There's perhaps a little more anticipation than usual of Apple's forthcoming announcement (and I'm beinging to fear there won't be anything groundbreaking from a music perspective, but I can still hope). In some ways Apple are at a cross roads. As a maker of high end portable media devices they have built something of ceiling of growth with the iPhone. If you have an iPhone you have most of what you need from a portable media player. The meat of Apple�s iPod target customers are iPhone target customers. So future revenue opportunity with these customers either centres on either selling them new iPhones or extra iPods in the home. Or large screen & capacity video optimized devices perhaps?

So if the core of iPod target customers become iPhone target customers, who become the new target iPod customers? And is a portable device even the best product to reach those customers? And what are the implications for record labels? Will music be as important in the future of Apple as it is now?

The answers to these questions won't be answered tonight, but we may see the first steps. I'll be twittering during the event and blogging soon after. You can follow my Twitter feed here: http://twitter.com/Mark_Mulligan

At the Inverge conference on Friday, Joshua Green, research manager for MIT’s Convergence Culture Consortium, used the “AMC-Twittergate-Mad Men Nine” story to illustrate a fresh way of thinking about the entertainment value chain now that we’ve got social media. (AMC originally ordered some fans who were Tweeting as characters in Mad Men, its Emmy-nominated hit show, to cease and desist, then quickly backed down under blogosphere pressure.) Green proposes that, while brand ambassadors are useful, the real value of social media occurs when your entertainment content is “redacted.” That is, mashing up is worth more than passing along recommendations.

The argument is that the most intensive creation of cultural meaning happens among those fans that do things like fan fiction and re-mixing. Thus, the mission of an entertainment company is to give its rabid audience creators raw material to work with. That’s more valuable, in theory, because if a marketer can gracefully insert itself – or better, yet, interact – with that audience at this point of creation, it will be in a hugely valuable bonding position.

Ok, so he doesn't mean Jupiter Reasearch, but he could.

Bill is so straight, Jerry has to play the clown. It doesn't work, but I wish it did.

Remember that little box people used to buy that sat next to the phone, and when you didn't answer an incoming call the box would play a greeting and then record the caller's message? They used to be called answering machines. (Ok, they still exist, built into those cordless phone systems you can buy.) The best feature of the answering machine was the ability to screen your calls, and pick up the receiver if the calling party said something interesting enough. The dawn of voice mail provided directly by the service providers eliminated the need for the box, but also eliminated that distinct feature.

No longer. Embarq just rolled out a call screening feature (at no additional cost) that works with its voice mail service. When a caller begins to leave a message, the phone emits a special ring, at which time the recipient can pick up the handset, listen to the message as its being recorded, and engage in conversation by pressing any button. Embarq claims to be the first communications company to provide such a service.

Embarq has been making the effort to keep its landline business relevant in the face of cable triple-play and wireless substitution. I think it's a smart move. Is call screening going to stem the loss of telco access lines on its own? Not a chance. But it makes sense to provide more value and unique features for those consumers/families that do want a fixed line at home.