Reelr.tv is here to stack the odds higher than ever before as far as sharing music on Twitter goes. Users of this service (which was originally launched as MTweeV.com) can have all their music-related tweets turned into a live broadcast that everybody else can tune into.
Reelr.tv manages to do that by matching all the artists and songs that people are tweeting about to the YouTube videos that go with these. And using the service itself is kept really simple, as all one should do is to include a music-related hashtag (#nowPlaying) for tweets and videos to be matched. Continue reading →
Groovebug is based on a great idea, namely doing for music videos what Fipboard does for social network feeds. In case you’ve been locked in a cupboard for the last couple of months, Flipboard is an iPad app that can take care of collecting all the information that is otherwise distributed all over your favorite social sites, and have it presented as a magazine. This magazine can include everything from pictures to videos, and it can be flipped using the kind of hand gestures that make one feel like a character out of Star Trek.
Well, Groovebug does pretty much the same, but only that for the music you love. Groovebug takes a good look at your iTunes library, and then it uses what it finds there to assemble the pages of a magazine 100% suited to your tastes.
Groovebug is mainly powered by YouTube and The Echo Nest, with a custom aggregation engine also being used in order to retrieve these videos that are going to be displayed. The Echo Nest, incidentally, is one of the hottest new names around – it’s a music intelligence platform that is employed both by heavy-hitters like Spotify and Rdio. Continue reading →
Songspin.fm is here to cater to all your music discovery needs. With its ability to let you pick a genre and produce a random tune after the other for you to go through, it does remind me a lot of Chatroulette. Only that Songspin.fm has no unsavory aspects to damage the overall experience of users (or to enhance it beyond belief – I guess both vantage points can hold true).
Rock, Pop, Metal, Indie, Dance, Electronic, Hip Hop, Rap… all these genres are already supported. You simply pick the one that makes you go all noddy, bang the “SPIN” button and squeeze your headphones with your mitts if you like what comes in. And if you don’t, then you simple hit “SPIN” again. Ease of use? Up there, with Odin and Thor.
And Songspin.fm also has a social dimension to it, for those who are really popular on sites like Facebook and Twitter. They can share the best selections that they come across when using the site, and start influencing their counterparts in a way not possible ever since Yahoo! insensitively pulled the plug on GeoCities.
Poor record companies. They get such a lot of stick for having taken so long to adapt to the challenges posed by digital music that they all end up looking like grotesque villains.
Granted, most industry men moved slower than dead people at the onset of the digital era. They failed to do things when they should have done them. They lost money for themselves and for their clients (IE, these artists that we believe in so passionately). But what’s in the past is in the past. There’s no point in keeping on chastising the industry for all its previous errors. It would be much, much better to try and carry on using all the knowledge that was gained as a true point from which to move into the future. And that’s exactly what this young company is here for.
MuseSpring provides people with all the knowledge they could need to succeed in the music industry as we know it right now. The company offers a myriad of different online courses on its site, along with access to business services and corporate support. That should be enough to let any struggling company renew its strength. And those who are planning on launching a company of their very own are even given the chance to secure some funding through MuseSpring.com.
At the end of the day, it all boils down to a simple (and inescapable) fact – the music industry has changed, and the common practices of yesteryear now stands as nothing short of archaic. For companies, it’s time to start moving ahead or be left in the dust. Services like MuseSpring have got what it takes to point the way, and show those who understand the importance of moving with the times take one firm step after the other.
Restorm is here to answer the prayers of all these bands that have had it with paying exorbitant fees to license their music online. This new platform has been created to put an end to that, and to allow musicians to license (and sell) their music to anybody, paying the lowest possible commission (only 10%).
Registration to this service is free, and bands can have their music and data imported from any other service they might already be using, so a profile is created in a flash. Oh, and the process can be sped up even more since one can sign in using his already existing Facebook profile. Continue reading →
With The Release Of The First “App Album” Ever, Bjork Is Creating A New Way For Musicians To Market Their Art.
It’s great to see that while some musicians waste their time blaming the Internet for their declining album sales, others are actually embracing the latest technology and offering punters whole new ways to experience their music.
Bjork is one such artist. She has come up with the first “app album” in history. This app album is available both for iPhone and iPad, and it is basically made up of ten songs. Each of these songs has an app that goes with it, and which must be purchased individually. That is, you have to get the album itself (we could call it “the mother app”), and then buy the separate apps that go with each individual track.
The album/mother app is named Biophilia, and the first app (“Cosmogony”) is available for free. This is what you get when you launch the mother app:
In general, the apps themselves invite you to play games that relate to the theme of each song on the album (such is the case with “Crystalline”, the first “paid” app that has been released – video attached below), and also to create music of your own using your iPad (“Virus”, the second app that was issued). Which is quite fitting, really – Bjork composed “Biophilia” using one such tablet.
Personally, I think that Bjork must be praised for her inventiveness. And that’s regardless of how enjoyable one really finds this “app album” to be. If anything, she is showing us that the new and the old can blend and mix, without the detriment of either.
And you? What do you think of this new approach to music? Do you think other musicians will follow suit, and release their ver own “app albums”? Who is likelier to do it first?
An application that is available internationally, JamCloud is here to let all of us play music and watch videos with all our friends in real time. No doubt inspired by the concept of Google Plus hangouts, JamCloud enables people in any corner of the world to create and join listening rooms for free. And the people who do convene in any of these rooms can not only listen to the music others are playing, but also communicate among themselves thanks to a built-in messaging tool.
What’s more, the music that is played in any room can be voted both positively and negatively. That should let people who land on any room which is mighty crowded figure out which music is worth a try, and which is not really worth the hassle.
Currently, JamCloud has a database of over 325 million songs and videos.
And support for services like YouTube, SoundCloud and Facebook means that it’s dead simple to have playlists and individual songs imported right into any room you have joined. It’s all done by clicking and dropping what you want to have shared with others into the relevant box
Nogeno is the latest site to be released that makes having a profile page where to promote your music an absolute piece of cake. Thanks to Nogeno, just any musician can have an active presence on the Internet, and include everything from a short bio to a calendar listing his every upcoming date. And all the songs he has recorded so far, of course. He can stream these online by way of the provided player, and also sell them for good money. Any musician who uses Nogeno can start generating a direct income, without A & R men getting in the way of what is rightfully his.
A Nogeno page can be created in a breeze, there’s just nothing technical to do or handle – such is the beauty of sites like this and Onesheet. All you have to do in order to get started is sign in using your Facebook account.
And note that if you already have a Bandcamp or a MySpace profile then you can have all your data imported into Nogeno, and be up and running within minutes. In no case will you have to pay anything – Nogeno is free, and (by the looks of it) will remain like that for good.
MPlayr is one of the best ways to stay abreast of what is being played on some of the most representative music charts the world over. On this site, you can tune into the US and the UK music charts, and learn what sounds are trending there. And I mean it – the site lets you do more than just read a list of songs ranking in either territory, it actually lets you listen to them online. That can be done directly on your browser. You won’t have to download anything, and you won’t have to pay anything either.
What’s more, the site has a chart devoted to iTunes. Again – you can see what’s hot in there, and listen to it straight in your browser.
Other meritorious aspects of MPlayr include letting people look up both new and old songs and have them played on the fly, and letting users create playlists they can then share with all their friends on Facebook (the one service which is used for signing in). Continue reading →
If iPads are not many a musician’s best friend, then they might just become it right now. Available for guitar, bass, electric violin and keyboard players, this new StompBox by Griffin can effectively turn anybody’s trusty tablet into a shredding machine.
StompBox is defined by its creators as “a programmable multi-functional foot controller that enables virtual guitar effects”. This foot controller is used in conjunction with Frontier Design’s iShred LIVE app, and it lets musicians switch effects with their feet without having to take their hands off their instruments. Using iShred LIVE, the individual foot switches can be assigned to implement (and control) all the effects one wishes to apply.
The kit comes complete with a special cable for simultaneous guitar, PA, or amp connectivity, and a cable that goes straight into the iPad.
On a side note, this StompBox also works with teleprompters. Users are enabled to control text scrolling and related presentation functions with their feet. So, that’s two birds down with the same stone. Or with $ 99 – that’s how much the whole kit retails for.
