Speculation arose this past week that News Corp.-owned MySpace Music is considering moving to a paid model, as the cost of free streaming is making its current model unsustainable. News Corp. digital chief Jon Miller expressed some interest in such a move in an onstage interview conducted by paidContent’s Rafat Ali in Monaco on Thursday, noting that he believes in the “freemium” music model conceptually, even if a practical and sustainable version hasn’t appeared yet. (The audio and video are out of sync, but the segment concerning MySpace begins around the 7:15-minute mark, with deeper discussion of MySpace Music after 12 minutes.)

But even if the freemium model does work for music — and I’m far from convinced that it does — MySpace is so far behind in terms of user interface and experience that it’s hard to imagine the company launching a compelling paid product. A primary reason Spotify has garnered attention is its user interface, and the emerging battle for the music subscription marketplace will likely hinge on a compelling user experience. Consumers already know plenty of places to find free music, and historically they’re only liable to open their wallets for a superior experience. MySpace, however, isn’t seen as a premium provider of anything — and MySpace Music is viewed as a place where clutter and advertising are tolerated in order to get something for free.

What could MySpace deliver that people would pay for? Neither charging to hear music that used to be free nor crippling the free service by taking away music from people’s playlists are very good options, and violate the 10 commandments of freemium. Building a premium ad-free desktop, browser-based or mobile service would merely put MySpace in more direct competition with Spotify — which is having its own troubles satisfying content owners — and other music subscription services that are still seeing more experimentation than customer traction. And for a company that’s already admitted it’s long stopped innovating, MySpace would have to overtake more nimble competitors to draw users to a paid music service while overcoming the perception that it’s a messy-but-free one.

Asked if MySpace Music is nearing profitability, Miller told Ali, “On an operating basis, it’s getting there, but no, because of the payments to the music companies,” adding that he considers a paid model “something to look at.” Fourteen months after MySpace Music’s launch, with the four major labels on board as equity partners, time appears to be running out for its free ad-supported model. It’s worth revisiting Om’s remarks from back then:

If this works, then that is a good statement for the future of the music business. And if it doesn’t, then it tells where the industry is going. In other words, this is a must-win move for the record labels, who are increasingly looking hapless and, well, unable to deal with change.

A new Android phone was popping up all over the web this week, one that looks like a chubby Droid. The V1 has all of the standard features you’d expect in an Android smartphone plus the promise of a unique video calling function, and is due to be launched next year, according to the company bringing it to market, Saygus. Never heard of Saygus? Neither had we.

In the meantime, the Droid is the only phone currently available with Android 2.0, which means it’s the only one running the new Google Maps Navigation, the search giant’s free foray into the turn-by-turn navigation world. It’s only logical to assume that future phones running Android 2.0 will also be running the navigation software from Google, but as is usually the case, hackers have decided they won’t wait. A cooked OS version (ROM) has already appeared for the original Android phone, the G1, and it has a functional version of Google Maps Navigation onboard.

I’ve been using a loaner Droid for a while now, and offer my continuing impressions of the new phone from Verizon, that network’s best phone by far — although some would argue that’s not saying much.

At the NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco yesterday, I interviewed Sam Blackman, co-founder and CEO of Elemental Technologies, about trends on computing and storage costs. Elemental makes software that takes advantage of graphics processors to provide super fast transcoding, which is the process by which video content is formatted for different devices. The idea of storing one copy of a piece of content and formatting it on the fly makes intuitive sense when compared to storing four or five copies of that content and then delivering it only when needed.

But for now the cost of storing multiple copies is actually cheaper than doing the transcoding in real time. That difference in cost has been a barrier keeping some service providers from buying products that offer capabilities such as those of Elemental’s new server, which launched yesterday. However, Blackman believes that will change within the next three years as prices for processing fall faster than the price of storage. A similar trend is enabling people to store more of their data online, rather than on their hard drives. The cost of bandwidth is so low that folks don’t mind either streaming content or looking it up online rather than downloading it and keeping it on their computers. Check out Blackman’s comments in the video below.

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If you’re a baseball fan like I am, then you know that it in order to win, teams need more than just marquee stars. The role players, pinch hitters and relievers — all have to contribute in order for a team to win. A weak link can blow a game. Same goes for companies — every member of the team has a role to play. Why do I bring this up? Apple’s iTunes App Store and its murky and muddled policies.

Apple’s designers and engineers have done a good job putting together what is an iconic product, the iPhone. Its software gurus have helped foster the app revolution. But it when it come to the App Store approval process, Apple is blowing it.

Let me put it in terms Apple and its management can understand: The foggy and opaque App Store approval process is as big a disaster as Dell’s DJ MP3 Player.

For months now, I have watched the twists and turns of the Apple App Store drama with a degree of bemusement. After all, the rejection (or approval) of quirky and pointless apps aimed at hormone-challenged post-pubescent boys weren’t of concern to me. I couldn’t get upset over Google Voice fiasco, but that was understandable (not acceptable) because it was coming in the way of the carrier voice service.  But lately, things have gotten a bit out of control.

The irrational approval process and reasons behind it given by the apparatchiks of Cupertino are driving developers to extreme frustration — especially those who have been Apple loyalists for years. Earlier this week, Joe Hewitt, a well-known programmer and a Facebook employee, threw up his hands in frustration over Apple’s App Store approval process and said he wants to work on a different project. (Check out my video interview with Joe Hewitt.)

No, Facebook isn’t killing its iPhone app — it is a corporation, after all, and will bend over backwards to appease Apple — but Hewitt is someone who’s made many vital contributions toward turning the iPhone into a major platform. He was carrying Apple’s water long before the rest of the 100,000 apps showed up, which is just one of the reasons why he was nominated to GigaOM’s Top 15 Mobile Influencers List earlier this year. When he speaks, I listen — plain and simple. And he expressed his anger in 140 characters.

Today, Rogue Amoeba, a company that is well-known within the Apple community for its audio-focused products, is publicly beating its head against the Great Wall of Cupertino.

Rogue Amoeba wanted to ship a bug fix for their app, Airfoil Speakers, but it took the better part of four months to get it approved. It was an arduous process, one that made the inner workings of the government bureaucracies look like a model of efficiency. The net-net, as described by company CEO Paul Kafasis in a blog post, is this:

First, be aware that Apple is acting as a gatekeeper, and preventing you from getting the software that developers such as ourselves are trying to provide you. We wanted to ship a simple bug fix, and it took almost four months of slow replies, delays, and dithering by Apple. All the while, our buggy, and supposedly infringing version, was still available. There’s no other word for that but “broken.” Right now, however, the platform is a mess. The chorus of disenchanted developers is growing and we’re adding our voices as well. Rogue Amoeba no longer has any plans for additional iPhone applications, and updates to our existing iPhone applications will likely be rare.

Others, such as programmer Jeff LaMarche, disagree with the disenchanted developers and have come to the defense of Apple. But I’m more inclined to side with Kafasis, as this is a problem that flares up more often than California wildfires.

John Gruber, who pens the Daring Fireball blog and is one of the most respected Mac-related writers out there, offers a very balanced view of the situation — and finds Apple at fault. “At a certain point good developers are just going to say, ‘I don’t need this,’” Gruber writes.

Gruber, as we’ve seen in the past, has the ear of the senior management at Apple. So perhaps his fair and balanced assessment is going to help Apple wake up from its stupor.

Apple has a very serious problem on its hands, one that can derail its grand plan. It needs to fix this as quickly as possible. Otherwise the company is going to blow the game in the bottom of the ninth — much like the Phillies in Game 4 of the 2009 World Series.

Google’s Android OS-based phones and Apple’s iPhone maybe get all the media love, but one analyst firm believes that it will be RIM’s BlackBerry that will be the smartphone king of the U.S. market in five years. Pyramid Research expects the device to be the biggest beneficiary of the move to smartphones.

According to their research, smartphones represented 31 percent of the new handsets sold in the U.S. in 2009, more than double from 15 percent in 2007. They expect 60 percent of the new handsets to be sold in 2014 to be smartphones. The BlackBerry, which currently has 50 percent of the total U.S. smartphone market, will see that share decline to 37 percent, but the increase in terms of total smartphone sales is going to keep it ahead.

Kevin Lynch, CTO of Adobe Systems one of our speakers. Photo by James Duncan Davidson

Unlike the spritely young team members of NewTeeVee, I am dragging my feet after what was an intense day yesterday. Well actually I was having too much fun at our third consecutive sold-out NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco. Great speakers, great attendees and great curators — that is our magic formula for our events. I wanted to take a moment and thank everyone who attended the event for making it a success.

I enjoyed meeting many of you in person, and those of you I missed, well I’m only an email away. Thank you to our sponsors and our media partners for helping us with the event. A big shout-out to Lindsay Campbell, former host of “WallStrip,” for being the gracious MC. I also want to thank our friends at LiveStream for making the video available over the web and on the iPhone. I’ve never regretted partnering with such a great streaming service — they are the gold standard for live event video. We served up nearly 30,000 unique streams yesterday and today. Total time spent watch the stream: 671,000 minutes. Thank you Engadget, Comcast and Hacking Netflix for embedding our video stream.

Liz & Chris have published a CliffNotes version of the day’s events and links to extensive media coverage generated by NewTeeVee Live, which has now become the must-attend gathering for the online video industry.

I spent several hours during yesterday’s NewTeeVee Live conference at San Francisco’s Mission Bay Conference Center sitting at the press table with tech writers from various publications who were connecting to the open Wi-Fi network. Before I connected to the center’s hotspot, I loaded a VPN (virtual private network) application, which provides a secure, encrypted tunnel within which I use public Wi-Fi. The one I use happens to be custom and proprietary, and takes about 15 seconds to establish a connection that will keep me completely secure on an open network.

I noticed, though, that while some of the writers at the conference were probably using firewalls, hardly any of them used VPNs to keep their Wi-Fi sessions completely secure. And these were tech writers. That’s a shame, because there are a lot of good, completely free VPN applications available.

One of the best choices out there is OpenVPN, an open-source, cross-platform VPN solution. The freeware world, too, includes many VPN applications that users swear by, such as iPig from iOpus and the free version of LogMeIn’s Hamachi. Cisco’s cross-platform VPN client is also widely used, although note that it’s incompatible with some firewalls. Hotspot Shield is also well-liked by many Windows and Mac users.

Windows 7 actually comes with a built-in Agile VPN client, but it’s not said to be as easy as many of the free, time-tested clients. Snow Leopard Server also offers VPN functionality, and previous versions of the Mac OS have included it. For many users, though, especially ones who don’t have access to help from an IT department, simple, free downloadable VPN solutions–which usually have intuitive interfaces–are great choices.

VPN applications couldn’t be easier to use. Once installed, you simply sign in to them, and your online communications are routed through encrypted tunnels. Problems with particular VPN clients are typically the result of firewall-related conflicts, but you can easily find an app that works for you.

As is always true with security software solutions, user apathy is the biggest problem of all. So the next time you use public Wi-Fi, make sure you hop into a secure VPN tunnel first.

Do you use a VPN application that you like?

Qualcomm-powered Lenovo smartbook

In order to carve out a market, smartbooks should offer the best features of the two devices they fit between. Smartbooks need all-day runtime, instant-on and smartphone connectivity melded with the keyboard and usability of a netbook. But at the same time, a successful smartbook must offer an advantage over these two devices — it must be usable, but not too big. Make the device too large and it will compete poorly against netbooks, which offer x86 program compatibility and nearly all-day runtime. That’s exactly what I see in the first smartbook design — a netbook form factor that fails to take advantage of using a lower-powered ARM processor in a pocketable package.

Image courtesy of Liliputing

Google continues to pursue its ambitious Chrome agenda, confirming it will release a beta version of the Chrome browser for Mac in the next few weeks and reportedly preparing to make the OS available via download within days. The question for on-the-go tech geeks, though, is what kind of devices  we’ll see for the downloadable OS, and when.

Google has said it’s working on Chrome OS with a host of hardware vendors including Acer, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and Toshiba. And as James noted several weeks ago (GigaOM Pro, subscription req.), the platform  is being developed specifically for the netbook segment, leveraging a bare-bones interface optimized for performance — not frills. Google said earlier this year that netbooks running the OS wouldn’t be available until the second half of 2010, but that it would open source the code for download by the end of 2009.

Despite all the hype surrounding Chrome — and the heavy-hitters teaming with Google on the project — the OS is likely to make a quiet debut and be targeted at a small number of devices. But Acer and Lenovo are rumored to be preparing to launch Chrome OS devices, Nvidia is working on Chrome OS Tegra devices, and as TechCrunch suggested, Eee PC netbooks could be endorsed by Google as Chrome-ready. If the Chrome OS’ debut comes off without a hitch, there’s a chance we could even see some hardware support for it in time for the holidays.

Verizon may be joining the ranks of Internet service providers that send subscribers who illegally download or upload music files notices on behalf of the Recording Industry of America, according to sources who spoke with CNet. Verizon has not responded to my questions on this issue, but the CNet story says the letters will only notify subscribers that they may have erred; it will not threaten them with disconnection. We covered this trend last March when AT&T began experimenting with these letters:

AT&T reached out today to let me know that it doesn’t issue take-down notices to its subscribers, but merely forwards the notice from the copyright owner along with an AT&T cover letter. The cover letter informs the subscriber without actually accusing them of illegal activity how they might find themselves in the position of receiving such a letter, and reminds them of AT&T’s terms of service that prohibit sharing copyrighted material.

If Verizon does plan to send notices on behalf of the RIAA or other rights organizations, it’s most likely because the ISP wants to get on the good side of content owners that it needs to make deals with in order to offer compelling content via its IPTV and even its broadband products. Is this the beginning of a three-strikes policy, whereby those accused of pirating content may find themselves disconnected, or is this is merely an effort to placate content owners?

Practical H1N1 prevention strategies for web workers (WebWorkerDaily)
Droid grabs chunk of U.S. mobile Internet usage at launch (jkOnTheRun)
Photos: Coda gets feisty, gives electric sedan a minor makeover (Earth2Tech)
Linux advisory board elects new members (OStatic)
Apple launches iTunes Preview (TheAppleBlog)
NewTeeVee Live: The CliffsNotes version (NewTeeVee)

Om and Frank Eliason of Comcast

Om and I met Wednesday night with Frank Eliason of Comcast, better known as the person behind @comcastcares. Eliason is a genuinely cool guy who started out as the person solely responsible for handling Comcast complaints on Twitter, and who now has a staff of 10. Each day, he and his staff look over some 10,000 blog posts, handle countless tweets — and then seek to do something about any problems.

Since he’s such a Twitter power user, I asked him what his favorite applications for the micromessaging site were. He said the original Twitter web site is his favorite, but he’s also a fan of Simply Tweet on his iPhone because he likes the push notifications. PeopleBrowsr, an app that helps businesses mine information from Twitter, is another one he uses heavily. As for CoTweet, which is in the news right now for charging businesses $1,500 a month to find information on the service, he said he wasn’t initially a fan, but that ever since the company has modified the application to keep track of conversations between two users over time, he’s been turning to it more frequently. The ubiquitous TweetDeck isn’t something Eliason uses, but he says some of his staff love it.

Our conversation was brief as he had to rush off to meet some of his Comcast customers (he notified them of his presence in San Francisco via Twitter) — a reminder that while online interactions are a nice way to initiate relationships, face-to-face meetings are still necessary to cement them.

Dell Mini 3

The Round Rock, Texas-based computer vendor said it will release the Mini 3 through China Mobile later this month; the phone will be available through the Brazilian operator Claro by the end of the year. The announcement ends two years of rumors of a Dell smartphone. The company offered few details about the handset other than the fact that it rocks a three-and-a-half-inch high-definition screen and forgoes a physical keyboard in favor of a touchscreen.

While a move into mobile is overdue, Dell faces a daunting task in differentiating itself from the increasingly crowded Android bandwagon. But the company is wise to enter the difficult Chinese market with China Mobile, which claims 500 million subscribers and — more importantly — with which it already has an established relationship. Dell earlier this year became the first mobile PC manufacturer to embed China Mobile’s 3G technology and services into its netbooks and, according to the company, has become the leading seller of netbooks through retail outlets in China. Dell also has a longstanding presence in Brazil, where it opened a $100 million-plus plant two years ago.

The relationship with China Mobile will be particularly crucial as Dell enters the smartphone space. China’s position as the world’s largest mobile market is well documented, but the region is teaming with potential pitfalls, including an active gray market and heavy government regulation. Apple is quickly — and painfully — becoming familiar with such hurdles via the Chinese launch of the iPhone. If Dell can leverage its existing relationships in China, the company could quickly establish a foothold in a massive market. And that foothold could be the first step in building a global presence in the increasingly competitive smartphone segment.

Apple is expected to ship 11 million million iPhones this quarter, and is banking on China for continued growth, according to an analyst note issued today. Daniel Amir, director and senior research analyst of semiconductors at Lazard Capital Markets, cited China Unicom as sayings it’s sold some 30,000 iPhones in the country since the iconic handset’s launch there on Oct. 30. However, in light of the phone’s high price tag, he isn’t so sanguine about Apple’s prospects in China going forward. From the note:

In October, iPhone shipment to China reached 700K units even though sell-through has been much lower largely due to the high price point. Apple is likely to continue diverting 10% of the iPhone build to the Chinese market, as the opportunity for China could be significant to future growth of the iPhone. … Overall, in our opinion, the high price point remains a barrier for further iPhone adoption and the current run rate is below expectations.

Even if Apple can’t keep growing sales significantly through China, it need only wait until its exclusivity agreements are over to keep its sales on the up and up.

Devicescape is hoping to meet smartphone users’ increasing demand for Wi-Fi access by broadening support for its Easy Wi-Fi Network to include Nokia and Android-based handsets — beyond currently supported platforms such as iPhone OS, Windows Mobile, Windows and Mac OS X. Given Nokia’s impressive worldwide footprint and Android’s newfound momentum, the move, announced today, should help Devicescape build its customer base in a big way — which will be crucial as the company goes after hardware vendors.

Devicescape said users can download an app from the Android Market or Nokia’s Ovi to access hundreds of thousands of free Wi-Fi hotspots; the app also includes a map view for locating Easy Wi-Fi locations. The San Bruno, Calif.-based startup, which launched its network last month, competes with service providers such as Boingo Wireless and iPass. Unlike its competition, though, the startup is hoping to cash in on the increasing demand for seamless connectivity by targeting the makers of smartphones, netbooks, digital readers and other connected devices.