New music streaming service Rdio.

Rdio is a brand new streaming music service from the creators of Skype and Kazaa that is currently in private beta. Trials are currently invitation only. For information on free invitations please see below.

This is certainly an interesting time to be launching a music streaming service. Today, Monday, June 7th is the first day of Apple’s always anticipated World Wide Developers Conference, and the day that Apple is expected to announce a new version of iTunes that may or may not include streaming or cloud-based features. (UPDATE: Steve Jobs’ keynote at WWDC 2010 has come and gone without any word of the alleged ‘iTunes in the Cloud.’ Looks like it wasn’t such a bad time to launch after all!)

Spotify still hasn’t made it to US shores, yet continues to gain traction and evolve in Europe. MOG , which launched late in 2009, has a gorgeous interface and a comparably cheap monthly fee -$5 for web access – seems to have had a hard time gaining serious market share.

Lala was my own personal favorite, but of course Apple shuttered it at the end of last month. Lala had, by far, the best social and music discovery features. Their catalog seemed nearly bottomless, sharing among friends and followers was encouraged through a system of points, and the entire site as fully integrated with Facebook. I still hold out hope that Apple plans to embrace Lala’s best features, but only time will tell.

Enter Rdio

How does Rdio stack up against the competition? Well, that depends on who you are comparing it too. I mentioned Rdio briefly in last week’s Friday news roundup, and again a few times on Twitter. So far, it has seemed most natural to compare the service to Lala, due to it’s user interface and the way that it collects songs from your iTunes library and brings them into the cloud. Yet, as one reader pointed out on Friday, it really has more in common with Spotify or Mog. It is a subscription-based streaming service, after all.

In reality, it appears that Rdio is attempting to provide an answer to both.

Here’s how it works. Rdio.com not only allows users to stream thousands of tracks from major and independent label, but also to replicate their existing music library both on the web and their mobile phone. These two features may sound a bit redundant – and they are, sort of – but if you’re asking why you should need your personal collection online if you’re able to stream any track you want anyway, the answer lies in part with your mobile phone.

Rdio apps for iPhone, Blackberry, soon Android phones will allow full streaming access when online, and access to your full collection when offline. Spotify’s mobile apps have features similar to this, but instead cache the tracks you are streaming for offline listening.

The collection matching feature is built on Adobe Air, and works well. The matching process only took a few seconds and there didn’t appear to be any errors or bugs. Rdio does not yet reproduce your iTunes playlists, unfortunately, although there are reports that this functionality is coming.

Shallow catalog may not justify cost

The biggest draw back to Rdio at this point is its catalog. At this point, Rdio has only signed licensing deals with a handful of major and indie labels. If the music you’re looking for isn’t available through those partners, that song can’t be streamed. And, like Lala before it, if that song exists in your personal collection it simply won’t match when the Rdio application is run.

Unlike Lala, however, Rdio’s catalog is currently very limited. Only about 200 tracks from my library were matched, out of the thousands on my hard drive. Let’s be clear – Rdio isn’t even out of private beta, so we should probably cut them a little slack.

However, they will have to hurry up and sign on a few more licensing partners if they hope the general music listening public to fork over the $10 per month subscription cost. At this point I cannot see upgrading my account when my free trial runs out.

User interface is on the right track, but needs some tweaking

Rdio’s interface is clean and easy to navigate. The front page dashboard features a selection of tracks that are currently receiving a lot of play within your network, as well as the most recent activity.

From the top navagation bar you can also choose to browse new music, view your existing collection and playlists, check out user reviews, or review the people in your Rdio network.

One of the most interesting navigational features is found on the collection page. A series of blue bubbles represent the artists in your collection that you listen to the most, the bigger the bubble the more frequent the plays. Think of it as a kind of tag-cloud for music.

Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do with these bubbles other than mess around with where they are positioned on the screen. I found myself wanting to drag and drop these bubbles into playlists, or to be able to remove the ones that I didn’t want there.

Instead you have to scroll through a full listing of the artists in your collection in a sidebar to the left of the screen. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it feels like they’ve missed an opportunity to turn something that is simply fun into something truly useful.

Music Discovery

As the music streaming and online radio market becomes increasingly crowded, services will rise and fall based on how easily users can discover great new music, and how much fun they can have doing it.

This is where Lala excelled, and Rdio borrows heavily from the now-defunct service. There’s just one important piece missing.

Rdio, just like Lala before it, allows users to follow other users and view their playlists and streaming history. Rdio lays it out a bit differently, grouping network activity into Heavy Rotation and general activity on the front dashboard instead of a catch-all stream.

The big piece that’s missing is the incentives that Lala built in to reward sharing. In Lala, when one of your followers purchased or listened to a track at your recommendation you were awarded points. These points didn’t really mean anything, but acted as a sort of influence meter. The users with the most points built reputations as tastemakers.

This was more powerful than it may at first sound. Without built-in incentives to share and promote great music, a user’s network becomes a more passive force in the music discovery process. This is a shame. Because, while I’m sure Rdio’s internal recommendation engine is adequate, there is no substitute for peer-to-peer sharing.

Music discovery can be fun, social and highly engaging. Or, it can be a cold, lonely, technology-driven process that users participate in solely due to a need to feed their musical itch.

Fortunately for Rdio, that itch is just as powerful as ever.

10 Invites Available!

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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.

Digital music services - big updates to Spotify, Lala, and more.

There certainly was a lot of news and announcements in April even though it seemed to me that things got off to a slow start. Ultimately it turned into a Spring awakening as the month rolled on that it became a challenge to keep up with the avalanche of news, stories and announcements.

Some of the bigger stories? Facebook announces their new Open Graph protocol with Pandora as one of the first companies to partner with Facebook. It’s a start but will FB ever make music a spotlight of their service or do they consider music like any other social activity that makes up just another part of your life?

Spotify releases the first significant update in awhile with a heavy focus on sharing and social networking while Lala is finally being shuttered by Apple on May 31st.

Let the Apple game of speculation begin: iTunes in the cloud? Nope not anytime soon because Apple has something even bigger brewing and it has nothing to do with a streaming music service but maybe, just maybe given the timing of Lala’s shutdown, Apple will launch a music subscription service as early June? My guess is Apple will take it slow because of concerns from the labels and they will milk the a la carte market for as long as possible. Apple, as well, does a good job conditioning their users and fan boys so whatever they ultimately release will be carefully planned to stir maximum hype and ensure maximized revenue. I’m not really convinced that Apple cares much for the social aspects of music, seeing it more of a nuisance to achieving their media domination plans.

Let’s jump right in and see what April had for us to think, discuss and debate.

Investments and Funding

April was a very strong month for investment activity. A couple of notes: I have included some hardware/networking related investments which have a music component to them and as per my usual disclaimer, 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.

Total 2010 Investments as of May 10th, 2010

Q1/10: $99.6m

Q2/10 (to-date): $58.72m

2010 total to-date: $158.32m

• Zenverge, Fabless Semiconductor Company Building Digital Media Solutions for Content Storage, Playback, Mobility and Networking Closes $30 Million Series C Financing
• MXP4, the Leading Interactive Music Technology Platform, Closes $4 Million Investment to Accelerate the MXP4 Everywhere Strategy
• News Corp. raises bet on digital music as part of $10m series B investment in Beyond Oblivion
• Stitcher Secures $6 Million in Series B Venture Funding to Help Transform the Way We Listen to Talk Radio
• MusicMatic buys Mangrove’s share in Jamendo, intends to raise more funds
• Thumbplay, provider of mobile entertainment including music, videos and games raises $2.5m in funding
• Nimbit, provider of career management solutions for independent artists and labels receives $2.56m in new, unattributed funding.
• Yangaroo, a B2B digital delivery solution provider for music and advertising industries received $666k in Debt funding
• FameCast, an artist discovery engine received $2.71M in unattributed funding.
• Sleek Audio, raises $285k in debt financing

A couple of interesting funding articles you might find interesting…

• Help Fund Music Technology Startups via Musicians for Music 2.0
• Good News: There’s A Little More Funding Floating Around…

Music Services and Apps

Bandsintown a concert ticket aggregator, event recommendation and notification platform announced an API partnership up with Shazam, EMI and Reverbnation which will now expose concert date to 50 million people via these partner networks. I love that I can integrate my LastFM account (or Pandaro) with Bandsintown where they will track and notify me when my favourite bands are playing in town.

Senzoo.me – A simple and customizable fan-funding widget that encourages fans/consumers to pay back value creators like artists, developers, educators and musicians. Compared to similar platforms like Flattr and PaySwarm, Senzoo is extremely lightweight and does not require any technical skills to implement. Integrates with major blogging platforms (WordPress, Typepad, Drupal etc) and payments are handled through well established payment gateways like PayPal, Google Checkout and Amazon Flex Payment Services.

Beyond Oblivion – As mentioned above, this startup just received $10m in funding and is looking at an October 2010 launch date. What are they planning on doing? Well, in hyperbolic style, they plan to… “combine the stickiness of a social network with unlimited life-of-device access to the largest music library on Earth, within a vast ecosystem where content owners are paid per-play no matter if the original music file was ripped, bootlegged or legally or illegally downloaded.”

Indaba Music releases Mantis, a web-based Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) enabling anyone, from anywhere in the world, to record, edit and mix high-quality audio.

Headliner.FM – I really like this concept. Headliner is a social media cross promotion exchange that connects bands and artists to new fans. Fans will be more open to receiving recommendations from their favourite band to other similar/complementary artists. A great way for bands to leverage existing and well-connected networks and to share fan bases.

Mixtape for You – Based on Andrew Dubber’s “I Made You a Tape” idea, this new web service lets you create mixtape MP3s. Very simple site and limited in features, it’s a throwback to those days where you deliberated carefully to create the perfect mixtapes on cassette tapes for your friends, girl/boyfriend, spouse etc. My wife still has three or four mixtapes I put together many years ago which she still relishes today and I have a few hanging around in a box somewhere that I received from friends.

Songr – Another day, another music mash-up. Like a Digg for music, users submit song title/artist they are listening to and visitors to the site can bump a song up or down. The sites uses the YouTube API to pull the song in to listen/view the video.

AirKast – Digital content delivery platform and mobile app framework used by radio, television broadcasters and content publishers to distribute multimedia-rich content to mobile and connected consumer electronics devices.

WaTunes Launches Music Store Application on Facebook Platform – Pretty good launch timing in light of the Pandora and Spotify integration with Facebook. If users are already spending a lot of time on Facebook, they don’t need to leave the site to buy music (using Facebook currency perhaps?) that they may already be sharing and discussing with their Facebook friends.

Music related startups in Ireland – Naturally with such a focus on US startups, it’s a good reminder that there is a lot of digital music startup activity happening beyond our shores. Some of these Irish startups in this list are doing some pretty cool things.

Rhapsody Adds Offline Listening To Its iPhone App – Rhapsody is giving its iPhone app some bragging rights with an update that lets subscribers listen to tracks even when they’re not online. Users will now be able to download their Rhapsody playlists to their phones and by June, Rhapsody says it will add functionality so users can download individual songs and albums as well.

Amsterdam Music Hack Day – A weekend that brings together 150 of the best music and tech geeks produces a huge array of next-gen music apps. A list of all the hacks can be found here.

How Tech is Changing the Tone of Music as We Know it – A look at four different technologies looking to change the music landscape. Hypersonic sound is really fascinating. Sound is passed through a tightly focused beam that you can only hear when the beam is pointed directly at you.

Glee fans, grab the new iPhone karaoke app and annoy your friends.

Stereomood, an emotion based Internet radio station just released a new developer API.

LastFM is in the news again having dropped their on-demand streaming, and putting a renewed focus on scrobbling and personalized internet radio. Shortly after that announcement, they introduced a new program “Play direct from artist” that lets artists post full tracks for streaming.

Opinions, Insights and Analysis

Plugged/Unplugged: How Facebook Will Change Digital Music – “Facebook already has trained more than 400 million users in how these functions work within the Facebook confines. Applying them to the broader Internet holds significant implications for the music industry. For instance, it’s no secret that music recommendation and discovery is considered the greatest digital music opportunity. More music is being created that ever before, and the digital music services that can best introduce users to the new music best suited for them in the most seamless way possible will benefit not only the music service, but the artists and labels trying desperately to reach new fans.”

Digital Music Startups: Sexy, but Smart? – Insights from Adam Wexler, a young entrepreneur building out his startup Go Rank’em. Key point in this blog post is an interesting stat by David Pakman who says that only 5 out of 109 digital music startups have led to positive returns for investors.

A Billion Taco Vending Machines = Bigger Taco Industry – “Some in the music industry may question the economic impact of cloud music, but I think it’s a great opportunity to turn every device into a vending machine. Music is such a spur-of-the-moment emotional experience that if people hear a song and can get it with one click they will (if it’s easy). If every phone is a vending machine that’s a few billion more retail outlets to take the place of the vanishing record stores,”

Black Eyed Peas Will.i.am commenting at Twitter’s Chirp Conference – “The band of the future is not going to be a singer, a guitarist and a bass player. It will be a singer, a guitarist, a bass player and a code writer – the guy who does apps, computer animation. That is a group. It is going to be about self-contained content-providers.” I’m not a fan of Black Eyed Peas but his comment is rather insightful and on the money. It’s also the same sentiment I’ve heard from a few indie artists I know.

Research: Music recommendation is *the* big opportunity – “Word of mouth recommendations from friends and family is the most powerful way of driving purchases.” Lefsetz has been writing and talking about filtering as being the next big thing.

Anatomy of a band website – Lots be honest, most band/artist websites leave a lot to be desired. Most are static, brochure-type sites that don’t engage fans and/or nurture an active and vibrant community that demands repeated frequency visits. Which bands do you think are effectively using their websites? Nine Inch Nails comes to mind. Others?

Spotting the Creators of Peer Influence – “People make over 500 billion impressions on each other about products and services every year.” In a trust-based economy, consumers are influenced by their peers, friends and family. Personal influence is the new advertising? How will this play out for artists? And how does it tie into the music filtering and personal recommendation process?

Excellent RAIN Internet Radio Summit coverage from the NAB conference in Las Vegas. A lot of insights on internet radio and mobile apps. A recommended read.

Witnessing The Atomization of Artistic Culture. – “The internet gives us far more choice than the limits imposed upon us by broadcast media. We know of more bands, we can get tour dates pushed to us, can sample music long before it is released and we can reserve tickets well before the show. But we are doing this across many more artists, spreading our limited disposable income around in ways we didn’t when we had fewer choices. Nevermind that we are offered billions of other entertainment choices from video games, YouTube, Facebook games and even Crowdreel and Bitly.TV.”

A decade of digital: 10 things for 2010 – “Digital is not a channel. It’s a suite of platforms, channels and tactics that will, ultimately subsume its parents entirely. Digital marketing is not simply a new place to disperse persuasive symbols, but the emergence of any entirely new behavioural grammar, as companies and their customer begin to engage with each other in entirely new ways in entirely new spaces, where everyone has an equal voice.”

Upcoming Events

• Digital Music LA – Los Angeles, CA, May 11th, 2010
• OpenMusicMedia Toronto – Toronto, ON, May 12th, 2010
• San Francisco Music Hack Day – San Francisco, CA, May 15th and 16th, 2010
• NARM Convention – Chicago, IL May 15th to May 17th, 2010
• SF MusicTech Summit – San Francisco, CA – May 17th, 2010
• Future of Music Coalition Presents D.C. Policy Day – Washington, DC – May 25th, 2010
• Open Music Media Montreal – Montreal, QC – May 25th, 2010
• transmitCHINA Conference – Shanghai, China, June 2nd to 4th, 2010

We spend a lot of time with our faces buried in our computers so let me end this recap by saying get out there and support live music! The best technology we have is our ears, our hearts and the magic created by artists and their instruments!

See you next month.

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.

Lala - where music no longer plays...

I discovered Lala only a couple of months ago, and despite it’s flaws it quickly became my go-to service for discovering and sharing music. I was excited to hear that Apple had acquired Lala because I figured that with Apple behind the scenes the music I had purchased in the cloud would be more secure.

Late last week an email arrived in my inbox informing me that my favorite music service was shutting down. So much for security.

Of course, this didn’t come as a huge surprise – I don’t think anyone expected Lala to simply continue on forever as it had before the Apple acquisition. Still, I admit that I did expect a more graceful transition as Apple (presumably) integrates Lala with iTunes.

In light of this, I figured I would jot down a couple of quick reminders to Apple of exactly what was so great about Lala. Because Apple really needs Creative Deconstruction to tell them how to build successful products. These are the features that have caused me to have such a good time with the service, and which allowed it to become such a vibrant community.

Full streaming try-before-you-buy

One of my biggest complaints against iTunes has always been the 30 second preview. 30 seconds is no where near enough time to decide whether or not a song is worth purchasing. This limitation has almost single-handedly prevented iTunes from become a legitimate music-discovery platform. You can purchase your music there, but you usually have to hear it somewhere else first.

This is a big missed opportunity. With the last couple of iTunes updates Apple introduced the ‘Genius’ recommendation feature, which seeks to solve this problem. But it only goes halfway. Most people don’t want to drop their cash solely on the recommendation of a piece of software without hearing the track first.

Lala got this right. If users wanted to check out a track that Lala or another user recommended to them they could stream the full track once. After that they still had access to a 30 second sample.

10 cent cloud-based tracks

Once not enough? That was ok because Lala gave users the option of purchasing a web- based copy of any track or album that was kept online. These cloud-based tracks only set a user back 10 cents, so if you thought you’d end up liking something but still weren’t sure there wasn’t a ton of commitment.

Most believe that the whole point of purchasing Lala was so that Apple could launch ‘iTunes.com’ or a version of iTunes in the cloud, so there is very little chance that this feature won’t survive the transition. However, I hope that Apple maintains the 10 cent price-point. Any higher than 10 cents and the value of a cloud-based music collection is severely reduced. Unfortunately, while Lala may have been able to fly under the recording industry’s radar, Apple will likely face much more scrutiny over the low price on these cloud-based tracks.

Social sharing and points that don’t mean anything

All of the above is great, but by far Lala’s most addicting feature was social sharing.

Towards the end, Lala’s user community had become very active. Members could follow one another, Twitter-style, and share playlists and recommendations with their connections. To incentivize this activity, points - called ‘influence’ - were distributed to users who’s recommendations resulted in other users listening to or purchasing those tracks.

These points weren’t actually worth anything beyond bragging rights, but a few users rose to the top over time and began to actually carry some real influence within the community. When they recommended something people listened to it.

If Apple introduces this feature to the much, much wider user base of iTunes, we may actually see real tastemakers begin to emerge.

Conclusion

My advice to Steve Jobs? Maintain or improve these features when you launch your anticipated iTunes in the Cloud. Thankfully, Apple has a history of doing things right. And of course, if all else fails, perhaps another service will spring forth to take up where Lala left off. If Apple doesn’t get it right, maybe I’ll do it myself. That’s the great thing about the internet, isn’t it?

UPDATE: It seems my fears of scrutiny over the low cost of cloud-based tracks on an Apple service may not be unfounded. Read this article for more information.

Has music become a sideshow?

Did you watch the Grammys? I didn’t.

Music’s self-proclaimed “biggest night” celebrated it’s 52nd year this past Sunday with one of the most colorful, over-the-top spectacles in the broadcast’s history. Pink pulled a Cirq Du Sole while dripping wet and suspended from the rafters. Lady Gaga played a duet with a rock and roll icon who more recently has come to resemble a Lady Gaga himself, Elton John. Green Day performed a broadway number, and the Black Eyed Peas dressed up like Tina Turner.

And most likely much of that was set to music.

It’s unfortunate that even on “music’s biggest night” the music itself is relegated to the background – an excuse to dress up and do something ridiculous that might buy you a few more weeks in the blogs and tabloids. Yet that’s exactly how the priorities appeared to shake out on Sunday. Yes, It’s an awards show and awards shows need to drive ratings to stay alive. It’s also a television broadcast, and translating music for a visual medium requires adding an element of interest to the performances. TV doesn’t have the advantage of the living, breathing energy of the club and needs to compensate.

Nevertheless, the Grammys are arguably the most ridiculous awards show on television. Certainly the least sophisticated, with the exception of the MTV music awards. I think that says something about music and the position it holds in the entertainment industry as a whole.

Music’s Position in the Entertainment Hierarchy

In some ways, music is an outdated medium. We’ve lived in a visual world for decades now, with TV and movies dominating entertainment. More recently interactivity has come to the forefront. Music plays an important role in each of these formats, but still hovers somewhere near the background. While music supports the overall effect of the media package, it’s subservient to the visual and interactive elements.

Music as a Celebrity Springboard

You can see this hierarchy in the celebrity world. When popstars reach a certain exposure threshold what do they do? Begin make cameos in movies. Landing a supporting role is like a big-time promotion for a pop singer. The actors who take the opposite route are usually the ones struggling to stand out in the Big Pond of motion pictures. Their agents convince them to take a short swim on down to the slightly smaller music pond where they can be a Big Fish. Take J-Lo for example.

Music as an Entry Point to a Media Empire

For another example just look at Apple. When Apple introduced the iPod and iTunes they revolutionized the way people enjoy music, but they also used these products to position themselves as a major player in the media/entertainment space. Over the past year Apple has shifted their focus heavily towards the mobile gaming industry. Remember that big Apple music event last September? It would have been more accurately billed as an iPod event, because Jobs spent much more time talking about all the great things the iPod touch has brought to video games than the new iTunes LP format. Music was the entry point for Apple, not the end goal.

I don’t say all of this to discount the value of music as an artform, or even as a medium of entertainment. Music has an inherent power that none of these other artforms can claim. With no shapes, colors, faces, no buttons, joysticks or touchpads, music is able to make an unparalleled emotional impact on the listener. Music has a unique way of capturing time and space, and the ability to transport a person back to the important events in their life.

The fact is that our culture has changed, and continues to change.

The Musician’s Role in Culture

Musicians need to figure out where they fit into the larger arts and entertainment picture if they hope to build or maintain sustainable careers. Maybe this means accepting the subservient role music has been dealt over the past two decades and focusing on licensing for film and television, or video games and Rock Band. Maybe it means trying to break this mold and attempting to capture the world’s attention again the way rock and roll did in the 60′s and 70′s.

Perhaps the reason why the Grammys feel so irrelevant and inauthentic is that the organizers appear to try to ignore music’s new role in entertainment and pretend that music is still king, while at the same time desperately relying on non-musical spectacle to get anybody to care.

What are your thoughts? Can music stand on it’s own in today’s entertainment culture or must it be paired with spectacle to be remain a viable industry?

During the reign of the CD there seemed to be no need to innovate. For decades that one product brought in plenty of revenue to keep the industry rich. If it’s not broken why fix it?

Meanwhile, we understand now that new technologies were quietly transforming the markets. At some point the right time to succeed the CD with an innovative new product (or series of products) came and went. By the time Napster was established on the scene it was probably too late. An important opportunity was missed because the industry leaders failed to remember that no format lives forever.

On January 9th 2001, Apple – a technology company, appropriately – stepped up to the plate with iTunes. The single track download format quickly began to undercut the CD as iPod sales exploded. By August of this year iTunes had captured 69% of the digital music market and an impressive 25% of all music sold.

Yet despite iTunes’ success, the revenue brought in by music and other content downloads is only a small piece of the pie. The bulk of Apple’s profits come not from music, but from the device they created to play it – the iPod.

In his recent music business report for the Forrester Group, researcher Mark Mulligan rightly asserts that “content scarcity is dead.” And while there were many aspects of that report that I found disappointing, Mulligan’s perspective on product innovation makes a lot of sense. “Content may be king,” he suggests, “but in the digital age, so is the product.”

As music sales continue to decline it has become increasingly important to find new ways of adding value to the music experience. “The days of the CD or the download being the end of the story are long gone,” Mulligan writes.

The report suggests that the way forward is to create “future music products that blend interactivity, multimedia, multiplatform, convenience, and social to create something totally new.”

There are those who have already begun experimenting in this arena. Trent Reznor developed an iPhone app that helped his fans stay connected to all things NIN. Canadian record label Nettwerk has released ‘Pre-Mixes’ that allow fans to create their own mixes of their artist’s music before its official release. An artist named Moldover actually built a working theremin complete with headphone jack and speaker into the jewel case of his recent CD. Each of these in some way allows fans to engage with the artists’ music on a unique level.

Of course, while I think each of these examples is a good one, none of them really reach Mulligan’s standard of products so innovative that they are “unrecognizable.” A lofty goal, but I suppose it’s ok to take a few baby steps first.

I’m a big fan of innovation – particularly as it relates to music. That’s why I started this site in the first place. So when I hear words like “unrecognizable” and “totally new” I get a little excited. However, I also try to take a practical approach whenever possible. I say that because I think it’s important to point out that for the average band – even the average record label – creating a truly revolutionary new product is pretty unlikely.

A company like Apple spends billions of dollars on research and development before launching a device like the iPod, or a platform like iTunes, or even a not-quite-revolutionary format like the new LP. You and I can’t compete with that. Moldover was able to come up with something creative and execute it well, but it’s really more of a gimmick than an innovative product offering.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.

I think that if an artist focuses on the fan engagement piece the rest will begin to materialize. In other words start with the questions, “How do my fans want to interact with me and my music, and how can I make that happen?”

Maybe they want to be able to catch up with you when you’re in town for an impromptu jam session. Create a mobile app that alerts your fans when you’re in town and let’s you post what cafe or bar your at so that they can stop by. Maybe they want to be able get their hands dirty messing around with your music. Build a website loaded with unmixed tracks that they can remix right on the site or download and hack up later. Give them a place to post them and compete to appear as a b-side on your next EP.

I’m sure that you can come up with better ideas than the first three ideas that happened to pop into my head, but you get the idea. The bottom line is that it’s time to start thinking like entrepreneurs. Take some risks. Come up with new ways of drawing people to your music and drive some revenue in the process. I can assure you that if you don’t, someone else will.