creative deconstruction

Music and Tech Recap – July 2010 Edition

Posted on 04. Aug, 2010 by Gabriel Nijmeh in NEWS, TECHNOLOGY

The usual suspects were in the news again this past month. At this point, it’s a game of rumour and speculation, so there isn’t any “real” news until we hear formal announcements coming from Google about their rumouredmusic service or when Spotify launches their service in the US.

One notable thing this past month has been the huge influx of new music web services which I’m jokingly guessing is because all the computer science college kids, now out on summer break and with time on their hands, are hacking and dabbling away. Some are interesting but generally, we are seeing the same ideas rehashed. Some are building very good standalone features, but nothing that can you classify as a viable business, at least not as this time in their development. You can take a look for yourself below and decide.

Other than that, investment activity was very quiet, which isn’t unusual considering we are in the heart of summer, and a lot of people are taking holidays.

With that said, let’s jump right into July’s music+tech recap.

Investments and Mergers/Acquisitions

Billboard has written up their mid-year music startup investment analysisand there were 30 deals (down from 45) for the first six months of 2010. Most deals were small investments and acquisitions, involving music download or streaming sites such MOG, Veoh, Jamendo, Vringo and Slacker and services for consumers, artists or labels such as Hello Music, Swaptree, Jelli and ArtistData. Overall, investment totals are down compared to last year.

Total 2010 Investments as of July 31st, 2010

Q1/10: $99.6m

Q2/10: $104.25m

Q3/10 (to-date): $1.97m

2010 total to-date: $205.97m

• Mediazoic receives funding from Slaight Communications, a major Canadian media investor.
• SeatGeek Lands $1 Million for Predictive Sports and Concert Ticket Pricing
• Citizen Groove, a digital portfolio/network for music students, receives $250k in Series A funding.
• GigsWiz, developers of analytics/ services for artists, agents & promoters, receives €$150k ($197kUS) in seed funding.

If you are a music startup and want a chance to pitch at MidemNet next January 23-25, 2011, now is your chance to signup at MidemNet Lab. Deadline for applications is October 31, 2010.

As I mention each month, this isn’t a comprehensive list and the numbers (where disclosed) have been pulled from public sources but it still gives us a sense of general investment activity in the music tech space. If I missed any deals, please don’t hesitate to comment below.

Music Services and Apps

Google Music takes a step closer to reality- Google’s plan to challenge Apple’s dominance in the music marketplace is advancing more rapidly than expected. P2Pnet has a critical take that is worth considering.

Ready…set…discover more music on YouTube- A few months back, Vision Critical’s Radio Futures reportindicated that YouTube is the most popular web radio/music service in Canada (Spotify and Pandora are not available and our options are limited) and third most popular in the UK (after Spotify and LastFM). I was initially shocked but now understand why because I’m finding myself using YouTube more and more to listen to music. Eric Garland, of Big Champagne noted that YouTube has become the biggest name in music. I can definitely believe that.

Ultimate Chart- An aggregation of timely, relevant metrics from Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, Pandora, MySpace, Facebook and many others. The top 20+ is fairly predictable and really isn’t for anyone into non-charting, indie bands. No longer driven by sales figures, it is an impressive use of real-time technology that gauges the buzz in the different online channels that music consumers inhabit.

MOG Mobile Music App Now Available for iPhone and Android – I’m hearing from some subscriber’s that this is quite an impressive app and are quite happy with it.

MP3tunes and Roku Partner To Bring Personal iTunes Music Collection To TVs – Media consumption now the blurs the lines between devices, services and media type. People will pay for media convergence that is convenient, personalized and extremely easy to setup. One other announcement last month shows that MP3Tunes is on quite a roll having also launched their “Buy Anywhere, Listen Everywhere”wireless synching initiative.

Flyer – A Desktop Adobe Air app (PC and Mac) that utilizes the Bandsintown APIand ties into your iTunes library to display upcoming concert dates from bands in your music library.

Lyric Discovery – This site helps connect professional and aspiring songwriters with musicians and music industry professionals.

Playlost?- View your entire music collection as a randomized hexagonal grid and make playlists by long, snaking chains.

Mixest- In talking to one of the founders of this service, he told me that “Mixest began as a satirical website for hipsters who found Pandora too mainstream”. Built using HTML5, you can stream music on your iPhone/iPad (works in the background on my iPad) and the selection of curated indie music is actually quite good. I also conducted a Q&A that you might want to check out.

Tunited- Ultravox frontman Midge Ure launches Tunited, a “fairly traded” music site for indie/unsigned artists.

Cloud Music – Very clever beating Google to the punch, for now. The Cloud Music iPhone App Streams Tracks Uploaded to Google Docs.

Xumanii- This service lets you stream your own live shows (concerts, TV, talk shows, special events) built around social networking features that is pretty much Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, uStream, Reverbnation and YouTube rolled into one.

Clear Channel’s Free Mobile Radio Apps Are A Money-Maker – 8 million downloads, average user listens to 3.5 hours and visits an average of four stations a week. Radio station’s overall audience up 15 percent when combining both apps and online, thus creating additional opportunities for ads.

AudioBox.fm- Certainly no shortage of cloud based music streaming services, as Audiobox.fm launches their new iPhone app letting you access your music from anywhere.

Who’s Who In The New Music Gold Rush- PaidContent has put together this extensive matrixcomparing music services like Spotify, MOG, We7 and many others.

The Indie is music cross platform application that uses social influence to help in the discovery, promotion and distribution of music created and owned by unsigned artists, indie artists, and indie labels.

Foot Pedal Turns Sheet Music Hands-Free On The iPad- AirTurn will be launching a Bluetooth page turner foot pedal for the iPad and other Bluetooth-equipped systems that will allow musicians to turn their sheet music pages by foot.

117 Audio Apps for Apple Lovers- Great round of music apps for the Mac, iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad.

IOUMusic – Had a chance to speak with Rob MacArthur, a fellow Canadian from the East Coast, who just launched this patronage/donation platform for fans and artists. Working in the music business for a number of years, he understands the challenges bands face and put together this platform to help facilitate fan funding of their favourite bands.

Opinions, Insights and Analysis

The Service-To-Device Journey: The Key To Success For Digital Music Product Strategy – Music product strategists need to consider that filling a music offering with benefits counts for naught if the barriers of poor integration and implementation render a music experience inert.

Movie, tech giants prep universal online media store – 55 technology companies, content publishers and content distributors have banded together to promote the format under the brand name Ultraviolet. This is all about content control, centralization and standardization. This is an attempt by all the major media companies to retain their power over the consumer by converging their media. Will it fly?

The New Media Content Revolution – “There are many new opportunities cropping up for new media. It is important to understand one thing more than anything else – the consumer.”

Suddenly, I Don’t Think I Want To Own Music Anymore – A personal piece by Brendan Mulligan, and one that I’m hearing more and more from music fans. People want access, everywhere, on any device. I’m also starting to feel this way. The overhead involved with either physical objects or the worry and hassle of downloading and backing up your music collection is turning people off given new lightweight music access options.

On File-Sharing: Are You Smarter Than A 12th Grader?- A thought provoking essay by Kyle Bylin over at Hypebot. Worth taking the time to read both the essay and comments.

The New Music Seminar was held in New York City on July 19-21st, 2010 and there was a lot of coverage by Hypebot, Digital Music News, Billboard, NYSBAand Ryan Van Etten at VirtualMusic has a great photoset. If you are inclined, check out the Twitter stream for #nms and New Music Seminar.

As Always, Mobile Music Faces Uncertain Future – ” Operators who deliver content over their networks want a piece of the pie, but margins in the subscription-music business are already razor-thin.”

The State of Internet Music on YouTube, Pandora, iTunes, and Facebook – There is such an overzealous obsession with metrics in particular the big three: friends, fans, and followers (or FFF). That’s what happens when the bean counters are let loose; music is nothing more than a product to be shifted and sold. Rinse and repeat.

Last.fm: Breaking the US, with 1,000 scrobbles per second- US audience has risen from 3.5 million monthly uniques 12 months ago to 8 million now, and has exceeded revenue targets. 30-40m pieces of listening data is generated every day – equivalent to 1,000 scrobbles per second.

Using an iPad in the Music Industry – The Daily Rind has run an informative three part article on how artists can take advantage of the iPad. Part 1: Artist Assets, Part 2: In the Studio, On the Road, Part 3: Merch, Marketing and Managing.

BlackBerry aims for music industry domination- In a Q&A session with Research in Motion’s director of consumer alliances Alex McCallum talks about why it’s really Blackberry that makes mobile music tick.

The Future of Music Coalition put together a great weekly recap of music+tech+policy+law that is always worth keeping an eye out for.

Upcoming Music + Tech Events

• 2010 En Sound Music Awards & Conference – Houston, TX – August 6th – 8th, 2010
• North Park Music Thing (NPMT) – San Diego, CA – August 13th – 14th, 2010
• Indiegrrl Music Conference – Nashville, TN – August 19th – 22nd, 2010 Bandwidth Conference – San Francisco, CA – August 19th and 20th, 2010
• Cutting Edge Music Business & Roots Music Gathering – New Orleans, LA – August 25th – 29th, 2010
• iNTune Music Conference – Darwin, Australia – August 27th – 28th, 2010
• Coast 2 Coast New Music Industry Convention – Miami, FL – August 27th – 29th, 2010

If you have an upcoming event you want us to post in next month’s music + tech recap, please get in touch with me.

Gabriel Nijmeh is a business analyst, passionate music lover and guitar player. He currently advises a couple of music startups, including Mediazoic, a real-time social DJ platform and co-founded the Toronto edition of OpenMusicMedia which brings people together to openly discuss the intersection of digital music, media and culture.

Tags: artistdata, cloud music, funding, google music, investments, startups