1.5 million to 1.8 … Read more

The New York Times has cut the number of free online articles that readers are allowed to access per month in half.

The publishing company today said that starting in April readers will be able to access 10 stories for free each month. The New York Times previously allowed its readers to access 20 free stories online. The move is a not-so-subtle attempt on the Times' part to push more of its readers to digital subscriptions.

Those digital paid subscriptions have proven somewhat popular, the Times said. In the last year since they've been available, 454,000 subscriptions have … Read more

For a flat monthly fee of $24.95, online try-before-you-buy electronics site Ybuy will let you get your hands on the latest technology for 30 days without having to commit to its full purchase price.

You select one device at a time to test from an extensive catalog of everything from consumer electronics to gadgets for your home and kitchen. If the product doesn't fit in with your workflow or lifestyle, simply return it to Ybuy and get the next gadget in your queue. It's kind of like Netflix for electronics.

"For most consumers, when it comes … Read more

About seven months before he died, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was pitching a plan for a subscription-video service to leaders in Hollywood.

Les Moonves, CEO of CBS, the entertainment conglomerate and parent company of CNET, said Jobs approached him with the idea about a year ago, according to story in The Hollywood Reporter. Moonves shared the revelation on Saturday while addressing attendees of the UCLA Entertainment Symposium in Los Angeles.

Jobs died in October following a long fight with pancreatic cancer.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Moonves also said that Jobs failed to persuade him to support the subscription service. &… Read more

Amazon denied that it plans to soon launch a standalone video-streaming service similar to Netflix, dashing--for now--the prospect of a true head-to-head battle between the rivals.

Brad Beale, who oversees Amazon's video-acquisition unit, said in an interview with GigaOm's Ryan Lawler on Wednesday: "The bundle of benefits that come with Amazon Prime make perfect sense to offer to customers. The way that Prime Instant Video is offered today--we're going to continue that approach at least into the near future."

Even Netflix believed Amazon might spin off a standalone video service. In Netflix's fourth-quarter earnings … Read more

Science Inc. wants its latest startup to get in your pants.

If you've ever bemoaned the fact that underwear manufactures bundle pieces together in assorted colors, MeUndies.com could have the solution. Backed by Science, a startup shop founded by former MySpace CEO Mike Jones, Me Undies wants to bring style and simplicity to a clothing commodity consumed by mostly everyone.

Me Undies allows customers to pick their style, size, and color without making the compromises associated with bundle packs. The buyer is then subscribed to receive a new pair of underwear each month for $16. Individuals who don'… Read more

Adobe Systems has released a second advance look at Photoshop CS6 that shows new work to give a hardware boost to the image-editing software.

The graphics processing unit (GPU) speeds the Liquify tool, which lets people smear images in a finger-painting way, according to a Zorana Gee, a Photoshop product manager. She demonstrated the change in a YouTube video, the second in what looks to be a series of previews of the software. An earlier Photoshop CS6 preview showed new raw image editing tools adopted from the Lightroom 4 beta, a darker user interface, and improvements to brush size selection. … Read more

Popular music subscription service Rhapsody today brings its library of tracks to Android tablets running Honeycomb.

While Rhapsody has long been a fixture as a music player on many Android phones and the iPhone, today's newly released app was specifically created for tablets. And different from the iPad app, it's not simply a scaled-up version of its smaller-screen counterpart. According to Chief Product Officer Brendan Benzing, the folks at Rhapsody "re-imagined the entire experience" in order to take advantage of the extra screen real estate of a tablet and the capabilities of the Android Honeycomb OS. … Read more

Unimpressed by Adobe Systems' Creative Cloud, its forthcoming $50-per-month subscription plan? Adobe wants to change your mind.

The company offered some new details today to show people that the Creative Cloud plan gets people access to more than just the full Creative Suite (CS) Master Collection and tablet-oriented Touch programs. Specifically, according to Scott Morris, senior director of product marketing on Adobe's digital media team, there are these elements:

• The Creative Cloud will include Adobe's Muse and Edge software for creating Web pages. Muse won't be part of the Creative Suite, and Adobe hasn't decided whether … Read more