Web Shorts

MP3 debuts a subscription service
Music site MP3.com has introduced a fee-based service. Called Premium Listener Service or PluS Express, the site combines MP3.com’s online music storage service with software for burning CDs and downloading songs to portable MP3 players, and it lets users maintain an online song library. Additionally, the subscription-based service will allow users to partake of MP3’s service without seeing ads. The Premium Listener Service will cost $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year, and MP3 says that users will be able to access one million songs. The service is an effort to bring in additional revenue as MP3.com struggles to turn a profit, with competition in the online-music space heating up. MTVi and RioPort will offer a download service through MTV web sites, and Yahoo has a partnership with Duet, the joint venture between Universal Music Group and Sony. Additionally, Warner Music Group, EMI Recorded Music and BMG Entertainment have paired up with RealNetworks and Napster in their upcoming MusicNet service.

China cracking down on anonymous surfing
Internet cafes in China are the only places that web users can visit illicit web sites because they can go online there without revealing their identities. But they’re not supposed to surf anonymously. Starting in April, the Chinese government began cracking down on internet cafes, because people have developed a habit of surfing and posting rebellious content without revealing their true identities. Seven people have been arrested for online subversion since March. They could spend 10 years in jail. In April, the government banned internet cafes in residential buildings and in spots adjacent to schools and government offices. Police have launched a series of investigations into all web cafes for signs of access to forbidden web sites. Forbidden web activities include involvement with any sort of so-called socially destabilizing content and visiting porn sites. Police scan the web for sites and postings about touchy issues such as Taiwan, Tibet and religious sect Falun Gong. People can go online from home, but internet service providers are required to monitor surfing.

Cox cable will test AOL and EarthLink
Cox Communications will test high-speed service from leading ISPs America Online and Earth Link on its cable network. The six-month trial run will take place in El Dorado, Arkansas. If the trial goes satisfactorily, EarthLink and rival AOL will consider regularly selling broadband service over Cox’s cable pipeline. AOL already has plans to distribute high-speed service through its parent company’s cable service, Time Warner Cable. AOL says it plans to strike more distribution deals with multiple cable operators. Currently, the two dominant cable ISPs are Excite@Home and Road Runner, another AOL Time Warner property. Cox has a contract to work nonexclusively with Excite@Home through 2006 and exclusively for another year, though Cox can cancel the exclusivity pact this December if it chooses.

Sub fee for Wall Street Journal site may go up
Dow Jones is considering raising the subscription rate for its flagship online property, the web site of the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal Online now charges print subscribers $29 to access the site, while non-subscribers must pay $59. Dow Jones has not confirmed how substantial the rate hike will be, or even whether it will happen at all. But company officials say that the price increase would take effect by the end of the year. WSJ.com is a rarity among internet content sites in that it has successfully persuaded many people to pay for access. The site has been online for five years and has 574,000 subscribers—the largest paying subscriber base of any site on the web. The print version has an average daily circulation of 1.8 million.

Arbitron launches webcast audience profiler
At last there may be a way for advertisers to know who’s listening to internet radio: After a trial run on webcaster NetRadio, media research company Arbitron is launching Arbitron Webcast Ratings, a service that analyzes and measures internet radio audiences. During webcasts, a window pops up that contains a survey about consumers’ demographic and socioeconomic information. The survey does not disrupt the webcast. The trial on NetRadio, which took place in March and April, found that NetRadio listeners are an educated, web-wise and affluent group. About 73 percent of NetRadio users have at least a bachelor’s degree, and 19 percent of them live in households that earn more than $100,000 a year. Seventy-two percent of NetRadio users have spent more than $100 online within the past year. Additionally, they spend an average of three hours a day online. The NetRadio survey also found that two-thirds of NetRadio users are male; one-third have a child under age 12 living at home; and 26 percent of them live outside the U.S.

Akron Beacon Journal on CD-Rom
The Akron Beacon Journal is already available in traditional print and online, and now Akronites will be able to read the paper off a CD. For 25 cents, consumers will have access to everything in the newspaper, including advertisements; other features include larger, extra graphics, the ability to click and enlarge text or pictures, and access to URLs providing updates on sports scores and other information. The CD does not waste any paper, its pages won't crinkle and it won't get your hands dirty—though because it is the first edition of the paper, the latest sports scores are not available. The Beacon Journal admits most people will not have a need for this special technology, but the paper thinks it will be of great benefit for those that do. A patent is pending for the software program that Beacon Journal employee Mark Kovack devised, and the paper's corporate owners, Knight Ridder publishers, have already received a demonstration of the program.

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