doubleTwist, the slick media player for Android, is growing. A lot.

Last February we reported that the application had passed a major milestone, drawing one million users per month between its mobile and desktop applications.

Today, the company is sharing a much bigger number: they’re getting 1 million users per day between doubleTwist on Android phones and tablets.

Now, obviously this doesn’t mean the user base has increased by a factor of 30 (some people are going to use the app many times a month). But it’s a sign that the company is getting significant traction, and that its users keep coming back for more. This is a particularly big deal on mobile, where users are notorious for being fickle and giving up on an app after a day or two.

doubleTwist President Monique Farantzos says that the growth stems from the increased brand recognition the company has received since it began building for Android. The first version of their Android app was released in June 2010, and they’ve since introduced numerous upgrades, like the nifty AirSync, which lets you wireless sync your photos, music, and movies between your Android device and your computer, without having to deal with any wires (you don’t even have to initiate the sync — it automatically initiates when you connect to the same wireless network). Farantzos says that the company’s partnership with T-Mobile also provided an early boost.

Some other key stats: 84% of the app’s users come from English-speaking countries, and starting today the company is rolling out internationalized versions with support for Chinese, Korean, German, French, and other languages to help spur international growth.

And she also had some other big news to share: while doubleTwist has been focused exclusively on Android for some time, it’s going to begin expanding to other platforms. Intel, she says, has already licensed their wirelessly syncing technology AirSync for its MeeGo platform, and it sounds like the app may be coming to Windows Phone and possibly Web OS down the line (she didn’t confirm those, but pointed out that Android alternatives may see increased traction following the Motorola/Google deal).

We’ve been following the media player closely for over a year now, watching to see if it would find enough adoption to make it the premiere Android alternative to iTunes.

Back in November, the company launched its wireless syncing software called “AirSync” that automatically syncs your music, movies, and photos whenever you’re in wireless range — and offers us a glimpse into the future of mobile tech. Add AirSync to doubleTwist’s already slick interface, the ability to import iTunes playlists, and support for audio/video podcasts, and you can see why the player has quickly become one of the most popular on the Android market. And now that the company has reached the 1 million user milestone, it’s clear that they’re more than just “on their way.”

In light of their impressive recent growth (300% active user growth in the 4Q 2010), doubleTwist announced it will also be both reshuffling current management as well as adding new members to their team. Co-founder and CTO Jon Lech Johansen will be taking over the role of CEO from Monique Farantzos, and Farantzos will become President and Chairman.

In addition, Farantzos told us that the company will be adding Blake Krikorian (the former CEO of Sling), who will be joining the board of directors; Stuart Collingwood, former Head of European Operations for Sling, will be the Head of European & International Operations, and Lucas Dickey (formerly Product Manager at Amazon for Amazon MP3) will become Product Manager for the doubleTwist mobile, desktop and cloud applications.

To round out doubleTwist’s bevy of announcements, the company is launching “AirTwist”, a free update to AirSync, which will allow users to stream their movies, photos, and music directly to their TV using an Xbox or a PS3. Plus, it will wirelessly sync data with your desktop. Look out, iTunes.

Earlier today, Winamp released a new version of its Android application that allowed users to sync their music wirelessly with their Windows desktop (disclosure: Winamp and TechCrunch are both owned by AOL). It’s a great feature, but in the race to become the ‘iTunes of Android’, another contender may already be about to lap Winamp.

We’ve been tracking DoubleTwist and its close affiliation with Android for over a year now. The company offers a desktop media player that looks a lot like iTunes (which is no accident given the ‘iTunes for Android’ theme), and it’s added support for the Android App Store, a music store through Amazon MP3′s API, and a directory of Podcasts. Today it’s launching what’s probably its coolest feature yet: wireless sync, which they’re appropriately dubbing ‘AirSync’. And it’s not just for music — DoubleTwist will let you wirelessly sync your movies, music, and photos.

Given how powerful the feature is, setup is relatively painless. Install the latest DoubleTwist client for your Mac or PC, then download the new version of the Android app. Set your phone to connect to the same Wifi network as your computer, fire up the Android app, and hit the new ‘AirSync’ button. The desktop app will detect your phone, ask you to key in a passcode (this is similar to the Bluetooth pairing process), and from there you can configure the application to sync music, photos and video (photo sync is only available on Windows for now, but is coming soon for the Mac version).

All in all, the process takes around three minutes, though the sync itself will take significantly longer — possibly hours —depending on your Wifi speed. There is one caveat though: DoubleTwist’s Android application has historically been free; that’s still true for the basic functionality, but you’ll have to upgrade to a paid version if you want AirSync — it’s a 99 cent upgrade for the first 10,000 users, and then will jump to $4.99 for everyone else.

The coolest part about AirSync is that after the initial setup, everything should work automatically. Whenever you walk within range of your wireless network, DoubleTwist (the desktop client) will detect any new content on your phone and sync it back to the computer; you can also sync new content from your computer back to your device. This means that you can go out and shoot some videos on your phone, and, provided you don’t walk immediately to your computer after getting home, they should already be waiting for you when you sit down at your desk (Ok, this also assumes you leave your computer on).

It’s quite impressive. Unfortunately there appear to be some issues — my phone got very sluggish during one sync — but I suspect DoubleTwist will iron most of these out over the next few weeks.

In a word, this is the future. Whether DoubleTwist or Winamp or an official solution from Google becomes the standard, a world without annoying tethering is clearly the way things are headed. DoubleTwist is the first that offers such deep integration, and it’s definitely worth checking out.

Given the timing of the launch (which was originally slated for yesterday but was pushed til today to QA test a new version), I reached out to DoubleTwist to see what they thought of Winamp’s release. Aside from pointing out some feature differences (Winamp doesn’t support Macs and is for music only at this point), they also had this to say — they’re not exactly mincing words:

In general, we do not consider Winamp a competitor as they are geared towards a specific subcategory of users who don’t mind endless menus, preferences and options. We are more focused on the mass market, average user who just wants to make the most out of their device without being overwhelmed by technology.

For those who are unfamiliar with the program, TechCrunch NOW is a daily show (Monday-Friday, 3 PM PST) where we combine an assortment of entrepreneurs, investors, reporters and other tech personalities to debate the top headlines. This week, our line-up included Cyan Banister, founder of Zivity (and host of Speaking Of), Brian Singerman of Founder’s Fund, Ryan Sweeney of Accel Partners, Andy McLoughlin, co-founder of Huddle, Michael Seibel, CEO of Justin.tv, Evan Soloman, VP of Marketing for Justin.tv, and our OMG/JK dream team MG Siegler and Jason Kincaid.

We don’t expect our guests to be designated experts for each headline— however, as an engaged player in technology, his/her perspective will add an extra layer of context and facilitate intelligent discussion.

On today’s episode, we got a chance to delve a little deeper into Apple’s amusing press release, its botched formula for calculating reception, the problems with the Android marketplace, and the upcoming fight between Google and Facebook.

Below are a few highlights:

On the Android marketplace:

During our show, Jon Johansen got a chance to elaborate on his recent post, “Google’s Mismanagement Of the Android Market.” On Sunday, the co-founder of DoubleTwist (a music service often described as the ‘iTunes for Android’), ripped Google for failing to curate the Android marketplace— leaving it vulnerable to clutter, less-than-legal apps and making it difficult for quality apps to surface.

Rant aside, Johansen says there is a “middle ground” here, where Google can balance its desire to remain open and the need to control the Android eco-system: “Both Palm and Android have this option where you can actually install apps from outside the market…so even if Google started curating the Android market more and flushing out some of these spam apps for instance, that wouldn’t necessarily make the Android market not open anymore because you can still install apps from anywhere else.”

Sacks, also agreed that Google needs to overhaul its system to be more developer-friendly. As a CEO who has an app on the iPhone and the Android platforms, he said it has been a struggle for his team to design apps around the different Android devices and for each iteration of the operating system (although he notes that both Apple and Google still rank higher than RIM).

After our interview, Johansen told me he was looking for more editorial control and improved search algorithms for the market. Google, if you’re listening, he actually has a four-pronged plan for the Android:

“Here’s a few things Google needs to do:

1. They need to expand the number of countries that have access to paid apps (it doesn’t seem to be a big priority as they’re adding them at an extremely slow rate)
2. Developers need to be able to respond to user comments (perhaps through a proxy email to preserve the anonymity of the user)
3. Illegal apps need to go. They’re unfair competition for legitimate apps.
4. More payment options (subscriptions, in-app payments, etc).”

On Google Me vs. Facebook

Meanwhile, in the last portion of our round-up, David Sacks delivered a bold prediction for Google Me: Google Me, on its own will not be able to take down Facebook, if they want to tackle the 800-pound gorilla in social they will have to buy Twitter:

“I think it’s going to be very difficult to create a new social network that just copies Facebook…Google already tried with Buzz to bootstrap off of Gmail, to create a social network, and I think that failed….If it’s just a clone of Facebook it’s certainly going to fail…The only other sort of social networks that have achieved scale on the consumer side in a big way have been Twitter and I guess you could kind of argue LinkedIn…I basically agree with what Keith Rabois wrote which is that Google’s best shot of getting into social networking would be to acquire Twitter. I definitely don’t think they’ll be able build a product themselves that will be able to get significant traction.”

He also ominously warned that in the long term, the market might not be big enough for both a Twitter and Facebook. See the full video above.

Any suggestions for our show or guests you want to see? E-mail me at onair@techcrunch.com, subject: TechCrunch NOW.

Android is notorious for coming with a clunky default media player, and doubleTwist easily bests it, sporting a much cleaner interface, the ability to import iTunes playlists, and support for audio/video podcasts. That said, there are already plenty of third party solutions that also beat the stock Android player. So what makes doubleTwist different?

CEO Monique Farantzos says that the new doubleTwist Android player works directly with doubleTwist’s desktop software, in much the same way that the iPod and iTunes work together. Users can transfer ratings, playcounts, and other information back and forth between their phone and computer. Farantzos also says that online radio and support for wireless media sync (which would be big) are coming in the near future.

It’s worth pointing out that Android will soon allow users to stream their music from their PCs without having to physically connect their devices, but I suspect there will still be plenty of people looking to store and manage their media locally.

I’ve made no secret of my dislike for the current version of Google’s official web presence for Android Market — it offers a sampling of Android’s top apps, but it’s ugly and doesn’t offer a full listing of what’s available (it doesn’t even offer a search function). There are some third-party web directories, like AndroidLib, but these don’t offer the slick feel you get from a desktop application. doubleTwist comes closer than either of these options to matching the iTunes browsing experience, but it still isn’t perfect.

The Android Market integration looks quite nice. Clicking the menu item in the left sidebar brings up a list of the top featured, paid, and free applications on Android Market. And, unlike Google’s official Market site, you can actually search using doubleTwist’s version. Clicking on an app will bring up its description, screen shots, and reviews — it looks a lot like the iTunes App Store interface, which isn’t a bad thing.

However, doubleTwist’s Market integration comes with a couple of issues. First, it doesn’t include any application categories, like ‘Games’ or ‘Communication’ (though this seems like it would be a fairly minor addition). The other issue is more problematic: you can’t actually use doubleTwist to download and sync applications to your Android device. Instead, each entry on the Market features a QR code that you have to scan from your phone to bring up the appropriate item in Android Market.

doubleTwist co-founder Monique Farantzos says that the company plans to offer Over The Air downloads this summer (which would let you send apps to your device without having to bother with this QR code nonsense), and that the company has also approached Google about a way to make the experience more integrated and seamless. Still, even without OTA downloads, the Market integration looks slick.

Alongside today’s update, doubleTwist is also releasing a web version of its podcast directory, which launched earlier this month (you can see a screenshot of the search directory below).

Co-founder Monique Farantzos says that doubleTwist has built and integrated a podcast search engine with 20 times as many podcasts as iTunes offers. Rankings are based on popularity (as opposed to a simple listing that would grow unmanageable with that much content). The new feature is launching on Windows now, with Mac support for podcasts coming next month.  Later this year, doubleTwist will offer an API allowing other applications to tap into the podcast search engine.  The company is also planning to launch a client for Android (which would presumably allow users to stream content) over the summer.

Farantzos says that doubleTwist is also going to start offering more cloud-based services. In May, users will be able to store the podcasts they’re subscribed to server-side, so they’ll be able to use the same subscriptions on their desktop and mobile clients without having to dock them together.

While it supports many devices, doubleTwist is becoming increasingly popular as an ‘iTunes for Android’. In January, it forged a partnership with T-Mobile, which promotes doubleTwist and has pre-installed it on some devices. Now, 53% of doubleTwist users are using it to sync with Android phones. The application also supports syncing with many other devices, including WebOS, BlackBerry, Sony PSP, and digital cameras.

doubleTwist is still missing some of the functionality that iTunes has, like the ability to download TV shows and movies. But the podcast functionality will add some video content, and 1 in 5 users are using it to manage video content they already have.  And some people may even appreciate the added simplicity if they’re just interested in music. In any case, it probably isn’t worth holding your breath for doubleTwist to add movies and TV downloads any time soon — content owners are still set on wrapping that content in DRM.

Also see Songbird, another iTunes alternative (you can see our past coverage here).

For those that haven’t used it before, doubleTwist is a media management program that’s both visually and functionally similar to iTunes in many respects, but with one big difference: it will work with nearly any device (iTunes only plays nice with iPods and iPhones). You can drag and drop songs to playlists, sync music, photos, and video to your devices, and share your media with friends using integrated Facebook and Flickr support. In effect, doubleTwist can serve as an “iTunes for Android”. The software is impressive in its own right, but the company has also gotten quite a bit of attention because it was co-founded by DVD Jon, who serves as CTO.

This is a smart move by T-Mobile. One of the most jarring experiences when moving to an Android phone is figuring out how to sync media to the device. First, you have to manually mount the SD drive from the phone’s screen. Once that’s done, you may find yourself half-expecting iTunes to cheerily pop up to help transfer your media, but nothing happens — it’s up to you to drag and drop media from your computer to the appropriate folder on the phone. There are plenty of applications out there meant to help you do this, but it’s a poor experience for users who are trying the platform out for the first time. doubleTwist makes this much easier for new Android owners (it even shows you how to mount the SD card). It may not be quite as robust as iTunes, but it’s going to be good enough for most people. If this proves to be successful for T-Mobile, it wouldn’t surprise me if doubleTwist was adopted by other carriers as well.

One downside to the T-Mobile version of doubleTwist is that it’s missing one of the app’s best features: integration with Amazon’s MP3 Store. The feature, which launched in October, allows users to purchase music from directly within doubleTwist, much as you would with iTunes. doubleTwist wouldn’t comment on why T-Mobile decided to omit the feature, but the company is planning to further expand the software, so hopefully it’s in the pipeline. In any case, you can still download the fully featured version at doubleTwist.com.

Money is changing hands in the deal. Co-founder Monique Farantzos declined to comment on any specifics, but says that doubleTwist licensed its software to T-Mobile and that it’s a “significant source of revenue”. We should also note that while it was previously known that doubleTwist would come preloaded on the Fender myTouch phone, the full extent of the partnership hadn’t been announced before now.

doubleTwist isn’t the only company looking to establish itself as a viable alternative to iTunes. Earlier this month Songbird, an open-source media player/browser hybrid landed a deal with Philips to come bundled with some of its MP3 player devices.

Today, doubleTwist has revealed what it means by that: doubleTwist now includes an integrated Music Store, powered by Amazon’s MP3 Store. But unlike iTunes, this app will let you transfer your files to non-Apple devices. The store includes Amazon’s catalog of over 5 million songs, allowing users to purchase songs either as albums or individual tracks (there’s also plenty of free songs available). From a design standpoint, it’s clear that iTunes served as a big inspiration — if you’ve ever used the iTunes Store before, it will take you all of thirty seconds to figure out how to use this one.

In fact, it’s probably safe to say that the new doubleTwist music store is actually easier to use to download music than iTunes is, simply because there’s so much less going on. Upon launching the store you’ll see a handful of top albums and songs, along with a prominent search box at the top of the screen. Click on an album and you’ll see a list of the disc’s tracks, which you can click for a 30 second preview. To buy something simply enter your Amazon ID.

Of course, the store is easier to navigate than iTunes for a reason: there are no movie or TV downloads, no playlists or mixes, and obviously no App Store. But for music, it works like a charm. And there are more features in the pipeline, including recommendations, artist bios, and song ratings.

Once you’ve downloaded your music, you can drag and drop it into whatever device you’ve connected to your computer. Unlike iTunes, doubleTwist supports hundreds of devices, including the Pre, BlackBerry, PSP, Android, and others. The application also lets you manage your photos and movie files, though the company says it doesn’t currently have plans to offer video downloads.

All in all, this is a very impressive effort. Before now Amazon’s MP3 store has been primarily browser based (there are some mobile devices that support it but doubleTwist believes this is the first desktop based application to integrate the store). And there’s no doubt that the doubleTwist download experience is far better than navigating Amazon in your browser. doubleTwist is going to have a hard time convincing the throngs of iPod and iPhone users on iTunes to make the switch, but for anyone else using a device that’s not supported by Apple, it’s quickly turning into a very appealing solution.

doubleTwist’s Music Store is currently available in the Mac version of the app, with the PC version coming soon. The store is currently US-only, but doubleTwist says that UK, German, and French versions are on the way.

What a difference 25 years can make. Now Apple has grown from underdog to a tyrant in its own right, preventing other devices from tapping into its iTunes software and restricting what users can install on the iPhones that they’ve purchased. And doubleTwist, which makes software that lets you use iTunes seamlessly with other devices, is calling it out in spectacular fashion. They’ve just unveiled their new commercial (embedded below) that’s nearly a shot-for-shot remake, featuring an army of iPod-wearing clones sitting in silence as their master — sporting Steve Jobs’ familiar round glasses — commands that “no other choices shall distract from our glory”.

The ad closes with the statement that “on October 6th, doubleTwist brings you Choice”. The company says that a major new release will be coming out that day for Mac users (followed a week later for Windows), but said that the new feature they’re unveiling is a surprise. doubleTwist is also exploring showing the ad in movie theaters before previews begin.

This isn’t DoubleTwist’s first direct attack on Apple. In June, the company pulled an incredibly gutsy move and legally purchased ad space for one side of San Francisco’s flagship Apple Store that invited passersby to “try The Cure for iPhone Envy”, that could put your iTunes library on any device. Apple pulled strings and had the ad quickly taken down. Soon after doubleTwist managed to have it put up once again, only to have Apple pressure the advertising company to have it removed for a second time. Talk about Big Brother.

You can find the original Apple ad here

Users can share music files, photos or videos across (almost) any device via drag and drop and share the files with others. DoubleTwist’s main selling point: It supports hundreds of devices, from cell phones or mobile gaming devices to portable music players. For example, the software can sync all music files you bought on iTunes with your Blackberry, Nokia phone, Kindle or Sony PSP without you having to worry about file format compatibility. Media files can then be uploaded to sites like Flickr, Facebook or YouTube from within doubleTwist.

Watch this video to see how the app works:

It’s safe to say Apple isn’t probably a big fan of the software. But doubleTwist co-founders Monique Frantzos and Jon Lech Johansen (better known as DVD Jon) silently enhanced the app in the last few weeks and told me today they have more plans for the future.

doubleTwist added support for video downloads from YouTube and now works with Android phones and the Palm Pre, too. Drag and drop any YouTube video you want to watch on the go on your Android G1, for example, into the doubleTwist window and copy it onto your device in seconds. iPhone 3.0 compatibility, bundling deals with several cell phone makers and a more sophisticated podcast engine are to be expected in the near future, too.

Entry into gadget-crazy Japanese market
Things are going very well for doubleTwist in the English-speaking world, and starting today, the application is available as a localized version in mobile phone-crazy Japan (Windows-only for the time being/demo video). According to Johansen and Frantzos, the main reasons for choosing Japan as the first Non-English market are:

• a myriad of super-advanced cell phones from different makers (about 100 a year) delivering a mediocre software experience
• world’s highest penetration of iTunes (1 out of 4 broadband users or about 13.6 million Japanese use iTunes to manage their music)
• high online video consumption (21 million Japanese users watch YouTube videos for 187 minutes per month as opposed to Americans who are on YouTube for 134 minutes monthly)
• strong demand for high-quality online video (mobile YouTube delivers low quality but doubleTwist can show YouTube videos in high-res)

doubleTwist’s entry into Japan makes sense, as the country is one of the world’s biggest markets for music and movies (for example, Japanese users downloaded music worth $10.2 billion to cell phones in 2007). Nearly 170 Japan-only cell phones from local carriers NTT Docomo, KDDI au and SoftBank are supported from the start. DoubleTwist has set up a Wiki page for each one of them, an exclusive pilot service for the Japanese market that might be expanded to all doubleTwist-compatible devices in the future.

The company has so far raised $7.5 million in series A and B from several major venture capital companies in the US, Europe and Asia, including Index Ventures (investors in Skype) and Hong Kong-based Horizons Ventures.

The ad invites passersby to try “The Cure for iPhone Envy”, which they can use to access their “iTunes Library on any device. In Seconds”. It’s clearly a message that Apple doesn’t want anything to do with. We’re hearing that Apple employees are currently scratching their heads as to how this appeared. So how did this wind up only a few feet from the store’s entrance, and directly beneath a giant Apple logo?

Apparently the window technically belongs to BART, the Bay Area’s commuter transit system. doubleTwist got in touch with an ad agency that BART deals with and leased the window, giving them the chance to plaster their ad just below the Apple logo in its full glory. This is apparently the first time the window has been used for this purpose (before it just sat bare). And because everything was done legally, Apple’s going to have a hard time getting rid of it.

While DVD Jon has a long history of reverse engineering digital media security, doubleTwist is a perfectly legitimate software application that makes it easy to manage media files for a variety of hardware devices. It’s sort of like iTunes, except it works for nearly any device — not just your iPod and iPhone (you can find an extensive overview here, and the app now supports both Windows and Mac). Given that one of the iPod’s biggest advantages over competitors is the seamless experience it offers to users, Apple probably isn’t a big fan.

Update: The ad has apparently been taken down, as noted by a few commenters, but Jon Lech Johansen (AKA DVD Jon) has tweeted that it will be back up soon.

Thanks to Chester Ng for the tip.

DVD Jon built a little web-based application that takes files from almost any device and puts them onto any other device or social network. It’s basically a big honking anti-DRM machine, allowing you to pop stuff out of iTunes and onto anything you’d like. It works by “playing” the music in the background and recording it as an MP3.

It seems to only work on AAC DRMed music right now but the company plans to keep pounding until they destroy the DRM hegemony:

“Digital media is dominated by two players, Windows Media and iTunes, and they each have their own agenda…we see ourselves as the Switzerland of digital media. We are format and device agnostic.”

No OS X or iPhone support yet, but it’s coming.

Product Page via CNET