Album Sales (week of 11/3) + Industry News

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Album Sales Week of 11/3

Shwayze “Let It Beat” – 10,764 (over 74% digital)

Hell Rell “Live From Hell”- 277

CunninLynguists “Strange Journey Vol. 2” – 394

Last Week:
Tech N9ne “K.O.D.” – 10,299 (this week) – 40,246 total

Let me know if there are any albums that you’d like to know numbers on that I’ve missed.  I was out last week working on this little film thing on the side.

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Anyway, on to Industry/Related News

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• Electronic Arts to cut 1500 jobs (17% of it’s work force)
The gaming giant is still struggling to make money, even with games like Madden, Rock Band and the Sims, they’re still posting quarterly net losses of $300 million plus!!!  They’ll be cutting back on the least-well performing 1/3rd of their business, and trying to shift towards “micro-transactions” like buying a gift on facebook.  Play a game for free, but pay $0.50 to get a little bonus within the game.  we’ll see if that model works, with their $275 milion acquisition of “Playfish,” a social-network-based gaming company.

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• Google Music
I intend to follow this one closely.  I discovered that Google Music search isn’t all I was cracking it up to be, because it only streams snippets of the songs, not full tunes.  But I still think that this will be one of the defining steps in moving the business forward.  But it won’t necessarily be pretty.  First of all, the pay-out per stream rates for artists are terrible.  But, with the volume coming in via google search, both the bandwidth costs, and the streaming pay-outs could be crippling for the partners supplying the music (iLike/MySpace, LaLa, Rhapsody, iMeem etc.)  I think what’s more crucial right now is the shift in the consumer paradigm though, and the fact that it seems like the majors may have finally found a way to be down with free (to the consumer) music discovery.  We’ll keep our eyes on it.

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• Real Networks to lay off 4% of their workforce
More Layoffs.

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• The future of home entertainment
This looks like another step in the direction of one all-inclusive media center (tv, internet, music, computer, etc).  Apple is trying to pitch a $30 / month TV via internet via iTunes deal to the major cable networks.  Will it work?

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Let me know your thoughts, and as always, get at me with comments.  Till next time, Peace.