The record business is in the doldrums because sales are plummeting. Digital technology has made music easier to make and copy, with the result that recorded music is about as readily available as water, and not a whole lot more exciting.

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Gawker Media impresario Nick Denton, one of the more vocal Cassandras of media collapse last fall, got a surprise this spring when things turned out to be, well, not so bad. Mr. Denton told us earlier in the year that sales were actually up double digits, and it appeared marketers’ reactions to the recession were “more strategic” than he thought.

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FreshDirect’s Rick Braddock writes today that “too much attention has been given to digital advertising,” and that he and other executives at the online grocery store have instead focused on customer relationships and making sales.

He got even more customer feedback on Friday, when he delivered similar remarks at a marketing conference in New York.

After discussing some of FreshDirect’s new interactive features, including “You Might Also Like,” which suggests additional items based on what you’ve added to your shopping cart, a woman in the audience said she was “a little annoyed by it.” She asked Mr. Braddock if the site’s customization plans included a way for customers to block it.

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Best Buy (BBY) this morning reported sharply higher-than-expected profits for its fiscal fourth quarter ended Feb. 28.

For the quarter, the last large national electronics retailer posted revenue of $14.724 billion, a bit below the Street consensus at $14.8 billion. But adjusted EPS of $1.61 a share nicely beat the Street at $1.40 a share. (In the release, Best Buy says the Street had been expecting $1.38. But whatever.) Comparable store sales were down 4.9 percent in the quarter, but gross margin improved to 24.6 percent from 23.7 percent a year ago.

For 2010, the retailer sees revenues of $46.5 billion to $48.5 billion; the Street has been forecasting $48.1 billion.

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Electronic Arts (ERTS) this afternoon warned that its revenue and earnings for the March 2009 fiscal year would be below the guidance it provided on Oct. 30. The old forecast was for non-GAAP revenue of $5 billion to $5.3 billion, and non-GAAP EPS of $1 to $1.40 a share. The company said it will not provide any updated guidance for FY ‘09 before it reports FY Q3 results in February.

The videogame company said that the revised expectations are primarily the result of lower than expected sales in North America and Europe.

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Following a beat-and-raise quarter last night for online software vendor Salesforce’s (CRM), the rewards are not what you might expect, with the shares down $11.60, or 17.8 percent, at $53.73. The company’s forecast for a profit of 34 cents to 35 cents for the current quarter, excluding its cost to acquire privately held Instranet, was unimpressive to the Street. But the main worry is that the company’s deferred revenue balance–meaning sales for which it has received payments that have not been recorded as revenue on the income statement–at the end of last quarter signals that new business signings may be slipping.

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Salesforce.com (CRM), which is mainly known for software that helps sales executives track and manage customer prospects, today said it paid $31.5 million in cash for Instranet, a 10-year-old company based in Chicago that makes software to improve product support. Salesforce plans to move Instranet’s software, which is usually installed on customers’ computers, onto its hosted computer facilities. Instranet already has some impressive customers using its software, a lot of it in call center operations, including Comcast (CMCSA). The company’s software is used by 350,000 call center agents around the world. When I asked the company if they will be able to sell product support software as distinct from customer relationship management tools, they noted that Salesforce has already been selling form of support software for four years.

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Novatel Wireless (NVTL) shares are up sharply today after Morgan Joseph analyst Keven Dede upped his rating on the company to buy from hold, setting a price target of $13.

Dede notes that investment presentations by both Novatel and rival wireless broadband card maker Sierra Wireless (SWIR) “included the point that June quarter product sales have remained at solid levels.”

He says that Novatel will introduce two new USB modems in the third quarter, one each for customers at Sprint (S) and Verizon (VZ).
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Videogame software stocks are under some selling pressure today after industry tracker NPD reported April sales that came up short of some estimates.

NPD said video game software sales grew 68% year over year in the quarter. Pacific Crest’s Evan Wilson this morning writes that he had had expected 120% growth. “Results for April are much lower than we had expected across the board, and other forecasts we have seen are not far from our expectations,” he wrote. “Although the data has been incorrect in the past, we checked with NPD and they said they have no reason to believe the current data is incorrect.”

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AT&T is now limiting sales of the Apple iPhone to one per customer, according to a memo to its retail stores published by the blog Boy Genius Report.

Earlier this week, Apple’s online store started listing the iPhone as “currently unavailable.”

Expectations remain high that the company will unveil a 3G iPhone soon, perhaps at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference next month in San Francisco.

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