— Best Buy is reported to be considering allotting eight square feet per store (or about 200 titles) to vinyl albums in all of its 1,000-plus stores. A first test of 100 titles per store, according to the article, was successful enough for a bump up. Vinyl album sales were up 60% through the week ending April 19, according to Nielsen SoundScan. (New York Post)
— Verizon Wireless customers downloaded 48.6 million music and video downloads in the first quarter ending March 31. That is about a 3% drop from the roughly 50 million music and video downloads during the previous quarter but 13% higher than the 43 million units downloaded in the third quarter of last year. The company added 1.3 million wireless subscribers in the first quarter. (Press release)
— Twitter is getting a lot of attention as the next big thing in music marketing. It turns out Twitter is great for a trial run but most people don’t fall into the habit of using the service. This lack of user loyalty could severely hamper its reach. “Currently, more than 60 percent of Twitter users fail to return the following month, or in other words, Twitter’s audience retention rate, or the percentage of a given month’s users who come back the following month, is currently about 40 percent. For most of the past 12 months, pre-Oprah, Twitter has languished below 30 percent retention.” (Nielsen Wire)
— An interview with iLike’s Ali Partovi has a theme right out of “The Winner-Take-All Society.” “There will always be superstars. In fact, the internet can create even bigger stars than traditional broadcast media. What will be harder is trying to transform someone with marginal talent into a superstar or to force the content you own down other people’s throats. But human nature thrives on shared experiences, and great talent will spread faster and wider than ever on the backs of people sharing it.” (Hypebot)
— Music Choice struck a deal with Sony Music Entertainment to add Wind-up Records’ video catalog to its on-demand music video service, which is available on via various cable networks, online and via select mobile phones.
