Is the European music streaming service Spotify finally ready to come to the United States? When U.S. Web users visit Spotify.com they see the above image along with a field below the banner where a they can enter an email address to request an invite.
Haven't we seen this before, though? Spotify has been rumored to be coming to the shores of the New World for at least two years. It made waves at SXSW in 2010 with a rumored launch in the third quarter last year. That never panned out. Spotify inked a deal with with Sony in January of this year and as of mid-June it had deals with three of the four major U.S. music labels. The only hold-out was Warner Music. Has Spotify reached an agreement with Warner and cleared the final hurdle to bringing the service to the U.S.?
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Spotify raised $100 million in mid-June and the question whether a U.S. launch was imminent. That appears to be the case, if the banner can be believed.
Spotify will likely be a freemium service in the U.S. just like it is in Europe. Users have a set amount of music they can listen to for free before bumping into a ceiling where they would have to pay. Spotify changed its terms of service in April, lowering the amount of music users can listen to for free. Users can listen to 20 hours of music per month for the first six months. After that, the limit is lowered to 10 hours.
Will that type of plan work in the U.S. where the music-streaming landscape is much more crowded and competitive? Pandora is a free music streaming service that recently had an IPO. MOG and Rdio are both streaming services that cost $10 a month and allow for customizable playlists. Spotify has a lot of cool features but will it be enough to win the hearts and minds of American users? Let us know in the poll below.
Best Buy is joining Amazon, Google, and Apple in offering customers a cloud-based storage and streaming service for digital music. Using its "PlayAnywhere" technology, the Best Buy Music Cloud will let users upload their songs to the cloud, then stream the music across multiple devices, including Blackberry, Android and iOS.
But with stiff competition from the other big companies who've entered the cloud music locker space lately, can Best Buy offer something that will make customers use its service? Based on what's available today, the answer is "probably not."
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In all fairness, this is a soft launch of the Best Buy Music Cloud, but users can sign up now. You can download the software onto your PC, and if you link your phone number to the account, you will get a text message linking to information about mobile apps - when they become available. The emphasis here should be on soft launch, as the missing mobile apps and problems with uploading files to the cloud suggests.
The Music Cloud software will scan your iTunes folder (and yes, that's where your music has to reside for the app to work) and then upload files to the cloud. That's a different process - and pretty cumbersome one at that - than the matching service that Apple's soon-to-be released iCloud will provide. As with Apple's new iCloud service, however, you will be able to store some music files locally, so that you don't have to pay a data penalty for music you want to access frequently.
There are two pricing tiers for the Best Buy service: free and premium. The latter will cost you $3.99 per month. The latter, which the website calls "web+limited only" won't let you stream music to mobile devices. But even more frustrating (and inexplicable, really): with the free service you can only listen to 30 seconds of the songs you have uploaded.
There aren't a lot of other details about the service. No word on storage caps, for example.
Perhaps when this officially launches, Best Buy will have more information and a more polished app. As it stands right now, particularly with the other major players out there also building online music lockers, Best Buy's cloud service just won't fly.
European music streaming service Spotify has closed a $100 million round of funding in anticipation of a launch in North America. The round comes from DST, Kleiner Perkins and Accel.
The funding values Spotify at $1 billion. Free U.S. music streaming service Pandora, which has been going through the IPO tumult this week, is valued at $2.07 billion as of 12:10 p.m. EST, June 17 (these things can change rapidly, that might not be the valuation in an hour). It has raised €83.2 million ($119 million or so by current conversion rates) before this most recent round of funding.
Spotify's Facebook integration is not expected to hop the pond when the music streaming service does. The business model is unlikely to change in the U.S., with free users allowed a certain amount of hourly usage per month and paid users allowed unlimited streaming.
Spotify is going to have to try and differentiate itself to get U.S. users to pony up $10 a month for the service. It is not like they are lacking for options. MOG, Rdio, iTunes (iCloud coming), Google Music Beta and Amazon all have strong offerings on the market.
Does Spotify still excite you? Will you become a subscriber when it finally hits the shores of the New World?
While not quite a truism, it's pretty widely accepted that a music startup is a bad idea. The record industry is at best unsupportive and at worst litigious when it comes to digital music sales and sharing and when it comes to welcoming (or crushing or suing) new companies and technologies.
So it's hard not to be quite skeptical about the claims from a new startup - ReDigi - that it plans to launch a marketplace where you can legally sell your pre-owned digital music.
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The ReDigi Marketplace will be a contemporary used record store of sorts, the company says, where customers can bring in their old, unwanted records and CDs for trade-in and then buy used music at a discounted price. Except in this case, of course, those unwanted records are digital music files, and the transfer of ownership is a lot more complicated than simply handing over an old CD for a couple of bucks.
Buying and Selling Used MP3s - Is It Legally or Technically Possible?
ReDigi claims it's meeting a customer demand - the desire to get rid of old music you no longer want. "The typical listener regularly uses only about 20 percent of the music in their libraries. The balance represents a lot of money and disk space being tied up on their computers and mobile devices," says John Ossenmacher, ReDigi's CEO. "With the legal issues involved in the selling and sharing of digital music, people have been stuck with their unwanted tunes, or forced to delete them in order to free space. ReDigi is the answer to that problem."
ReDigi says it has come up with a technological solution to this problem, although it hasn't released details of exactly how this transfer will work. It also claims that it's "figured out what could be done to legally ensure that consumers regain the freedom to manage their own personal music collections." Details are scarce there too.
Ownership of Digital Content - Is It Different Than the Physical Version?
Digital music files were once viewed by the record industry as illegal in and of themselves. An MP3 was presumed to be ripped and stolen from a CD. Although you can now easily purchase MP3s (and/or music in a DRM-restricted format), the rights you are granted as a customer are quite different than those when you buy a physical copy of an album. When you download an MP3 from Amazon, for example, the terms of service say that "upon your payment of our fees for Digital Content, we grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Digital Content for your personal, non-commercial, entertainment use, subject to and in accordance with the Terms of Use."
You are free to sell your physical copy of a record, in other words. That's legal. But you cannot transfer your rights to an MP3 to another person.
According to a story in Hypebot, ReDigi says it will give record labels and artists a share of sales. And while these groups have never had a share of the used record business, I am still skeptical that this is enough to win the record industry's support.
The Future for Used (Digital) Music, Used (Digital) Books
Even if a music startup is a bad idea and a marketplace for used MP3s a suspicious one, this project is fascinating nonetheless. Are physical copies different than digital copies of content or not? The challenges that, I predict, ReDigi will face will likely be yet another demonstration of how the rules that apply to physical media - namely the ownership, transfer of ownership, and lending rights - often only apply to digital media when those rules benefit publishers and record labels. You can only lend a copy of an e-book to one person at a time, for example - just like a printed copy. You can only lend an e-book 26 times - quite unlike the shelf-life of a printed copy. You can sell a CD you don't want to another person, but you cannot sell MP3s you don't want.
Kanye West is savvy and smart when it comes to promoting himself and his music, so it's no surprise that he's taken to Social Media in a big way. Kanye's Facebook page has 5.6 million fans, he's a regular tweeter with 2.2 million followers, and Twitter is a prominent part of his website.
Since social media is now an integral part of the entertainment business, services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have become key to a musician's success. Kanye West released his latest album at the end of last year: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Both leading up to the release (with music leaks and controversial tweets) and after (further mouthy tweets and a 34-minute epic video released on YouTube and his website), West has utilized the social Web masterfully.
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West's website is simple, but effective in promoting his videos and Twitter activity.
The top half of the homepage features Kanye's 34-minute mini-movie entitled Runaway. The real-time conversation around Kanye is highlighted directly below, with a short stream of tweets tagged with "runaway." Below that, there is a link to Twitter.com (surprisingly, not Kanye's own Twitter profile page) and "Join the conversation" leads to a Twitter search results page for "#runaway OR #runawaymovie".
The words "GOOD FRIDAYS" leads to a collection of free music downloads, although you need to enter your email address to get the music.
At the bottom of the page is a screenshot of the album, with links to buy it on iTunes.
Meanwhile over on Facebook, the best part of Kanye West's page is an app called BandPage. BandPage provides a playlist of Kanye songs and videos, similar to what MySpace has done for years but which Facebook never emulated. When we reviewed the Facebook page of Arcade Fire last August, actual music was conspicuous by its absence. So I'm pleased that Kanye's web designers found a way around that. As for how much of the man himself we see on Facebook, there's no sign of West posting there - the Wall is made up entirely of his tweets.
Speaking of MySpace, Kanye offers a well-designed presence there too. On YouTube, he has a page via Vevo - the joint venture company that includes Universal Music Group, the umbrella organization that releases West's music.
Overall, Kanye West has a well designed web presence and his own voice is clearly heard through Twitter. West is a highly opinionated and entertaining artist, so Twitter is an ideal tool for him to communicate to his fans. It's logical then that both his website and Facebook page rely heavily on Twitter content.
Finally, it's worth noting that Kanye West has taken full advantage of Internet song leaks. Songs from MBDTF were leaked to the Web throughout 2010, which created hype and much interest in the album when it was released last November. Kanye reportedly leaked some songs himself, although they were different mixes from those on the final album.
Whatever you think of Kanye's music (personally, I'm a fan), he's utilized social media smartly and to loud effect. Let us know in the comments what you think of Kanye's web presence.
The music-streaming app Grooveshark has been booted out just eight days after it hit the App Store, thanks to a complaint by Universal Music Group UK.
The Grooveshark app was initially rejected by Apple and relegated to the unauthorized Cydia app directory for jailbroken devices. Grooveshark spent a year tweaking the app to make it legal and it appeared in the App Store on August 8. But today, it was gone.
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The move is likely related to the lawsuit in which Universal Music - the largest record company in the world, according to Wikipedia - is suing Grooveshark for copyright infringement. Universal claims Grooveshark is illegally streaming songs from Universal's pre-1972 catalog and Grooveshark's "business plan is based on copyright infringement."
"Earlier this afternoon, Apple sent us a letter notifying us that, due to a complaint they received from Universal Music Group UK, Grooveshark for iPhone has been, strangely, pulled from the App Store," Grooveshark wrote on its blog.
"This comes as an absolute surprise to us, and we are not sleeping until we figure out exactly how to fix this--and get Grooveshark for iPhone back in the App Store."
Apple recently approved a spate of cloud-based music apps, including MOG and Rdio. But Grooveshark is unique because it relies on users to upload music to its catalog, which can be streamed and downloaded.
The company already settled one lawsuit with a major record company in October, agreeing to license EMI's catalog.
The iPhone app offered a 30-day free trial and then a $3 a month subscription. Like other services, Grooveshark allowed users to download songs. It has apps for BlackBerry, Android and Nokia (Symbian) devices.
Dan Kantor, the man behind de.licio.us's Playtagger and Firefox extension, has brought us a new toy to play with that literally makes the web your musical oyster. ExtensionFM is a Chrome extension that automatically scrubs the websites you visit, finds embedded music, and adds it to a library of online music.
As time has gone on, we've found fewer and fewer reasons to actually download music and ExtensionFM gives us one less.
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Kantor has done some big things in online music over the years. He created Playtagger, a music player that made mp3 bookmarks in de.licio.us playable right there on the page, and founded Streampad, a social web-scale music application that was acquired by AOL in 2008. If you use the Firefox plug-in for Delicious, Kantor built that too. Until 2009, he was the product director of AOL Music and now he brings us ExtensionFM.
Kantor pre-released the music plugin just over two weeks ago with little to-do, but we can't get enough of it. ExtensionFM runs quietly in the background as you browse, collecting any and all tracks and archiving them. If you decide you'd like to listen as you go, you can simply click on the icon and play individual songs, queue songs, or play or queue them all. If you decide that you like a song enough to own it, you can simply right click on it and chose "Buy", which sends you to the song on Amazon. But even if that were to not work, the program keeps the link to the site where it originally found the song.
Then, when you switch over to the full screen extension, all of the tracks you've discovered while browsing are neatly organized by artist, album, track name and even the site where it was originally discovered, with a link, so you can go back and find out more about tracks you like.
When you first start up ExtensionFM, it has six featured sites, including Spinner, Live Music Archive, Pitchfork, Stereogum, Daytrotter and Tuneage, making it easy to get going.
What's even more, ExtensionFM will let you "scrobble" to Last.fm, which means it will follow along and keep track of your music listening habits and send them to your Last.fm account.
We got in touch with Kantor this afternoon and he told us that he does have plans to make ExtensionFM available as a Firefox add-on at some point in the future, but for now it is only available for Chrome. He also said that right now, music can only be played when the user is online, but that offline playing is another feature they're looking into.
Because we have a supply of just 50 beta invite codes, we've put information on how to get your invite on our Facebook page. Head there now to be one of the lucky few, and if you're so inclined, we'd love it if you added us to your Facebook friends, as well!
EMusic, the popular subscription-based music service, just announced that it has signed a deal with Warner Music, the world's third largest music company. This is eMusic's second deal with a major record label. In its early days, eMusic mostly focused on featuring music from independent labels. Since the middle of 2009, however, eMusic has worked on expanding its reach by bringing more mainstream music to its catalog. The company announced a deal with Sony Music in June 2008.
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Today's deal with Warner Music allows the company to add 10,000 additional albums from Warner labels like Atlantic Records and Rhino Records. Thanks to this, eMusic will now be able to feature music from artists like Eric Clapton, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Depeche Mode. EMusic has about 400,000 paying subscribers.
From Quirky to Mainstream
For eMusic, this transition towards featuring a catalog that focuses more on mainstream tastes has been rocky. When eMusic added the Sony Music catalog to its repertoire, the company also had to raise its subscription prices. Quite a few of eMusic's most loyal users were unhappy with the direction the service was going in and left the service. So far, however, eMusic's users have reacted positively about the Warner deal.
Streaming Coming Soon?
According to eMusic CEO Danny Stein, the company also wants to offer a streaming music service in the near future. Stein told Reuters that the company still has to work out deals with the respective rights holders, though. Given that Apple just bought streaming music service LaLa, it probably doesn't come as a surprise that eMusic is also looking at streaming music. As consumers warm up to services like Pandora and LaLa, download services like LaLa and Apple's iTunes have to react to this trend.
The only reason streaming web music hasn't completely killed all other forms of music distribution is the fact that it's not available when you're traveling across wireless networks - say, in a car. Well hold on to your hats and start canceling your satellite radio subscriptions, Pandora is taking to the road.
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According to a recent Paid Content article, Pandora announced a partnership with Pioneer at the Consumer Electronics Show. Pioneer will begin selling a device in March that detects users' Pandora settings via their iPhones.
Says Pandora CTO Tom Conrad, "Pandora still runs on your iPhone and controls access to the service, but all control and display elements [will be] shifted to the dash. This allows you to tune into your stations, play songs, give thumbs up/down, as well as get information (including album art) about the currently playing song, all with your iPhone safely tucked away in the glove compartment."
While the $1200 dollar price tag for the connection device is high, the fact that the service is free will theoretically save consumers from paying monthly radio subscription fees.
As well, if Pioneer manages to partner with other music providers like Microsoft with Zune Marketplace, Spotify or MOG, then web subscriptions will simply be cross-platform music accounts. While Paid Content suggests that we're looking at the end for satellite radio companies like Sirius XM, we think the greater effect of web-enabled cars might be the end of professionally curated music. Does web music spell death for disc jockeys? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
The album collection combines weighted rankings - based on submitted top 10 lists from 550 MP3 blogs - with a widget from Grooveshark to listen to the album, and a Creative Commons photo of each band. It's quite nice. The newest addition to the project is unusually low-tech; it's artist renditions of the top 50 musical artists of the year.
This year's Hype Machine Zeitgeist is another example of the awesome potential of free online music combined with smart technology and excellent design. Check it out and be inspired. Is this era the end of the music industry? It sure doesn't need to be.
European music streaming service 
While not quite a truism, it's pretty widely accepted that 
Kanye West is savvy and smart when it comes to promoting himself and his music, so it's no surprise that he's taken to Social Media in a big way. Kanye's 
The top half of the homepage features Kanye's 34-minute mini-movie entitled Runaway. The real-time conversation around Kanye is highlighted directly below, with a short stream of tweets tagged with "runaway." Below that, there is a link to Twitter.com (surprisingly, not Kanye's own Twitter profile page) and "Join the conversation" leads to a Twitter search results page for "#runaway OR #runawaymovie".
The music-streaming app 
Dan Kantor, the man behind de.licio.us's Playtagger and Firefox extension, has brought us a new toy to play with that literally makes the web your musical oyster. 
The only reason streaming web music hasn't completely killed all other forms of music distribution is the fact that it's not available when you're traveling across wireless networks - say, in a car. Well hold on to your hats and start canceling your satellite radio subscriptions, 
According to a recent 
