Entertainment - Internet Marketing News and Blogs

This week sees the launch of Tesco Digital, the supermarket giant's answer to iTunes.

We've taken a look at the new site to see how it compares with Apple's all-conquering download store, which has accounted for around 70% of worldwide online digital music sales.

We recently compared ITV's online video player to the BBC's iPlayer, finding that the ITV offering was far less usable than its rival.

ITV has since launched a new and improved version of its online TV service, so we've taken another look at it to see where the improvements have been made...

MySpace has teamed up with three of the four major record labels, Sony BMG, Warner Music and Universal, to make their catalogues available via MySpace Music.

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times on Saturday, British musician Billy Bragg suggests that social networks like Bebo and MySpace should pay royalties for the music that is made available through their services.

ITV's online catch up TV offering will be revamped in an attempt to compete more effectively with the BBC's iPlayer.

Though ITV launched the service months earlier than the iPlayer, it has quickly been overhauled by the BBC's offering. Around 11m videos were viewed via the iPlayer in January, compared with just 2m for ITV.com  

Video sharing site Dailymotion has launched in the UK with former Google exec Kate Burns at the helm.

The French firm, founded three years ago, bills itself as the largest "independent"  video sharing site and has so far established itself in its home country and the US.

And it will be interesting to see whether Burns, who has previously helped Google, DoubleClick and Altavista build up their UK businesses, can achieve similar success at the expense of her former employers.

Barely a day goes past without online commentators complaining about how the music industry is doomed because it doesn't 'get' the web.

Yet recent actions suggest this may be changing, which is more than can be said for the promoters of the national game.

According to figures quoted in The Guardian this week, ITV's online video player has been losing traffic, while the BBC iPlayer has grown rapidly since its official launch last month.

ITV's offering beat the iPlayer to market, launching a 30 day catch-up service back in June, so why has the BBC overtaken it so quickly? Let's take a closer look at the two services to find out...

quarterlife, the online video series that debuted on MySpace and became the first to be picked up by a TV network, made its TV premiere on NBC on Tuesday.

But it did not produce the type of history its creators and NBC were hoping for - according to Returers, the premiere "marked the network's worst time-period performance in at least 17 years and has thrown the show's fate into imminent jeopardy."

Jon Webster is CEO of the Music Manager's Forum, which represents artists and managers in the recording industry.

We recently spoke to Tim Westergren of Pandora, which was forced to close its UK service due to what he saw as excessive new royalty rates, demanded by the recording industry.

This, in addition to  the proposed royalty rises in the US, has threatened several online broadcasters - Jon gives us the view from the artists and managers' perspective.