62 posts and columns on Farhad Manjoo

Apple Signs Off on Spotify. When Will Big Music Play Along?

in Media on August 27, 2009 at 2:11 pm PT

Spotify is the best music service you’ve never used. That’s because the much-hyped streaming music company is only available for Europeans and for a select few in the U.S. who have either gotten sneak peeks or hacked their way into it. The service took one step toward wider distribution today when Apple approved its iPhone app. But that won’t help U.S. users until the big music labels agree to American distribution deals.
spotify-logo

What Book Will Amazon Delete Next?

in Media on July 21, 2009 at 5:11 am PT

Last week, Amazon acknowledged that it deleted some copies of “1984″ and “Animal Farm” from customers’ Kindles. So what book will be next? Because while Amazon has said it won’t repeat what it did last week, it hasn’t actually sworn off remote book-removal–or remote-anything removal, for that matter–altogether. Does that worry you? It should.
1984

Boxee: WebTV That Makes Sense. Is That Good or Bad for Big Cable?

in Media on January 12, 2009 at 10:19 am PT

I don’t want the Web on my big screen TV. I do want easy access to Web video, though–especially stuff like Hulu and Netflix on Demand. Enter Boxee, and cue worried cable execs.