I apologize for what some might experience as the presumptuous headline query, but I am unable to interpret the latest SoundCloud news otherwise. Here is the lead paragraph in last week’s Bloomberg report: “The largest record labels are closing in on a deal for a stake in buzzy digital-music service SoundCloud Ltd., in exchange for […]
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Revisiting the birth of Scrobbling
I had fun over the Fourth of July rummaging around the Internet Wayback and looking at old images of audioscrobber.net, Richard Jones’ early version of Scrobbling as he was joining forces with Last.fm. Here is screenshot circa November 2004. Jones was a third year student at the University of Southampton at the time he cooked this […]
8tracks blossoms with user forums
The tech investment world is discovering 8tracks.com (we’ve known about it here for quite a while). Forbes has a huge story about the music playlist application titled “What if You Became a Big Company, But No One Noticed?” (translation: “no one” equals “people with money”). The piece cites a Comscore survey identifying 8tracks as the […]
Don’t just stand there Pandora, get bought by somebody!
If you are a dedicated music application watcher like me, you spend a lot of time reading articles about what Pandora should do (or what should be done to the service). Every new app is a possible “Pandora-killer.” Take The Motley Fool’s Saturday headline: “Did Amazon Just Kill Sirius and Pandora?” Apparently the author is quite […]
(Re)discovering Myspace radio
Myspace seems to be making a comeback of sorts. Well, let’s modify that—various news sites are peering into the service and noting with bemusement that it still exists. So Forbes posted this unflattering headline on Friday: “How To ‘Frankenstein’ Your Brand Like MySpace: The Social Network That Refuses To Die.” C’mon folks, a little kindness please. […]
What would 1906 have thought of Pandora?
I was rummaging around the early recording industry trade journal Talking Machine World the other day, and ran into an item that reminded me of a recent Pandora innovation: its mobile alarm clock feature. The Internet Archive has copies of TMW from the Progressive Era through the 1920s. I quote from a January 1906 edition […]
Four reasons why net neutrality matters for mobile radio
We’ve been following the Federal Communication Commission’s latest open Internet proposal, and like my colleague Paul Riismandel, I’m skeptical about it. FCC Chair Tom Wheeler’s plan seems tailor made to forge a two-tiered Internet in which the big ISPs pick winners and losers via priority access “fast lane” deals. The big question for us around […]
Indonesia loves SoundCloud; in defense of William Orbit
Just dribbles and drabs of news in the world of social media radio this week. Here are a few items: Michigan’s The Morning Sun reports that a recent high school graduate of that state has developed an application called “Selocial.” The app allows you to take a picture and then attach 15 minutes of music […]
Blowing in the wind? Pandora to launch Kleenex music channel
Pandora is now experimenting with channels sponsored by Kleenex, Taco Bell, and Sketchers. These are called Promoted Stations. Here’s the dope straight from the source: “Listeners that are part of the beta launch will have these stations auto-populate, one station at a time, in the ‘Stations You Might Like’ sections of their playlists. This allows […]
Mandarin Pop! four great Grooveshark broadcast channels
I am wandering about Grooveshark this week, and there is much to enjoy. Here are some broadcast channels well worth exploring: Film Scores Too. A very nice continuous stream of movie and personal soundtrack tunes. Very good choices. As I write the room keepers are playing Italian soundtrack composer Ludovico Einaudi’s Una Mattina, a gorgeous […]