901am

New Media News Every Morning

First Impressions of Spotify

By

As many of us music lovers may have realized by now, Spotify has entered the US. Spotify is a DRM-based music streaming service. Spotify, instantly gives me a flashback to my days of Napster. It has similar qualities, although the look is different, and they are also taking a different approach. Spotify requires no downloading, and your favorite song is just a click away. Instantly, I notice some pro’s and cons of using Spotify.

After submitting my email, a few days later I got invite. I am glad that I waited, since I almost immediately purchased the Pro version. I usually like to try out the products I am using before I make any purchase, especially when it comes to music applications. Spotify was an easy download, doesn’t seem to affect my computer too much, and has a nice looking icon that sits in my dock. The design looks like a mixture between old school Napster, and iTunes. Overall, I think it looks good. It is very simple to navigate, and I pretty much picked up on the all features within a few minutes. The best part about Spotify is the immense library they have to offer. You can search virtually any song you can think of, and start  playing instantly. Of course this music is streaming, so you do not worry about download times and taking up space on your computer with large libraries of music. Spotify will actually load all of your music stored in local files as an extenuation of your music listening experience. Very cool! Spotify lets you have your own library and if you are feeling sick of your own music, with the click of a button you can have virtually any song that you like. This makes Spotify a very dynamic music program. [Read more…]

Google Music Search Consolidates Cloud Music

By

As early as nineties, people were already playing music from their browsers instead of traditional media players. Despite its eventual fall from popularity, I brought a client to the top of her local pop charts on MP3.com. Despite its current stagnation as Yahoo Music, I have fond memories of listening to Launch.com at work.

Between services like Imeem and Pandora and Last.fm, music has been going the way of almost every other computing application: to the cloud. Google, of course, wants to be your gateway to the everything in the cloud. That’s why they’ve introduced Google Music Search.

Google’s approach to music stands in stark contrast to their approach to video. With video, they bought the world’s number one video destination site, then used it as a testbed for video search, recommendation, and monetization across the Web. With music, they’re skipping the testbed phase entirely. Given the litigious nature of the RIAA, the relative simplicity of music compared to video, and the preponderance of major music destination sites, perhaps that’s the best approach: let partner sites worry about rights clearing. That way, Google can focus on what it does best: search.

In the meantime, let’s hope Google works its algorithmic magic to take this feature to awesome extremes. Right now, I’m imagining song recommendations, genre searches, and predictive playlists. Now that would rock.

Tiscali launches “Music for Life” download service

By

Just when you thought there were no companies left jumping on the music download bandwagon, along comes UK ISP Tiscali with their offering.

tiscali-music-for-life-banner

Claiming a catalogue of 6.5 million tracks, including artists such as Johnny Cash, Paul Weller, Temper Trap, The White Stripes, and Adele.

It can boast this number of tracks because it has partnered with eMusic. That means you won’t necessarily get all the latest tunes as you might on services like iTunes, but still have access to a decent range of music. [Read more…]

Shazam music discovery service comes to O2 UK customers

By

shazam-logoO2 may still be reeling from its recent loss, but it’s not resting on its laurels, and has partnered with the Shazam music discovery service, finding a new way to make money from its impatient customers.

Some smartphones already have Shazam as an application, so no worries for those users who desperately need to know what that song is, but for those on O2 with lesser handsets, they can now call the 2580 short code, hold their cellphone’s microphone to the source of the music for a few seconds, and then have details of the song texted back to them via SMS. [Read more…]

UK ISP Says Fighting Piracy Costs More Than Piracy Itself

By

American rapper 50 Cent has already stated that piracy is part of music marketing. Now a UK ISP reveals that fighting piracy costs far more than piracy itself.

British music labels claim losses of up to £200 million a year due to piracy. Their lobbying has prompted UK Business Secretary Peter Mandelson to propose forcing ISPs to monitor their networks on behalf of the labels. British Telecom consumer division head John Petter objects that such monitoring would actually cost £365 million a year. BT would have no choice but to pass that expense to consumers, raising everyone’s broadband bill by £24 per month.

Of course, the fact that the labels’ £200 million figure is rubbish makes the added expense of fighting piracy even more ridiculous. As Petter puts it, “Their claims are melodramatic and assume people would buy all the music that is illegally downloaded, which is nonsense.”

Now here’s the question you must answer, dear law-abiding Internet user: are you willing to shell out your hard-earned money to protect the music labels’ dying business models?