A note of consolidation in the world of digital music: Rumblefish, a company that works with the likes of YouTube, Amazon, Vimeo, Facebook and Slideshare to let users add licensed soundtracks to their digital creations, is today announcing the acquisition of Catalogik, a platform to help find and monitor the use of specific digital tracks. → Read More
More money for big data analytics — and a sign that, as the space matures, we will see more segmentation of what kinds of big data is getting analysed. Semetric, the UK/LA-based company behind the music data tracking service Musicmetric, has today announced £3 million ($4.7 million) in new investment, which it says that it will use to further expand its music service, as well as other big data… → Read More
Today news broke that Spotify was halting its music download service in favor of pushing more of its streaming services — raising some questions about how well downloads are doing compared to streaming music. But whatever way you cut it, digital music, and digital music purveyors, now dominate the music business, according to new research out from Nielsen (embedded below). → Read More
Digital music platform Chromatik is today launching its web and iPad applications for learning, practicing, recording and collaborating on music with friends, bandmates, teachers, and others. The company has also expanded on its seed round from earlier this year, and now has just over $2 million in funding from Learn Capital, 500 Startups, Kapor Capital, Launchpad LA, MuckerLab, and Bruno… → Read More
While ebooks and digital music are becoming the dominant way of consuming books and songs, only a few digital retailers have become important players in this space. reKiosk is trying to bring to the web the buying experience that was lost along the way thanks to a service that promotes independent artist and provides advice in the style of independent booksellers and record store owners.
Aziz… → Read More
For anyone who listens to Keith Urban’s advice and actually buys music, you might have already noticed that most Japanese artists aren’t on iTunes. The reasons why are boring and complicated, but just know that our friends at J-List have a work around for anyone who really really wants every anime soundtrack ever. → Read More
My good friend Peter Ha isn’t sold on the Sandisk SlotMusic hoopla (see his post here). I think it’ll work, though. You have to approach it from the mindset of the casual consumer for it to make sense. Think of the player like a Walkman or a Discman and MicroSD cards as blank tapes or CDs. Then remember that entire albums used to be sold on tapes and CDs and that for many people, there’s a… → Read More
I still have my 20GB Dell DJ (the one on the left up there). It’s been sitting in a box marked “To Sell on eBay” for, oh, at least three years along with my Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, my first-generation Nintendo DS, and a couple of ink cartridges for an old Lexmark printer. Bad news for me, as it appears the value of my old Dell music player might plummet when Dell’s new MP3 players hit… → Read More
Apple has now sold over five billion songs from its iTunes music store. The program has been around since early 2001. Earlier this year, iTunes surpassed Wal-Mart as the most popular place to buy music. Apple still hasn’t figured out how to sell Drakkar Noir for under $40 through its store but, still, five billion songs is impressive. It’ll be interesting to see how long iTunes will be able to… → Read More
I just received an e-mail from Geeks.com inviting me to “Touch the Future of Portable Entertainment” with this $70 device that looks an awful lot like my much more expensive iPod Touch, which I foolishly assumed was already the future of portable entertainment. So how does this thing stack up, spec-wise, to the iPod Touch? → Read More
Ah, the return of the MP3-playing watch. This time, without the ridiculous headphone cord running up your arm. The GoldLantern Bluex Bluetooth MP3 Watch comes with 1GB of storage and a pair of Bluetooth 2.0 headphones. The watch is good for 12 hours per charge of its lithium-ion battery and will play either MP3 or WMA files. I’m not much of a watch man myself, so I asked our… → Read More
Office Depot has the 2GB Toshiba Gigabeat MEU202 with 1.1-inch OLED display and FM tuner for $59.99 with free shipping. Battery life lasts up to 20 hours and can be charged via mini USB cable. The device plays MP3, WMA, and WAV files and can display photos on the tiny screen. The FM tuner can handle 10 station presets if you still listen to FM radio for some reason. Toshiba Gigabeat® MEU202-BK… → Read More
The music industry looks to be shifting its eggs, many or all, into the Amazon.com/Justin Timberlake basket. During the Super Bowl four years ago, Pepsi and iTunes teamed up to give away 100 million songs fueled by Green Day’s rendition of “I Fought The Law.” For this year’s Super Bowl, Pepsi and Amazon.com will be giving away one billion songs, fueled by whatever… → Read More
It’s all here; Chariots of Fire and cheering baby Zunes. What more could you ask for? Not to spoil the suspense for you but the Zune 2.2 firmware annihilates version 1.4, scrolling through 2,700 songs in less than half the time. Speed test: old Zune 30 vs. new Zune 30 [Zunerama] → Read More
Yikes, remind me not to ask BusinessWeek’s Cliff Edwards to the Bloggers Prom. For starters, I’m not a guy who likes guys and secondly, he’d probably complain the whole night even though I had my mom iron my suit and borrowed some money from my dad so’s I could pony up for a limo. Oh and thirdly, he downloaded a Jennifer Lopez song and I just can’t get on board with… → Read More
Currently being tested in Britain with a full-on rollout scheduled for December, digital radios that allow you to download a song you like for keeps should be landing elsewhere in the near future. Australia, for instance, is supposedly getting these new radios in about a year and a half. Aside from being able to download songs directly, the units will also be able to display track, album, and… → Read More
Hot damn. Grooveshark, the up-and-coming digital music service reported on CrunchGear here, TechCrunch here, and done up as a screencast here, is going to be selling DRM-free music tracks for 29 cents a pop today from 12PM to 12AM, EST. That’s insanity. Virtual insanity. Hey, I bet you could download that song for 29 cents! You’ll need a beta invite to get an account so if you… → Read More
Would you rather see boring company logos, or literal nonsense? AmazonMP3 has the potential to not suck, which, knowing all the non-iTunes pay-to-download services, could be a first. It works on any OS, all MP3s are DRM-free (and encoded at a decent 256kbps) and music is available from artists you’d actually hear on the radio—actually, that may be a negative. Support a few countries… → Read More
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