The fourth LP from Beat Radio is close to completion, and close to being able to be pressed to vinyl. Though the campaign has just started, there are already 22 backers and almost $900 towards the $3500 goal.
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Aug 142012
May 172012
People still discover the majority of their music through YouTube-are you one of them?
Mar 222012
Spotify has released 12 new apps within the platform, bringing the total number to 29. I’ll be going through each one, and decided to start with TweetVine. Based on the name alone, we know that the app is integrated with Twitter.
The app was actually developed for Music Hack Day, but creator Matthew Larsen didn’t finish it quite in time.
On the TweetVine website (outside of Spotify), we can see the top songs that have been tagged with #nowplaying on Twitter in segments of “last hour,” “last 6 hours,” “today,” “yesterday,” and “last week.”
Sep 232011
Image via CrunchBase
According to Hypebot, the lack of iTunes (and Apple in general) as an official partner of Facebook will severely decrease the number of songs and albums purchased digitally. They do state that many songs have iTunes integration within them, just not from Facebook itself.
On the other side of things, Spotify’s CEO told us yesterday that Spotify users who are socially connected through Facebook are far more likely to make digital purchases of the music they are listening to.
Do you think the lack of official partnership is hurting the music industry as the author suggests?
Related articles
- Facebook + Spotify = Goodbye iTunes? (mediabistro.com)
- Which Big Music Company Is Missing From Facebook Music? (AAPL) (businessinsider.com)
Sep 232011
In the midst of all of the changes announced at the Facebook conference (f8) yesterday, it is easy to get overwhelmed when trying to find what is relevant to you. As a music lover on Facebook, the apps are the most applicable change to your Facebook use. The following services launched their apps for the new Facebook at f8 yesterday; which ones are you most looking forward to?
Music:
- Spotify
- iHeartRadio
- Earbits
- Jelli
- Rdio
- Slacker
- Songza
Spotify
Moderator Question: “When you look out five years with Spotify and with the music industry Daniel, what do you think is going to be the most interesting thing emerging?”
Daniel Ek: “Well, the most interesting thing really – as I already pointed out – more than half-a-billion people consume music now online. What we want to do is move them back to a legal way of consuming music.
“Our belief really is that the music industry - if we put all those people together and we make them more engaged with music – we’re going to get them to pay for music again, and that’s ultimately going to lead to a world where artists are going to create even more brilliant music and experiment more, because they’ll have the time.
“What really destroys me today is that back in the old days – not that I was around – but you heard all these great stories of people that could spend a year or two in the studio, and they could afford to bring these 50 or 100… bands, orchestras… to record it. These days, we don’t have that luxury.
“What I hope to do is to create this platform for music where people can enjoy it and engage with it, and that in turn will lead to the artist making more money. And by doing that, it will create more interesting music for us to listen to.
“So, I think that it’s an ecosystem and that it goes around. And that’s my hope and belief for the future.”
[Thanks to Digital Music News for the transcript!]
Rdio
Rdio is an official Facebook partner now, allowing users to click any Rdio Play button, and they will automatically have an account created for them.
Many media outlets are debating the pros and cons of Facebook Music, including if it will work at all. Check out some of the related articles to do further reading of your own. Be sure to share your thoughts in the comments below!
Related articles
- Will Facebook Music Actually Work? (techland.time.com)
- In Depth: Spotify on Facebook: what you need to know (techradar.com)
- Facebook Music announced with Spotify, Rdio, MOG, and more (thisismynext.com)
- Facebook teams up with Spotify, Turntable.fm to let users share music (gigaom.com)
Sep 222011
Music Wrap-up of f8
Real Time Serendipity
Seeing what your friends are listening to with Spotify. Your friend is listening to a song, click on it, and it opens in your computer, in Spotify. Listening can spread very quickly through the graph, because it is then shown to your friends.
It’s amazing how much music you can discover through your friends.
Music Timeline View
- Top artists, songs, etc.
- Anything you like, you can click and listen to with whatever you have.
2:00
When you see a friend listening to music, hover over the song, and you are immediately listening WITH them. This gives you the opportunity to have a group listening experience, and talk about it at the same time.
One of the coolest features: You can see when someone discovers something from you.
2:04
In order to make the new model of the music industry (sharing and streaming music) work, we need to discover a LOT of music.
2:05
CEO of Spotify takes the stage.
Today is a big day for Facebook, and big day for Spotify, and a big day for fans of music.
People discover music through their friends. Music has to be free (to draw away from Piracy) and inherently social. What better platform than Facebook?
After Napster, Spotify aimed at using a similar strategy, but legal and helping the music industry.
Spotify users who connect through Facebook listen to more music, and their libraries are far more diverse than non-social users. Social users are also far more likely to purchase music.
Let’s light up the world with music.
2:09
Mark thanks all of the developers making music apps and allowing them to make music more social.
Sep 122011
TechCrunch has published two posts in the last couple of days, sharing what they believe will be released at the f8 conference, as well as two new features they have gotten tipped off about regarding Facebook Music.
At the conference, which will take place on September 22nd, Facebook is expected to announce its entrance into digital music. There have been a number of rumors regarding various partnerships and what exactly the service will entail.
The ability to purchase music with Facebook Credits is an obvious thought. With Facebook Credit gift card being sold in a huge number of stores, could this take a portion of revenue from the iTunes gift card?
Beyond that assumed feature, TechCrunch has heard “from a very good source” that two additional features will be scrobbling and track unification.
Scrobbling will share what you are listening to in your news feed. I think this could make the feed very cluttered with music, something non-users won’t like very much. Because of this, I hope that there is a way to turn the option on or off, or give the ability to share only certain songs with your friends.
Track unification is what I think will be the game changer with Facebook Music. This feature will allow users of any of the major music streaming services (right now, MOG, Rdio, and Spotify) to click any link posted to Facebook and open that song within the service of their choice. This will break down any inconvenience for users who want an easier time to share music with their friends. Once the service has rolled out, it will be interesting to see how easily it works.
What do you think of Facebook Music? Will it make a noticeable difference in the digital music scene?
Sep 092011
It was only a matter of time. With all of the legal issues Turntable.fm has been having, I thought it would be a little more time, though. According to TechCrunch, next week the social music site will be launching its iOS app to the public. (No Android app has been mentioned, but that’s to be expected.)
As for how great the app will be? According to the those who have been testing it out, it’s had pretty solid results over WiFi, but can be spotty on 3G.
Head over to the original article to check out the screen shots they managed to get their hands on!
Aug 222011
With Google Music Beta not being at the tip of anyone’s tongue anymore, it seems the company has created a new way to pique interest-a new music blog. The blog will feature new artists, songs of the day, videos, etc., and hopes to compete for the eyes of music fans looking to discover new tracks and artists.
The connective layer of the music blog is the easy integration readers have with their Music Beta account. If you see an available track you want for yourself, it is incredibly simple to add it to your Google Music Beta library.
Could this be a game changer for Music Beta?
Aug 152011
According to Music Ally, Turntable.fm may not have done as well as expected through July (2011). Instead of the expected 400,000 users for the month, the site is rumored to have seen only 207,000 hits (comScore).
While there has been slightly less press covering the still-new music service, do you think the active user count will continue to decline? Was the hype for Turntable.fm unjustified? Discuss in the comments below.
