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.

Most of the music technology scene I cover is US based with a little bit out of Europe, mainly the UK thrown into the mix. From my perch here in Toronto, I can tell you that we have a thriving music scene across our great country of Canada. We are graced with some of the world’s best artists, producers, sound engineers and as an overall economy, we are loaded with a lot of top flight tech talent across different industries.

We are starting to see smart, innovate people meld the two together to establish Canadian music technology companies who are determined to create world class products/services.  We aren’t just good at hockey and throwing snowballs in the dead of winter! We love our music, our artists and many of us are early tech adopters, as evidenced by the young and fledgling music + tech start-up scene developing in cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Just off the top of my head and by no means is this an exhaustive list, we have the likes of Backfed, Mediazoic, IOUMusic, LyricFind, Fanteraction, Zunior, OpenMicScene, Ecoutez and Bandzoogle doing some amazing stuff. And the latest, YouPhonics, which just launched at NXNEi last month.

Fresh out of the gates after being heads down developing a new music creation/collaboration tool, Aidan Nulman threw open the digital doors by hosting a launch party which brought together more than 100+ people passionate about music, technology, arts and culture. Right now the service is invite only but if you keep an eye out on the YouPhonics and Aidan Nulman’s Twitter stream, you should be able to get your hands on an invite. Or, leave a comment and I can hook you up as well.

On top of growing his start-up, Aidan is chronicling life as a first-time digital music entrepreneur. His posts are very engaging, witty and is sharing his experiences in open and honest detail. Anyone who is currently working on their start-up will likely share a lot of the ups and downs facing every new, young company. A must read in my opinion.

The Canadians are coming, with a few cases of beer in hand! Keep an eye out for us! You will be seeing and hearing more about music+tech innovations coming out of Canada!

The other industry event I attended was the PriceWaterhouseCoopers launch of the annual Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2010-2014.  The study covers the global market for music, video games, movies, newspapers, magazines, radio and advertising.  Following a year of decline in 2009, the global entertainment and media market is forecasted to grow by 5% compounded annually over the next five years,  reaching US$1.7 trillion, up from US$1.3 trillion in 2009. Latin America and Asia Pacific are the fastest growing regions, while growth in the world’s biggest media market, North America, will be much slower. Consumer spending is expected to be strongest in the video game, TV subscriptions and movie markets. Forecasted music spending is near the bottom of the list, which is probably not a surprise to many people. Glenn Peoples at Billboard.biz provides his analysis on PwC’s music (physical/digital) forecasts.

Some of the major themes explored in the report include:

• The rising power of mobility and devices and the growing dominance of the Internet experience which is being driven by consumers.
• Media consumption has become a collective social experience.
• Testing the limits of paid content and a move from ad-supported to hybrid revenue models. There is a lot of experimentation with business models trying to find the right mix.
• Increasing engagement by going “hyperlocal” and consumer readiness to pay for content driven by improved consumption experiences and convenience.

You can download a copy of the presentation here (PDF) which provides global stats by various market segments and insights into what is yet to come. Combine this report with Morgan Stanley’s internet trends and mobile technology research and you have yourself a pretty good base of “free” market forecasts and intelligence to work with.

Investments and Mergers/Acquisitions

The first few months of the year started off strong and by the end of the second quarter, investment activity slowed down, with a lot more takeovers and acquisitions this past month. It’s still a pretty challenging environment for any digital music startup looking to raise money.

Total 2010 Investments as of June 30th, 2010

Q1/10: $99.6m
Q2/10: $104.25
2010 total to-date: $204m

• Sonicbids Acquires ArtistData, Terms not Disclosed. Will we see more music service consolidations?
• HP buys streaming music firm Melodeo for between $30m-35m
• Ticketfly buys music event site Gigbot to gain ground on Ticketmaster
• Triton Digital Media Acquires StreamTheWorld
• Pandora Raises an Undisclosed Fifth Funding Round Financing
• Inspired Instruments Raises $1.25M, Lets You Rock Out On A Digital Guitar
• BuzzMedia Adds Music Blogs Gorilla vs Bear and PureVolume, Partners with Hype Machine, RCRD LBL, PopMatters
• AudioBoo Lands Funding, Partners, Radio Deals
• Guardian Media Group Buys UBC’s MXR, Takes Its iTunes Tagging Service

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

Seven45 Studios to pump new life into music games – Looking to revive a once hot gaming category by introducing a new kind of faux guitar and a unique kind of drum set.

LimeWire Planning A Serious, Cloud-Based Comeback – A diversionary tactic or a legitimate attempt to square things up with the labels? Are they looking to capitalize on whatever brand power they may have left to launch a service that will attract paying consumers, fast? And if they do successfully relaunch, will anyone really care given all the ticks and fleas that LimeWire may never shake-off?

Sound Around – Another in the growing line-up of DIY iPhone app development targeted at bands.  Ryan at Virtualmusic.tv does a great job covering the backstory of this new music startup.

UK supermarket Tesco is preparing for to launch of a digital locker service for music and movies -  “The way it would work practically is that when you buy a disc in store or online, that title would be put up into your Digital Locker which would immediately be accessible from devices registered to that locker.”

mSpot Opens Up Freemium Cloud Music Service in a Bid to Pre-empt Apple and Google; In-Depth Q&A with CEO Daren Tsui – First 2GB are free with plans running up to 100GB per month. Only works on Android phones for now and what differentiates mSpot from other locker services is the way they are navigating around the licensing issue by not having a master copy of a song that is served out to listeners, but will keep individual copies for each user who uploads it, which they believe is in keeping within fair use laws and therefore doesn’t require any additional royalty payments.

GarageBand Online Music Community Shuts Up Shop – Being in operation for ten years, especially a digital music business, is quite the feat. Garageband spawned social music discovery service iLike, now owned by MySpace. The general consensus around the web is that the service won’t be missed very much, having lost its lustre over the past few years.

Mixlr: Share Live Music On The Web – A new platform for DJs, bands to share live music straight to the web. You can broadcast live or upload prerecorded sets.

Tastebuds.fm – This LastFM powered music dating service helps you connect with other single people who share the same love of music. Very slick interface and easy to use.

Fanit – This new service builds on the “true fan” concept. It’s built around a gaming theme where you have to take certain actions (for example: promote on social networks, buy badges with the money going directly to the artist) within a 60 days period to prove you are a true fan. If you don’t achieve this status, you start again.

Aviary Launches Music Creator – New in-browser music creation web app lets users access free and Creative Commons instruments/loops to create music and beats for commercial and non-commercial purposes.

Slacker Radio Announces iPhone, iPad and iPod touch Station Caching for Listening Everywhere – This new feature seems like a first for internet radio. I think it’s kind of cool, especially when you don’t have the time or even know what you want to listen to. Pick a station and download programmed music for offline listening.

HomePipe now streams your iTunes to Android, other files too – Another service that lets you access all your local files (music, photos, video, files) from your iPhone and now Android.

Thumbplay Releases Subscription Music For iPhone – Thumbplay, once a dominant ringtone provider, is switching gears to leverage the smartphone boom, and is placing its bets on full-track subscription music services.

Koitunes – Currently in private beta, this new music service is a Twitter overlay app which helps you discover music that your Twitter followers are posting or talking about. The service supports LastFM, Pandora, Blip, theSixtyOne, Spotify, as well as a handful more.

Buzzdeck – UK-based digital distributors AWAL launch a new real-time analytics tool designed to help enable labels and managers to better track and respond to any buzz growing for their artists or releases online.

Aupeo – Personal streaming internet radio. Based on a recommendation engine and mood station that are powered by the latest innovations from the Fraunhofer Institute, inventors of the MP3.

Opinions, Insights and Analysis

Google Needs To Decide Which Side Of The Music Industry Fence It Is On – “The labels and Google need their relationships to be as amicable and as fruitful as they can be. The experience of Apple shows that antagonizing a key channel partner just wastes energies for both parties and does little or nothing to help the competition and does nothing to help the fight against free.”

A Guide To The Cultural Battle That Is Reshaping The Media Business – “The challenge for big media companies is not just financial. They have to find a way to embrace the power of their users and change their thought process and attitude towards their customers, while not alienating the creator-centric model that currently pays the bills.”

The Music Radio Solution – “Consumers are dictating what devices they prefer, how they want to listen (in shorter segments), where (on their mobile devices) and with whom (their social networks).”

Hidden in plain view: Google Music’s stealth infrastructure – “It’s called YouTube AudioSwap, and it’s really quite clever. When you upload a video to YouTube with a music soundtrack, you can opt for your low bitrate version to be replaced by a superior quality master recording from Google’s own extensive collection of master recordings. What’s that, you ask – you’re saying that Google has an extensive collection of master recordings already? Indeed it does. Fully licensed, with publishing information.”

We Need Digital Lockers More Than Ever – “We now live in a world where we have multiple devices on which we want to consume various forms of media: TVs, desktop PCs, laptops, smartphones, tablets, eBook readers, and more coming. We need a locker. We need an open, authenticated location in the cloud where we can store, access, receive, organize, and share our digital media. Media is too fragmented online.”

Getting into the digital groove: The top five of music 2.0 – Five new digital music projects using crowd-sourcing, cool coding and collaboration to help the music industry rock out in the digital age.

C’est Lala Vie: Does A “Stream Any Song Once” Model Make Sense for Apple’s iTunes? – “And the problem with free, ad-supported streams is that ad rates simply aren’t high enough to allow the streaming services to offer reasonable payments to labels for each stream, let alone generate enough profit to support and grow the company.”

You, the D.J. Online music moves to the cloud – “The anonymous programmers who write the algorithms that control the series of songs in these streaming services may end up having a huge effect on the way that people think of musical narrative—what follows what, and who sounds best with whom. Sometimes we will be the DJs, and sometimes the machines will be, and we may be surprised by which we prefer”

Upcoming Music + Tech Events

• OpenMusicMedia NYC – New York City, NY – July 7th, 2010
• Social Media and Direct 2 Fan Music Marketing – Toronto, ON – July 7th – July 8th
• Latin Alternative Music Conference – New York City, NY – July 6th – July 10th
• Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference – London, UK – July 5th – July 8th
• Music 4.5 Goes Practical – How to use local, social and cultural content and grow globally – London, UK – July 7th, 2010
• Vinyl Music Festival – Sarisota, FL – July 15th.
• Beirut Music Conference – Beirut, Lebanon – July 14th – July 18th
• The Conclave Learning Conference for Radio Broadcasters – Minneapolis, MN – July 15th – July 17th
• The New Music Seminar – New York City, NY – July 19th – July 21st

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 software 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.

Recording Industry sales sink to a new low.

I’ve compiled a selection of some of the most important music industry news of the past week, along with a few of my own thoughts. Let me know in the comments section if you think I’ve missed anything notable.

Music News from Around the Web

Album sales at lowest point in decades

The good news just keeps rolling in!

For the week ending May 30, the U.S. music industry sold a total of 4,984,000 albums, according to Nielsen Soundscan. This figure, which includes new and catalog releases, represents the fewest number of albums sold in one week since Soundscan began compiling this data in 1994.

By comparison, album sales for the week ending May 31, 2009, totaled 5.76 million. The highest one-week tally recorded during the Soundscan era is 45.4 million albums, in late December, 2000.

Let’s not kid ourselves here, this is grim stuff. However, as anyone who has been reading this blog for a while knows, this is not the whole story.

Record sales continue to decline – rapidly – but the music industry as a whole continues to grow and show incredible potential. So, independent musicians take heart. These numbers are only one piece of the puzzle that continues to add new pieces each day. That means that it is growing more complex, but also more diversified. Which is good news, especially when we are watching the flagship go belly up into the water. Read the full report at Billboard.

ArtistData acquired by Sonic Bids

ArtistData acquired by Sonic Bids

Sonicbids has acquired ArtistData, a popular platform that many musicians and labels use to simultaneously update their content across the web. The move signals an expansion for Sonicbids beyond its popular electronic press kits and gig opportunities to also helping artists promote their shows after they’ve been booked. ArtistData founder Brenden Mulligan has been named Vice President of Strategic Development for Sonicbids.

This came as a bit of a surprise to me, only because last year I met with ArtistData founder Brenden Mulligan near his home-base in Chicago, and he seemed pretty excited about other plans he had for the service. It sounded at the time that his play would be data analytics, and perhaps that’s part of what made ArtistData so attractive to buyers. Sonic Bids was not the first suitor to approach Mulligan, but it looks like he was finally made an offer he couldn’t refuse. Read more at Hypebot.

Social works for Spotify.

Spotify goes social and watches premium subscriptions double

More evidence that the power of the social graph in music discovery:

The daily number of people signing up for Spotify’s paid Premium service has doubled since the update to its desktop client in late April that added Facebook-fuelled social features and the ability to play a user’s locally-stored music.

That’s according to Spotify’s UK managing director Paul Brown, in an interview for the latest Music Ally Report. “As we put Social and Local out there, Premium subscriptions doubled on a daily rate,” he says. “For us, it’s increased consumption, it’s brilliant for discovery, and we’re getting a net positive increase in people stepping up the ladder to pay.”

Read more at Music Ally.

MySpace Co-President latest to walk out the revolving door

In a shocking turn of events, MySpace has confirmed that Co-President Jason Hirschhorn has left the company a mere four months after accepting his co-leadership role with Mike Jones. Who would have thought when MySpace announced it was appointing Co-Presidents that it would end badly? Read more at Billboard.

Reports claim AOL to sell Bebo

…and the world asks, “What’s Bebo?”

In the scale of huge corporate mistakes, AOL’s acquisition of Bebo in 2008 ranks pretty highly. AOL paid $850 million for the social network, then watched it fade into mediocrity as Facebook left it for dust. Now a series of reports have suggested that AOL has agreed a deal to sell Bebo to a private investment group for a mere $10 million. Ouch.

Read more at Music Ally.

More Music Industry News:

Record sales for week ending 6/13/10 at the Lefsetz Letter.
Music publishers file suit to shut down LimeWire – HypeBot.

Congratulations! Your MySpace page will no longer have to look like this...

Announcing the winners of the MySpace Redesign contest, plus a special rate for the first 10 Creative Deconstruction readers to sign up for an account. Details below.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the ‘Transform your MySpace Page into Something that Doesn’t Suck’ contest! If you don’t know what I’m talking about, click here. In order to enter, readers had to tweet their best music business advice and tag it with the hashtag #CD140. As promised, today I have picked the winners. You can find all the entries by searching #CD140 on Twitter. I know I said I would only pick 5, but I made the executive decision to pick 6 instead. They’re my rules, after all.

The winners, in no particular order:

1. @LunaChicaRecord Fans are worth more than what they pay for your music. Online stores know all the info on who buys it, but do you?

2. @edhombre Make really incredible unique music. Make every gig & every artifact as amazing as you can. Repeat.

3. @radionowhere How to make it as indie band?As @tywhite sez, “quality is hyperefficient”. No point tweeting until music smokes.

4. @jensjolund DIY artists: engage authentically in all aspects of your career. Focus on what you have to give.

5. @Dezmund You cant do everything yourself. Write rehearse and perform. Enlist some quality help for all of the other stuff.

6. @richmondmike Advice for bands? Get a proper job, it’s much less trouble in the long run.

If you’re on this list make sure you are following me on Twitter so that I can send you a direct message with the access code to your new free account with MySpace 360 Wizard. Congratulations!

Important note for those who didn’t win:

If you are interested in optimizing your band’s MySpace page with the MySpace 360 Wizard but didn’t win, I have good news for you. Dave and Cara have given me 10 accounts to offer to you at 30% off the normal retail price. This is the best deal you are going to get anywhere on this tool, but you’ll have to act quickly because these discounted accounts are on a first come, first serve basis.

The first 10 people to use the coupon code ‘CD140′ will receive the discount. Click here to order.

Flava Flav may soon have to downgrade to some smaller bling.

I’ve compiled a selection of some of the most important music industry news and commentary the past week, along with a few of my own thoughts. Let me know in the comments section if you think I’ve missed anything notable.

Public Enemy Cut Their Sellaband Target to $75k

Hip-hop legends Public Enemy burst onto the crowd-funding scene a few months ago with an ambitious $250,000 target. Since then they’ve been having a bit of trouble reaching that goal…

“We have learned that the fan funding model is still not fully developed and, as a result, a $250,000 fund raising effort, while possible, will take too long to accomplish,” explains a new post on their SellaBand page. “We now believe that a $75,000 fund raising target will fulfill the needs for a new recording project and is much more appropriate for the strength of the existing SellaBand model and the current economic climate.”

The language of their announcement is careful not to accept too much blame for their failure to raise the amount of money they originally hoped for, but I also think they have a point. So far, fan-funding seems to be working most effectively with smaller projects and more reasonable goals.

Could it also be that fans are hesitating a bit to fund a legacy act like Public Enemy that has a) already seen much success and b) lacks relevancy for many of today’s hip hop fans? Read more at MusicAlly.

Canadian Copyright Laws May be Getting a Reboot

Ah, the endlessly complex world of copyright law. The Canadian government is debating a bill that would effect the way its citizens are allowed to interact with the digital music they have purchased.

The bill, which was introduced in Parliament yesterday (June 2), is intended to modernize copyright laws that were last updated in 1997. At present, it is illegal for Canadian citizens to copy CDs onto digital music players.

“Simply put, our law governing copyright has not kept pace with the breakneck speed at which digital technologies are moving,” Industry Minister Tony Clement told a televised news conference in Montreal.

Read more at Billboard.

More Details Surface About Google’s Music Services, Including a Really Creative Name

Google announced it’s second foray into the world of digital music a couple of weeks ago (the first being music streaming and download results within Google search.) In very Google-like move, they have apparently selected to call the service ‘Google Music.’ A little on the nose, maybe, but it certainly get’s the job done. The real question is, will their product be compelling enough to steal some of Apple’s thunder as they most likely reveal a seriously revamped iTunes next week? Read more at TechCrunch.

But is it worth the fee?

Rdio.com is Like Lala, but Without All the Fun?

Skype and Kazaa founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom unveiled more details this week about their cloud-based music service Rdio.com.

It compares people’s music collections to its own catalogue, then lets them stream the songs that match to any device, including web browsers and mobile phones.

Sounds a whole lot like my favorite music service Lala (RIP), except:

The service will cost $4.99 a month for web-only access, and $9.99 a month to include mobile access via iPhone, BlackBerry or Android handsets.

Also, no mention of anything similar to Lala’s 10 cent cloud-based music purchases, or what kind of recommendation engine it will feature, if any. So far it looks like the world may have to wait a bit longer for a real replacement for Lala. Will Apple deliver? Read more at MusicAlly.

More Music Industry Headlines:

The ‘Nuts and Bolts of Touring’ is a great case study from OneWorkingMusician.com.
Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber managers talk tech and social media promotion over at Hypebot.
Gorillaz replace U2 at Glastonbury festival via Billboard.

Google held their annual I/O developer conference over two days in May where they (and their partners) announced a number of new initiatives including Google TV, mSpot, a music streaming/syncing service for the Android and their acquisition of Simplify Media, which allows streaming of locally-stored media to Android devices.

Next up is Apple’s annual developer’s conference (WWDC) set for June 7th – June 11th. Rumours and speculation abound about whether AppleTV will receive an update to compete against GoogleTV, although comments by Steve Jobs at the All Things Digital conference seems indicates that there isn’t a viable market for setup top boxes and Apple still considers AppleTV a hobby. If you believe opposite of what Jobs is saying, Apple is probably ready to dive head first in this business.

Also, now that Lala has been shutdown as of May 31st, the big question is whether Apple is ready to launch “iTunes in the cloud” next week.For those who can’t wait to stream music here are three different options to stream to your iPhone.

Google and Apple are two key technology companies (along with many others) working on media convergence strategies (reading, watching and listening) and preparing to battle for the networked media life. There are a lot of questions and unknowns around licensing/copyrights, partnerships with content providers, consumer behaviour (are they ready? will they pay?), open vs. closed ecosystems etc that will need to be addressed and negotiated over time. Not there yet, but inching closer.

In the meantime, there are no shortage of available hardware and software options. For most media + tech geeks, we have had access and used personal media streaming technology (Subsonic, Orb, Roku, Popbox, Boxee, Plex etc) but what does it mean for the mainstream music consumer? Most people don’t have the time or patience to setup and maintain their own media servers. So maybe Apple (with Lala’s technology) and Google (with Simplify Media) in particular might make it easier to user and legitimize these services for mass market adoption. Mainstream consumers will make decisions and choices based on what the big guys do and how these products/services are developed, marketed and supported.

David Pakman in an audio interview discussing music’s next evolution made the point that music must become “part of the very fabric of the web, not merely an overlay on top of it”. When you look back in history, Sun Microsystem’s earliest slogan, first uttered by John Gage was “The Network is the Computer.” As the underlying technology advances and evolves, the concept of the cloud is really nothing new.

Which leads me to my next point and that is every year seems to be the “year of the cloud”. For those of us working with or closely following technology, we are very familiar with the term and have discussed it endlessly. Overused buzz word and clever marketing for sure but for the everyday consumer, all they want is affordable access that is fast, convenient and just works. The “cloud” won’t mean very much to them. And why should it? Isn’t terrestrial radio in the cloud? Or cable/satellite TV? I’m sure I’m not the only one to think this but it really is time to put the term “music in the cloud” to bed because what we are really talking about is access and by extension choice, whether it is digital downloads, streaming or physical (CD/Vinyl/DVD).

The future as always is exciting, innovation is fraught with failures from which the next defining consumer product always emerges.

Investments and Funding

A quieter month with only a handful of investments and news that Terra Firma secured $156 million in order to avoid a Citigroup takeover.

Total 2010 Investments as of May 31st, 2010

Q1/10: $99.6m
Q2/10 (to-date): $73m
2010 total to-date: $172.6m

• Social Radio Startup Jelli Closes $7 Million Funding Round 1
• Ticketfly Raises $3 Million
• Media Trading Service Swaptree.com Lands $6 Million
• Google Acquires Media-Sharing Technology Firm Simplify, Terms and Financials Not Disclosed
• Investors Back Music Discovery ExtensionFM Plug-in For Google Chrome, Raise $500k
• Jingle Punks Music Completes Substantial Equity Financing, Terms and Financials Not Disclosed
• AudioMicro Acquires Audioo, an online voicemail sharing service
• Spotify Community ShareMyPlaylists Has Six-Figure Funding To Go Proper

As I mention each month, this isn’t a comprehensive list and the numbers 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 investments, please don’t hesitate to comment below.

Music Services and Apps

Incredibox – Admittedly, this is a bit of time waster but this Flash-based app lets you create your own beatboxing acapella vocal group.

Trntbl.me – Turn any Tumblr blog into a playlist. For those who don’t realize it, Tumblr is an incredible place for music discovery and personal recommendations. To see this action, take a listen to some of the 539 tracks I have posted over the past two years on my Tumblr blog.

Hitmaker is a new iPhone app with the goal of making music listeners into music influencers. The basic premise is you promote music within your social circle who then decide how good your picks are. You collect points and work your way into beoming a music mogul.

25 Music Apps for the iPad – A pretty impressive list of apps. The more I see the various demos and videos, the more I realize that an iPad will have a future in my hands.

AudioDraft gives musicians new tools for online, worldwide collaboration – Designed to let artists collaborate on a commission, sharing the financial risk of not winning the deal and sharing the prize money, if they win.

mSpot already offers a mobile movie streaming, mobile radio and are now moving into the mobile music space. We will see more of this media convergence with Google and Apple leading the charge. Naturally this makes sense.

LoKast is a “disposable” proximity based social network that utilizes bluetooth to connect people within a 300ft radius. Some bands are using it to broadcast pictures, music and other content at their shows to fans in attendance who in turn can also connect with other attendees.
According to this recent patent filing, Apple is also working on their version of an event-driven, proximity based social networking platform called ‘iGroup”.

Radioweave which is similar to Byo.fm, lets you “weave” a personal radio station filled with podcasts, music, traffic, weather, news and even your Twitter channels. Listen on the web, iPhone/iPod touch, and Android devices. Will commercial radio stations ever take this customized approach?

Play.me and Echonest Combine Forces by separating music app development (APIs) from the complexities of music licensing. This is smart and progressive thinking. Developers can focus on making the best possible music apps and yet have full access to legal and licensed music without worrying about getting sued into oblivion.

The Best of British Digital Music Startups – Musically reporting from the Brighton for The Great Escape conference, reports on a number of UK music startups including Music Glue, MusicMetric and RjDj.

Music Hack Day weekends keep getting better and better. The sheer genius and creativity is mind blowing! I spent a bit of time reviewing the hacks that came out of last month’s SF Music Hack Day and here are a few that really stuck out.

• Six Degrees of Black Sabbath – This is absolutely wild! Enter the names of two artists and follow the path that connects them. I made a path from Death Cab for Cutie to The Smiths. Interesting results.
• Overhere – Love your friends music taste? Type in your friends LastFM account name and using Spotify listen along in (near) real-time.
• Bragging Rights – “A very hasty morning hack designed to answer the one question on every music hipster’s mind: Who heard it first?” Come on, who hasn’t at least once got into a “discussion” with a friend over who discovered what first?
• The Swinger makes any song swing. It does this be taking each beat and time-stretches the first half of each beat while time-shrinking the second half. Take a listen to a few different songs including Guns N’ Roses, Metallica and the Police. Try it out here.
• (My) Bands in (Your) Town – A widget you can post on your blog that lets your vistors know which bands you like (via LastFM) are playing in their town (via Bandsintown).

You can see a list of all the SF hacks here. More live Music Hack Day reports can be found here, here and here.

Playdio – A clever way to use digital music services like Spotify to include full length and licensed music in a podcast.

Gigswiz – A startup from Helsinki, Finland that just launched an analytics platform for the live music industry. This service helps bands, agents and local promoters make better decisions about where bands should schedule their concerts and tours.

BlueBeat is back with an iPhone app that lets you play from a variety of playlists which they claim are “fully-licensed simulated performances”. Don’t really know what that means. But if you recall, a court injunction last year forced them to shut down their questionable download service that the claimed was legal because they use “psychoacoustic simulations“.

Opinions, Insights and Analysis

As Consumers Steer Clear of Mobile Music Downloads, iTunes Continues to Run the Show – Will consumers have to wait a bit longer while Apple gets all their music streaming ducks in a row (labels, consumer culture and infrastructure)?

Face It – In Music, Devaluation Is The New Reality – Over and above royalties which are deservedly earned by artists, the physical aspect of CDs has overpriced music for many years, very little of which artists ever received. Technology comes along and throws everyone a nasty curveball and artists take the brunt of it. The suits, with their army of lawyers and MBAs will always find new ways of making money while artists are left to fend for themselves in the new music economy. Music, as an art form is not devalued, the old music business model is. A perfect segue to the next article… which is probably very true.

Effects Of The Internet: Cashing In On The Digital Economy – “In a digital economy, big business still loses millions, while the independent musician has nothing but gains.”

The Myth Of “Distribution Is King” – Content is still king! People don’t buy distribution, they buy content.

A Record Collection Of Links: Collecting In The Age Of Streaming Music – “In the age of streaming music, the way one builds a music collection, the looks of it and the way it is maintained differs from the collection as we used to know it. But is the intimate relationship between collector and collection disappearing in the age of streaming music?” Full 30 page essay can be found here.

SF MusicTech Summit which was held in San Francisco on May 17th continues to grow in prominence and importance. Take a look at a some of these post-event reports here and here”.

Everybody is a Music Maker – Dave Haynes of SoundCloud and OpenMusicMedia presented at TEDxCardiff last month where he discussed how we are becoming more than music consumers thanks to the development of music creation/participation tools. Very insightful.

Hypebot has an informative four part interview with Greg Kot who is the author of Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music.

Upcoming Music + Tech Events

• OpenMusicMedia Belfast – Belfast, Ireland, June 2nd, 2010
• MUSEXPO Europe – London, UK, June 14th – 15th, 2010
• Music and Advertising – New York City, NY – June 15th – 16th, 2010
• NXNE Music, Film and Interactive – Toronto, ON, June 14th – 20th, 2010
• Copyright and Technology Conference 2010 – New York City, NY, June 17th, 2010
• 7th Annual Digital Music Conference – Washington, DC – June 25th, 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 on Twitter.

Gabriel Nijmeh is a software 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.

At&t caps bandwidth for iPhone and iPad users.

Apple and At&t are like the couple where the beautiful girl hooks up with the creepy, overweight older guy. Sure he makes a decent sugar daddy, but none of the girl’s friends can quite understand how she can still stomach the guy all these years later.

In yet another move that has put their customers in an uproar, At&t introduced a new pricing scheme that caps bandwidth on 3G data plans at 2 GB per month.

One of the biggest draws of the 3G iPad models introduces last month was the $29.99 no-contract, unlimited data plan that came with it. $30/mo. is nothing to sneeze at, but that unlimited piece was important to costumers because it meant that they didn’t have to worry about metering their use of the device.

Already many potential iPad customers have voiced their disappointment and have indicated that this news may ultimately change their mind about purchasing the device. ‘Data plans’ is currently a trending topic on Twitter.

Capped bandwidth and Apple’s move to the cloud are a contradiction

What concerns me, however, is what this might mean for Apple’s alleged ‘iTunes in the Cloud’ platform that they may or may not be announcing at their World Wide Developers Conference on June 7th.

I was a big fan of music service Lala.com (RIP) which Apple shut down on May 31st. When Apple initially purchased Lala, I had high hopes that they would absorb the platform’s best features – including their flagship cloud-based music catalogue – into  iTunes.

At&t’s ill-timed announcement isn’t likely to have any effect on Apple’s plans – although I imagine they have known of At&t’s plans for quite some time. It may, however, have an effect on how viable a cloud based ownership or music streaming service will be under a bandwidth cap.

I don’t want to make the situation sound more dire than it really is – 2 GB of data per month is a healthy allotment. Right now 98% of iPhone users fall within the cap. I haven’t been able to find any good iPad data, simply because the device is so new.

But if users are treating their iPads as laptop replacements and relying on At&t’s 3G network to support that type of usage, they may run into some trouble under the new restricted plans. Especially if they plan on streaming their music, or keeping their collection in the cloud. Continuous music streaming takes a significant toll on bandwidth.

The timing here really is baffling. As Apple likely prepares to launch a new cloud-based or streaming music service and a new iPhone in less than a week, their sole network provider introduces unpopular new restricted data plans.

Just another reason for the world to hold out hope that Apple will eventually dump At&t.

Read the full At&t press release here.

Record Store Day 2010

Even as many in the music world continue to trumpet the death of the physical release format there is growing evidence that these claims have been grossly exaggerated.

There is no denying that digital has taken hold of the music-listening market. Digital sales continue to climb, and new records are set every few months by artists such as Lady Gaga, The Black Eyed Peas, and others.

However, there is also no denying that the revenue being driven by digital sales pales in comparison to the figures the recording industry once saw during the ages of vinyl and the CD. The new artists might not notice the deficit, but the old-timers and record label executives have certainly felt the pinch in a big way.

The album post-iTunes

At a recent conference in the UK called ‘Never Mind the Box Set: The Album Post iTunes,’ participants bemoaned the negative by-products of the new digital world.

“We have cheapened music so badly,” admitted Paul Conroy, formerly of Virgin Records U.K. and one of the panelists. He pointed to the inflated prices of the past decade as one cause of the CD’s decline. “It was greed and short-termism because we wanted gratification today and we screwed up.”

The participants acknowledged what the DIY music world has understood for years now – that relying on digital downloads as a primary revenue source is very risky due to the ease of digital copying. “If one CD ends up on 10 different iPods, how do we make money?” asked Steve Bunyan of Union Square Music. (Please join me in welcoming Steve to the 21st century…)

Physical releases in the 21st Century

In response to the uncertainty surrounding the recording industry as a whole, there was some interesting data presented that sheds a positive light on the sale of physical formats such as vinyl and collectible box sets.

The most interesting information came from a report by the IFPI, which is based in London and represents the recording industry world-wide.

The report was described as the ‘first ever industry-wide segmentation of the British music-buying public.’ It concluded that revenue from music sales was not behaving the way the industry pundits and analysts were predicting it should. In 2009 73% of music sales in the UK were from physical formats such as CDs and vinyl, with only 19% digital, and the remaining 8% consisting of performance rights.

The report itself doesn’t appear to be online, but you can read Billboard’s coverage here.

Not all consumers are the same

73% is a big deal. It means that while many have shifted their music consumption habits to digital downloading (whether legal or illegal) there is still a healthy subsection of consumers looking to spend their money collecting physical formats, particularly vinyl.

This data might be surprising to many new music industry pundits, but it’s encouraging news for musicians and record labels.

The IFPI report actually breaks the total physical spend down into different categories, including Physical Fanatics, Traditional Physicals, and Digital Dabblers. Each category, as the names suggest, exhibits a different blend of music-purchasing habits. I think these are great distinctions, because they avoid the kind of blanket generalizations that cause artists and record labels to throw all their eggs in one basket – the way so many have done with digital.

Musicians and labels would be wise to pay attention to these demographics because they could provide useful insights into how their particular audience wants to consume their music.

For example, if you are only selling (or giving away) digital downloads, you may be missing out on a significant number of fans that would be interested in purchasing physical products such as vinyl records. Those vinyl record sales mean revenue. It doesn’t take an MBA to understand that if your fans are willing to give you money for something, you should be offering it.

Vinyl is alive and well

It may sound like common sense to offer multiple formats for your fans to choose from. Unfortunately, the DIY movement has been so zealous in declaring digital the Savior of the Unsigned that many have forgotten that there are still many, many people out there who want something physical to purchase.

It’s all part of a natural progression. Something new arrives on the scene and the industry watches as it begins to take hold of the market. They see that nice upward trajectory and the projections begin to grow more and more fantastic with each passing month. Digital is going to take over the world! The CD is dead! Physical releases are dead! The ALBUM is dead!

Is the CD dead? If it’s not it certainly seems to be on its last breath. But physical releases in general? The album itself?

I wrote an article a few months back about a resurgence of vinyl records that continues to grow even as CD sales – and recorded music sales in general – continue to decline. That data, along with the information collected by the IFPI report, suggest strongly that we all jumped the gun a bit in our doomsday projections.

More people are buying vinyl records. The majority of these vinyl releases seem to be special editions with unique packaging, or box sets that give a new depth and design edge to an existing catalogue. These types of releases use the sonic advantage and nostalgia of the vinyl format to give fans something of value. And, so far at least, fans have proven that they’re willing to pay for that value.

Artists – are you taking advantage of this?

Photo credit: Tom Mcshane.

I’ve compiled a selection of some of the most important music industry news of the past week, along with a few of my own thoughts. Let me know in the comments section if you think I’ve missed anything notable.

Music News from Around the Web

If you can’t make money selling records, and you can’t make money touring…

Imogen Heap

Imogen Heap is certainly not a nameless artist working for her big break. She has won a Novello award, a Grammy, and her music has been featured on a host of TV shows and film soundtracks including Garden State and The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Still, with the majority of US venues being owned by a single monopoly (as well as similar issues in other parts of the world) and record sales hitting record lows, it has apparently become difficult to make ends meet for even relatively successful artists such as Heap. Read more at The Guardian.

We’re The Same We’re the Same We’re….

Not exactly music industry news, but applicable nonetheless. Look at all the band websites, MySpace or Bandcamp pages out there and it’s unfortunate how many of them look like carbon copies. In his most recent post, marketing mastermind Seth Godin advises companies (and bands) to build websites and online identities that actually communicate what is unique about them. In other words, don’t spend your energy trying to fit – spend your energy trying to stand out. Read more at Seth’s Blog.

Love Thy Hater: How to Learn and Profit from ‘Bad’ Feedback

Justin Boland of DIY hip-hop blog Audible Hype dropped this post yesterday. The headline says it all, but here are some of the choicest bits:

“This is a business, not a talent show.  That’s real simple but 90% of rappers will still complain about their skills getting slept on.”

“If you really thought you were the shit, you wouldn’t need to prove it.  Arrogance is actually not confidence, it’s insecurity.”

“So when I get this type of criticism, I ask for more detail: was it my mix, was the emcee wack, was the structure wrong, has it been done before, are the rhymes elementary, was the hook weak? I want to know these things. If enough people say them, I’ll learn from it. And overall it can help the listeners become better listener as well.”

The entire post is well worth a read. You can find it here: AudibleHype.com.

Record Sales Week Ending 5/23/10

Glee

Here are some excerpts from Bob Lefsetz’ weekly recap of the charts. Are the charts really a good way of measuring what’s going on in music? Of course not. Nevertheless, it is still interesting to see the numbers.

1. Glee: The Music, Vol. 3-Showstoppers Sales this week: 135,748 (Debut.)

“I’d love to tell you this album is crap.  A souvenir for mindless twits.  But instead I’m going to say it’s loaded with certified hits, and you can hear the joy in the performances.  Puts a smile on your face, makes you want to get up and do the Safety Dance yourself.”

2.  Black Keys “Brothers”Sales this week: 73,370 (Debut.)

“If you listen to the opening track of “Brothers”, “Everlasting Light”, you’ll reach for the skip button immediately if you’re not a fan.  You’ll think this music is made for people who are too hip for the room, who use bands as a badge of honor.  And you’d be right, “Brothers” is number one at the Music Monitor Network’s independent stores.”

"Are you as rich as me? Of course you're not!"

3. Justin Bieber “My World 2.0″Sales this week: 61,828. Percentage change: +2. Weeks on: 9. Cume: 1,104,631.

“It’s laden with the sound effects of Top Forty radio.  Yup, all the tracks sound alike, with the synthetic drums, the heavy bottom, the focus on rhythm. That’s what it takes to win on Top Forty.”

4. Damian Marley & NAS  “Distant Relatives” Sales this week: 57,285. (Debut)

“At first this sounds just one step away from being an SNL skit. Imagine rap and reggae meeting…  Is this a marriage we were truly waiting for?”

5. Lady Antebellum “Need You Now” Sales this week: 46,013. Percentage change: -15. Weeks on: 17. Cume: 2,126,068.

“There’s nothing new about Lady Antebellum, but they do the old so well.  This is barely country, there’s just occasional Nashville instrumentation to make sure it’s safe for country airplay.  This is as mainstream as it gets today.  And isn’t it funny it’s outselling all the hits on Top Forty.”

Read more at Lefsetz Letter.

More trouble in paradise

German collection society GEMA was involved in a ‘heavy case of fraud.’ According to reports, 10 members and 2 employees reported live events all across Germany that never actually took place. The members were paid royalties by GEMA for the fake performances. Billboard’s report doesn’t indicate which members were involved in the scam, only that the acts involved were mostly ‘popular music’ but also that ‘no prominent GEMA members [were] among the accused.’

According to Billboard ‘GEMA represents the copyrights of more than 60,000 members (composers, lyricists, and music publishers), and GEMA also represents over 1 million copyright owners all over the world. Worldwide, it is one of the largest societies for authors of music works.’ Read more at Billboard.biz.

More Music Industry Headlines:

Apple is said to Face Inquiry about Online Music Tactics from New York Times.
Supreme Court Rules Pirate Bay Must Stay Blocked from TorrentFreak.
Musicians and Health Insurance: Taking the Pulse from HypeBot.

Photo Credits: Lee Jordan, Kerosene Photography

Music Hack Day San Francisco 2010

The following is a guest report by Kevin English of Fairtilizer and Eleetmusic.com.

Music Hack Day San Francisco gave me that awkward feeling that tends to surface when I am slightly outside of my comfort zone. It was an event like none I had ever seen, in a city that I’d never been, so I guess it was normal that I’d have some nervous excitement. As native Californians sipped their early Saturday morning coffee, geeks from around the globe gathered at Automatic Lounge, headquarters for the creators of Word Press, for 48 hours of unadulterated programming.

Perfectly placed on The Embarcadero at Pier 38 just a few blocks south of the San Francisco Giants’ baseball stadium, our home for the weekend was a curbside first floor loft with gigantic windows and vaulted wood beamed ceilings. Inside, there were more black-framed glasses than MacBooks, the most comfortable office furniture imaginable, and a palpable desire to create the best new music applications.

Programming on site at Music Hack Day

This installment of Music Hack Day, hosted by Paul Lamere, Director of the Application Development Community at The Echo Nest (a musical intelligence company), had an added bit of excitement due to the release of the illustrious iPad. Paul ran the event with an iron fist, only allowing the best hackers to attend and staying on schedule within fractions of a second. I was not only impressed by the types of data collected by The Echo Nest, but also by the way that this information was presented, allowing developers to build their own applications on the spot.

I flew in to meet my colleagues from Fairtilizer (the do it yourself music club) and to announce our newly created API (Application Programming Interface) to the hacker community. Bandcamp, who were also virgins of API development were present alongside veterans from Soundcloud, Last.fm and many more music tech companies. It’s become common place for internet companies such as ours to share information residing within our database with “hackers”, encouraging them to create the latest viral application, or, at worst, an enhanced user experience.

24 Hours, 101 Hackers, 30 Hacks

On day two I arrived back at Automatic Lounge to find the developers fervently working to finish up their makeshift applications. It was apparent that some had not showered or changed clothes, only stopping for caffeinated drinks and bathroom breaks. The tension in the room began to mount as reporters and bloggers were allowed in to cover the awards ceremony. More than just the company sponsored prizes were at stake –they would soon present their work to la crème de la crème of music hackers from around the world. If I remember correctly, there were 101 hackers present who created a total of 30 hacks in a 24 hour period.

Here are some of my favorites:

Bragging Rights – [Web] Because you found it first, man.

Beatport Beatdown - [Web] Review top downloads on Beatport in Songbird while controlling display and playback via punching bag

The Profoundilizer – [iPad] By adding musical interludes, make the tale of your mundane existence sound as profound as an episode of This American Life.

Rj Patriot – [iPhone] Navigate yourself around the world of national anthems using the compass on RjDj. (When its creator pointed his iPhone down towards hell, the US national anthem played to a mixed response of laughter and growls.)

**WINNER** ISticks (w/iTaiko and iSteelPan) – drumsticks for any modern touch device (complete with instructions to make your own).

iSteelPan with drumsticks from ayman on Vimeo

New Frontier in Music and Technology

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m no programmer, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that we have reached a new frontier in the nexus between music and technology. Record labels have fought and continue to fight at their own peril to keep their products private, while a new group of music enthusiasts tout open source applications and services…not to become rich and famous, but to make our lives as music lovers more enjoyable.

Music hackers are the people pushing our industry forward, not label executives or A&R reps. The value that comes with a greater user experience will soon outweigh that of a file format, which is why a video game like Harmonix’s Rock Band is able to monetize at a deeper level than a CD or MP3.

The question about how artists will make money is answered very precisely in this forum. When you have millions of micro payments ($3) for the T-Pain Vocoder iPhone app, that question seems silly. Instead of feeling sorry for yourself, look beyond the tip of your nose to see where the innovations lie. It’s true we all can’t be T-Pain, but would it have mattered if we were the ones who came up with the idea and hired Smule to program it for us? I think not. If that was the case how do we explain the runaway success of the Magic Piano and Leaf Trombone made by the same company? No brand recognition there, just pure innovation.

If you are reading this with your face turned up in defiance of the truth, recognize that you are in a rut, shake the cobwebs out and join the geeks – because if they don’t already, they will very soon run the new music industry.