Greetings, and Happy New Year to all our readers! I hope the new year – and new semester for most of us – is treating you well. I have been spending time on the web as of late, and I have found a few new things that might be of interest to you.

I just started my Spring Music Products class, so that topic area has been on my mind and my selections will primarily focus on that area for this month. First, I have been spending time for various reasons looking at the Steinway Company. I find it very interesting that if you go to www.steinway.com, you will learn all about their pianos. The branding of the Steinway name is a lecture in and of itself, especially with the addition of the Boston and Essex names to the family. Also interesting in mentioning branding is their “All Steinway School” program that can be found at http://www.steinway.com/noteworthy/all_steinway_schools.shtml (note the “noteworthy” url!) Somebody in the marketing department had their thinking cap on for this idea. But, back to where I started…which was to point out that if you just type in the Steinway name, you learn about pianos. If you want to get the bigger picture you have to search that site pretty thoroughly, or go to www.steinwaymusical.com where you can learn about the Steinway Musical Instruments, Inc company. At this URL you can learn about the different brands (and companies) Steinway owns and link to specific websites. From there you can have all kinds of fun if you go to the “Investor Relations” link. You can look up stock charts, recent financials, news, etc. Of course, you won’t find too much information about the recent strikes in Indiana - you’ll have to dig deeper for that. You can also request annual reports for your classes – most “investor relations” links have a spot to make a request and I have had good luck in getting publicly traded companies to send them. Some you might enjoy looking at with students include Guitar Center, Kaman, and SONY. I have yet to request a Warner Music prospectus, but rest assured, I will….

Speaking of financials, et al, I recently found myself on www.hoovers.com again. That is a good site for initial research on just about larger company. They cover all publicly traded companies, and many that aren’t. You can get good background material, information on competitors, and basic financials presented in a way that might be good for students that have not yet taken Corporate Finance. I don’t have the big bucks to pay for the premium service, but I keep heading back there for the free-loading.

Lastly, since I mentioned the impoverished life of a college professor, I’ll confess that I still have not made the leap to sign on to a subscription to Billboard. My New Year’s resolution to keep up to date on entertainment industry topics is to track the following websites on a regular basis instead:

www.wired.com - you’d be surprised how many good articles about the music industry show up in this publication

www.billboard.biz - if you go to the “Industry News” tab, you can pick a general topic (publishing, touring, etc) and read recent articles (for free). They also have a nice system for keeping track of articles in different topic areas that you might want to reference in the future. It’s not as good as browsing a paper copy with a good cup of java, but there is a lot of info there to digest.

http://www.radioandrecords.com/RRWebSite/ - you can follow the charts there (for free) and you might want to check out the “publisher’s profiles” and “job opportunities” section under resources.

That’s it for this month. Wish me luck in finding the time to keep up with my resolution, and, as always, I would love any suggestions from our readership – especially on sites with current events to add to my own list.