The Best Hraka Around
CarolinaBlue.com - Reports: UNC, Davis come to agreement.
Now we just have to see who’ll be coaching at NC State next year.
More on the reported agreement between UNC and Davis:
Winston-Salem Journal: Sources say that UNC has hired Davis as football coach.
Charlotte Observer: Agent: Reports that Davis signed to coach at UNC inaccurate.
ESPN.com: Source: Davis nearing deal to coach North Carolina.
SI.com: Report: North Carolina hires Davis.
InsideCarolina.com: Heels Hire Butch Davis
Those of that have been reading this blog the last few months know what a fan I have been of Emusic.com. Emusic.com is a subscription based music download service that offers DRM free downloads from small music labels. I’ve used this space on several occasions to sing the services praises.
I take it all back. While I have enjoyed the service for the most part, I find the customer service to be non-existent. Almost two months ago, I upgraded from a basic, month-to-month subscription to the annual “premium” level subscription that was supposed to come with a free 1 GB MP3 player. At the time of my upgrade, I was informed that the MP3 player would be shipped within 30 days.
That was back on September 17th.
Nearly two months later, I have yet to see an MP3 player and, more importantly, I have yet to hear from anyone regarding the three separate inquiries I’ve made through the company’s “customer service” pages. If someone had taken 60 seconds to respond to even one of my emails letting me know when I could expect my MP3 player, I’d have been content to wait. Since the company has seen fit to ignore all three of my increasingly pleading emails, I have asked Emusic to cancel my subscription and refund my subscription fee minus two months of worth of downloads.
My theory is that Emusic is struggling with cash flows. The music download business has notoriously thin profit margins and even Apple, which charges $.99 cents per track, struggles to make it pay. Mostly Apple uses iTunes as a way to sell more iPods. Because Emusic is a subscription service, they make about $.25 cents per track at the lowest subscription level and about $.22 cents per track at the highest. I’m guessing a good part of that goes to the music labels and artists as well.
Emusic is addressing that by reducing the number of tracks you can download with each subscription plan. The premium package used to get you 90 downloads per month. As of this month, that has been reduced to 75 tracks per month. Lower level packages have had their number of downloads reduced in similar fashion. The mid-level package used to get you 65 downloads. Now it will get you 50. The lowest-level package has dropped from 40 to 30 downloads. That will boost the price per track to something between $.27 and $.33 cents.
I’m guessing they simply can’t afford to fulfill their promise of delivering a $79 dollar MP3 player to every person that signs up for the annual service. They certainly don’t seem to be able to afford to pay anyone to man the customer service desk.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Emusic either fold or be bought out in the coming months. Even though Emusic is the second largest music download service behind Apple’s iTunes, it’s profits have to be either razor thin or non-existent. If you’re thinking about subscribing to Emusic, my advice is to either wait or join on a month-to-month basis. That will keep you from losing any money if Emusic does indeed go belly up.
In the meantime, I’m going to cancel my subscription and try to get my money back. I can only hope that someone is paying attention to that request. I’ll also be looking for a new place to get my music. Pandora will have to tide me over until I can find a good used CD shop in Atlanta.
Update: Well, that didn’t take long. I just received the email below from the Emusic.com customer service desk.
I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience you have experienced. The players are usually shipped after 30 days, so you would receive it within 6-8 weeks of you ordering the annual subscription. I’ve been trying to determine the status of your order; unfortunately, we seem to be having trouble with the vendor shipping the players out. I want to assist you with this and provide what we have promised you, so tomorrow I will be shipping your player priority mail, so you should receive it by Monday. As an additional courtesy to you, due to the frustration you may have experienced due to this issue, I have credited your account with 25 courtesy downloads. They will remain on your account for one year from today’s date provided you maintain an active account with us.
One single communication was all I asked. Now that I’ve gotten it, even though I had to be ugly, I’ll give Emusic another chance.
Update 2: Because I’m devious and generally indignant at what I perceive to be poor service, I also guessed at Emusic.com CEO David Pakman’s email address and sent him an email regarding my poor experience. I included the link to this post. To his and Emusic’s credit, he responded quickly. His response is below.
Thank you for contacting me. I have the customer service team looking
into your issue now and we will respond to you within the next 24 hours.
I apologize on behalf eMusic for anything below your expectations and
will work to resolve your issues quickly.
I’m satisfied. Plus now I feel a little guilty about the blog post.
Yes, it’s that time again kids! It’s time for the Carnival of the Vanities! This week’s edition brings us up to two-hundred and sixteen installments in the longest running Carnival in the online world! Yes, the entire online world! The only carnivals out there that predate this one have clowns, elephants and a guy in funny looking pants and a top hat running the whole thing.
Where we don’t have the clowns or elephants, we do have a guy in funny looking pants and a top hat running the show. That’s me, yours truly, Kehaar Hraka. You can’t see my carnival accoutrements but they’re there, I promise. I wouldn’t lie to you.
This week’s Carnival takes place in a time of massive change. The Democrats have won the House of Representatives and appear likely to take over in the Senate as well. Only time will tell if that’s a good thing or not, but it does give us a good segue into this special election edition of Carnival of the Vanities.
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Actually there are only two or three politically themed posts this week. The first comes from Graham Lester. Where I’m fond of haiku, Graham is more for limericks. In fact, he writes Limericks by the Score. I excerpt one relevant to the election below:
Are they candid? No way!
All the words that they say,
Only ever sound candied to me.
From the other side of the fence, Stephen Littau tosses grenades at John Kerry for his latest foot-in-mouth faux pas. As he did in 2004, Kerry did his level best to help out the Republicans as the nation went to the polls. Apparently it wasn’t enough. Stephen rips him a new one in Fisking John F’ing Kerry. I guess Kerry can kiss any thoughts of another presidential run goodbye. I shed a tear.
Even though the Dems appear to have triumphed in the latest election, the rest of the Carnival entries prove that most people just don’t care any more. They have too much else going on in their lives to worry about midterm elections.
Kailani , for instance, is living A Child-Full Life and is perfectly content to do so. Evidently Kalani read a magazine article stating that single, childless people are happier. As a single, childless person, I have to say I’m pretty content but I look forward to children of my own one day. At least, I look forward to children of my own one day. Legitimate children anyway.
Just kidding, mom. I have not fathered any children of which I am aware.
Speaking of children, Doug Payton asks Where’s the Family-Friendly Sci-Fi? Doug decries that innuendo and gratuitous sex included in most television sci-fi today.
Speaking as a single, childless man, those are the only reasons I’ll watch television these days. BTW, I finally gave in and ordered cable. More on that later.
Continuing on in this always family-friendly Carnival, dad talks about How to Take Responsibility for When You’re Four. Dad, we all still ony take responsibility when we get caught. It’s the American way.
Totally unrelated to family, and to anything else I can see, Mark A. Rayner gives us The Dostoevsky Edition of the Lost PowerPoint Slides . The only Doestoevsky I ever read was “Crime and Punishment”. I’m actually still reading it and have been for about five years now. It’s amazing how much can be reduced to three or four bullet points. Good job, Mark.
The rest of the Carnival is most informational and comes from this devoted business blogger supporters.
Jack Yoest gives us his 7 Tips for Mass Marketing and focuses on marketing yourself and your business. His advice? Blog and submit even your must mundane stuff to Blog Carnivals. This is the way to get recognized and find success, wealth and happiness.
Wayne Hurlbert backs him up and writes about how Blog Messages Are Magical and even the smallest thought should be blogged as it can make a difference, especially when submitted to a Blog Carnival.
What are these Blog Carnivals you keep hearing about? I’m glad you asked. Nickel answers Five Questions About Blog Carnivals. Did you know they’re a great way to drive traffic to your blog? It’s true. This blog gets tens, literally tens of visits each week from this Carnival.
Batting clean-up, Leon Gettler says that the era of greed is back in The private equity boom: back to the “greed is good” era. Remind me. When did greed go out of vogue? Before or after Enron?
And Lastly, Riversider asks Do You Care About the River Ribble and Our Green Spaces?. I don’t know where the Ribble is exactly, but I care. I honestly do.
And so do the Democrats, who love and care about our environment and will personally come plant greenery in your yard now that they’re back in power in Congress.The king is dead, long live the king!
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That’s it for another edition of the Carnival of the Vanities. Hopefully you don’t wish you had the last fifteen to twenty minutes of your live back. As always, thanks for stopping by. Thanks also to all our submitters and supporters. If you’d like to participate in Carnival of the Vanities, it appears in this space every Wednesday. You can send your post for consideration via the much bally-hooed Blog Carnival.