The record labels like to think they built MTV — and have been punishing every new idea for promoting music since. That self-defeating dynamic could destroy a nascent YouTube partnership between Google and Universal Music.
When political candidates concede a campaign, they praise the "long journey" and talk about how much they've "learned." In the same mode, Microsoft's CEO has all but said he's given up on the Zune.
Amazon is releasing a site called SoundUnwound — a version of IMDB for musicians, editable by anyone like Wikipedia. Few know that IMDB, the movies database, is owned by Amazon.com. But the universal vendor seems to value the data therein — knowing which obscure movies a now-famous actor starred in helps cross-sell…
