Where to with Apple?

Next week Apple conducts another of its well orchestrated product events. For the last few weeks the Apple fan sites have been speculating what might be in store for key product lines. Top of the list seems to be (yet another) iPhone model and (maybe) (yet another) iPad model. As the owner / operator of this and another CD ripping service neither new products would make much of a difference to us. But what would make a difference to our clients?

First, if Apple added the massively popular BBC iPlayer to its Apple TV product. Several of our clients have Apple TVs and they generally love them, the ability to stream music around the house, the sharing function for photos and your own movies, even buying films from iTunes Music Store, all are great, but no BBC? It would be great if this, for a UK audience, glaring omission were to be corrected.

Second, and this would have impact on us all, is better quality music. When we started out data storage space was at a premium so the ability to store decent(ish) sound in small files was important. Today even a massive hard drive is a modest price and our clients are spending more on high quality music players such as Sonos so how about a better sounding music file? Apple could lead the way with top quality music.

Third I'd like Apple to reach out and embrace other devices. In my opinion the iPod (and with it the iPod Touch and iPhone) are the best portable music players but I think its time for Apple to get real and acknowledge that many people have other devices. Would it really hurt for Apple to support, say, Android based players without having to resort to third party software?

Quality Sounds & CD Ripping

We get asked questions, mainly about CD ripping as you'd expect, but also about music in general. Friday's question was about getting the best (or should I say better?) sound quality.

Background - some ripped music, iPod, many un-ripped CDs, getting a new Sonos system. Having tossed this around for a few minutes this was my take. My first step would be to upgrade the speakers. I think Sonos is great, but most of your "investment" is in the hardware that streams your music, with speakers tagged on (unless you have the later single body units). Upgrading to better speakers makes a difference to all your music, instantly. In his position that would be my first step.

Then I'd bite the bullet and be critical about current digital files. As an early adopter of digital home and portable music he has a lot of tracks ripped at 128 Kbps. I don't want to stray into techno-geek territory but with today's hard drives and PCs offering massive storage capacity there's no excuse for highly compressed music. So be critical about what you currently have, dig out the much loved tracks and re-rip at 320 Kbps MP3 or go to one of the lossless formats. Sonos plays Apple Lossless so that would be a solid choice.

New music, rip at higher rates into MP3 or go for Apple Lossless along with a decent set of speakers. Great result.

Cloud Based Music Ripping

Yesterday was something of a milestone - we delivered our first music library via the cloud.

Originally the output of our CD ripping service was a collection of DVDs. For some clients we were sending back 10 or more DVDs, each of which had to be loaded into the receiving computer. Then we took a step up and for the last couple of years low cost USB drives have been popular. In our local High Street (alongside The Only Way is Essex memorabilia) you can get a 1Tb drive for way under £100. We've also sent out a fair number of USB thumb drives but early promise of drives with more than 32 Gb storage haven't materialised.

In computing circles cloud based storage is all the rage - Dropbox, Google's G Drive, Sugarsync for various data services and Apple's own Music Match for iTunes. People have been asking us if we can get their music to them "via the cloud".

Well, yesterday, that's exactly what we did. The CD ripping went ahead normally but rather than burn DVDs we used out Bitcasa account to upload the digital music files to, well, to wherever Bitcasa's computers live. When that was complete (we ran that part over night) I logged into my Bitcasa account and got a URL which I copied into an email to our client. Using that link he was able to download those files either onto his local hard drive or across to his own cloud storage facility.

One small step for a CD ripping service, but a toe hold on the future. I'm sure in the not too distant future all our music will be delivered this way.

Nimbie USB CD Ripping System

I'm sitting here this evening very happy that our latest crew member - the Acronova Nimbie USB CD ripping system - is out there in the office, merrily ripping CDs. After a few weeks together we're getting along fine. I just love being able to get work done out of hours.

CD ripping can be an intensive business, lots of CDs needing to be ripped and back to clients yesterday. I've often felt there aren't enough hours in the day. Over the last five or six weeks I've gained more hours thanks to this unit. I've been filling the hopper with CDs last thing in the evening, then again before we turn in for the night. This means that first thing next morning there's a stack of around 150 CDs that wouldn't otherwise have been processed.

I love that, and so do our clients.

European Progress

We are often asked if we can rip CDs for clients in Europe, yes, we can. Already this year we've undertaken CD ripping projects for clients in Switzerland, Belgium, France and Spain.

All you need do is mail us the CDs, we don't need the jewel cases (which reduces the weight). After we've ripped your music we'll return everything to you. We can source locally a USB hard drive if you need one and add that to the bill. We've been using Parcelforce and City Link as courier services to get CDs back and that's been working well. Transport can take two or three days compared with next day in the UK.

Some clients have been able to transfer payment direct from their bank account to ours, with others we've used PayPal and they've used their credit cards.

CD Ripping - Carpe Diem

From time to time we send clients packing material so they can get their CDs over to us. Normally we send a box of CD spindles and a few days later the box boomerangs back, complete with a batch of CDs to rip. One box didn't, funny I thought. Win some, lose some.

Yesterday the missing box came back, empty, save for a covering note.

"Apologies for the delay in getting these back to you. Alas they are empty as I am no longer able to proceed with the ripping service due to the fact I no longer possess my CD collection".

Why? Your guess is as good as mine. My money is on Burglar Bill. I can assure you this is one person who wishes he'd moved more quickly and had all his music safely backed up. So, if CD ripping is on your mind - carpe diem. Quickly.

Whither MP3?

Neil Young - remember him? If you're around my age he's that bloke with the winning stage persona and a rather reedy voice. Made some great tracks on his early albums (70s, 80s) and then, well so-so and he got very political.

Recently the news broke that he (sometime singer) was collaborating with Steve Jobs on a new music format. Just let that sink in - the technical genius at the head of one of the world's biggest IT companies, the man who gave the kiss of life to the whole portable music thing, is turning to a singer for tech advice. Young's argument rests on the "fact" that when Jobs went home he listened the vinyl. Rather a shaky foundation on which to build an easily rebutted argument but then SJ is dead.

Did anyone say MP3 was top quality? CD ripping has been about liberating music at a compromise setting that works well for most purposes. You get compressed music files so you can take them around with you, so you can store them on a hard drive, so you can make backup copies, so you can buy and download new tracks. So you can sort and access music in ways vinyl never allowed.

Recently we've added two music file format options to our ripping option - Apple Lossless and FLAC. These are becoming better received given the availability of small USB hard drives, believe me the upgrade in quality is worthwhile. But if you want to get every last ounce out of that iPod, MP3 or AAC is the way to go.

Packing Material

There are two great ways to ship CDs.

First, take your discs out of their jewel cases and put them into a CD wallet. You can get these in a range of capacities and they're just great for shipping and long term storage. Cost is modest, very cheap on eBay.

Second, again this is the discs only, just use those spindles / tubs on which blank CDs and DVDs are sold. This relies on a heavy usage of blank discs, or a lot of friends, and some foresight but it is a safe way to mail CDs. If you look at each disc you'll see a small ridge on the back. When stacked on top of each other on the spindles this ensures their faces don't rub against each other. Clever.

If you need packing let us know, we'll mail some to you.

MP3 and More

Today we add the " and more" to our music CD ripping service, mp3bymail.com.

We're now offering, for the same price of 50p per CD, a choice of not just MP3 but also AAC or Apple Lossless. Why? Simply because that's what our clients have been asking for, and as a service business we want to keep our clients happy; and of course we hope to win even more clients.

Technically we offer AAC at 256 Kbps.

50p per CD! Lowest Cost CD Ripping Service in the UK

Last weekend my wife and I went for a short break in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. On Wednesday, having overdone the walking the day before, I slipped my aching bones into the most comfortable sofa in the lounge of the Brudenell Hotel, fired up the laptop and set to answer the question that's been on my mind for a few weeks.

How low can we go? What's the cheapest CD ripping service we can offer?

If you reduce your price you massively eat into your profits. Will a lower price bring in more business? To be blunt how many people currently mailing their work to people charging 80p per CD will switch to mp3bymail.com instead?

Of course I don't know. But I have made a guess. Using Goodle Adwords I've quietly been running some adverts in specific areas. Loading that data into my spreadsheet the tradeoff quickly became apparent. Comparing the CD ripping business we're presently getting against advert hits, with the same data from the other areas, could we get three times as much business? As with any projection its an educated guess but yes, I think the volume of business is there.

Can we do the extra work, will our costs go through the roof? I knew the answer to that already. When I launched our mail-in CD ripping service I tested the volumes so that's not part of the guesswork. It requires our PCs to run overnight but the capacity is definitely there with electricity about the only additional overhead cost.

A couple of hours later, head clear, body rested, I had resolved to offer a shift in cost model. So yesterday we unveiled our new price - just 50p per CD. Exactly the same service, same high quality, same genre, album, artist and track data. Already we're seeing a fantastic increase in click through rates on our Google Adwords accounts. Music lovers are voting with their feet (or mouse clicks). 50p per CD - about to become the new standard in CD ripping services in the UK.

Fraser Hay - Thanks

I wanted to say a big "Thanks" to marketing consultant Fraser Hay for his help in developing MP3byMail and podServe. I've been working with Fraser for almost a month and he's had quite an impact.

Fraser is based up in Scotland, several miles from the nearest Starbucks, so does most of his work via the internet and teleconferencing. He works with a wide range of companies, both in the UK and internationally, so he has nor only wide experience but also a broad view of what works in business.

Together we've been looking at what each of these CD ripping services should be, what each should offer, their target markets, and any additional services that might be offered. So far we've been fine tuning the way the websites work and how we establish a working relationship with clients. However .....

More substantial rethinking has hatched ideas to radically transform each business. So I'm very excited about the future and we'rve still got more ground to cover.

Thanks Fraser, couldn't have done it without you.