T-Mobile has announced the addition of six more services to its “music freedom” list of applications that do not accrue towards a subscriber’s data limit. They are AccuRadio, Black Planet, Grooveshark, Radio Paradise, Rdio, and Songza. On top of that, the carrier has released the results of a poll it took on which application to […]
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Internet DJ week: YouTube becomes YouPay
So here comes YouTube Music Key, which will offer a bunch of new stuff for YouTube music listeners, specifically music without those you-can-skip-idiotic-ad-in-5-seconds ads, playback without the video, and some kind of offline play mechanism (I’m getting this from Android Police). Plus it seems likely that Google’s All Music Access will somehow be folded into […]
SoundCloud: now with three tiers and advertising
SoundCloud has announced new subscriber plans. The first two, “Partner” and “Pro,” are expanded versions of the status quo. Partner is for beginners. It’s free. You get three hours of upload and some statistics. “Pro” doubles your upload space for $6 or do unlimited uploads for $15. The tier gives you more stats, priority support, […]
Internet DJ week: are you being your true self or Michael Cera?
Attention all social media music playlist mavens: are you posting your own personal favorite tunes, or are you really favoring content based on how you want others to see you? If it’s the latter choice, you are not alone. An Aalto University (Helsinki, Finland) user study concludes that “being authentic is very important for social […]
Internet DJ week: acrostic Spotify messages, Pokemon radio attacks, youth wasted on young
The Music Machinery blog alerts us to a new Spotify related application, Acrostify, which creates Spotify playlists based on “acrostics,” aka secret word messages embedded in other things. Since yesterday (Sunday, August 10) was the Russian composer Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov’s birthday, I input “Happy Birthday Glazunov” and selected the “classical” format. Out came this playlist: […]
Internet DJ week: When can I vote for Bollywood tunes at my local restaurant?
My otherwise chaotic Sunday was rescued by the discovery of Gaana, India’s online music and radio emporium. It works beautifully on my Google Chrome tablet and comes with endless streams of Bollywood hits. I strongly recommend the Filmy Mirchi radio channel, which will surely cheer you up under most circumstances. I also love the Perla […]
For T-Mobile, ‘freedom’ means a closed Internet
The formal portion of the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet proceeding has concluded. Tens of thousands of individuals have filed comments, as have all of the major Internet Service Providers. We sparked some controversy last month by calling T-Mobile’s music “Freedom” plan an Internet fast lane. Paul Riismandel characterized it as such because the plan […]
Will SoundCloud pay rent to labels as the price for existing?
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 […]
America F*ck Yeah is Spotify California’s top 4th of July song
Spotify’s data gathering subsidiary The Echo Nest has surveyed Spotify users state-by-state for their favorite fourth of July songs—or as Echo puts it: tunes that “are played proportionally more on the Fourth of July than during the rest of the year.” Here are some state’s Independence Day faves. For California, it’s ‘America F*ck Yeah’ from the […]
Google buys Songza for Play Music and YouTube
Google has acquired Songza, the curate-according-to-your mood song search and jukebox service. “We aren’t planning any immediate changes to Songza, so it will continue to work like usual for existing users,” Google’s press release says, but “over the coming months, we’ll explore ways to bring what you love about Songza to Google Play Music.” And: “We’ll […]