TastemakerX, an about-to-launch startup that will help music fans get credit for discovering the next big thing, has raised $1.8 million in Series A funding.

The company plans to launch its mobile app in early March, at South by Southwest — which seems perfect, given the event’s strong representation from both the music and tech worlds. Co-founder and CEO Marc Ruxin describes TastemakerX as “fantasy sports for music lovers,” a service where users can share their favorite music with their friends and where gaming elements encourage people to discover new musicians first.

It’s not the first company trying to give fans points for discovering new artists. For example, there’s also RockStar Motel, which bills itself as a site where fans can play the promotional role of record labels, earning a higher ranking as they create more fans for a certain artist. Asked via email about the comparison, Ruxin wrote:

TastemakerX is more like the Hollywood Stock Exchange for bands meets fantasy sports for music. We surface vertical influence, like Klout for bands, and have a multilevel game dynamic more like Foursquare. TastmakerX is a social mobile experience where photos, geo-tags and comments publish to a feed around getting credit for discovering bands early. We are focusing on building a taste graph not a record label. We focus on bands not songs.

The company says Ruxin and his co-founder Sandro Pugliese both started their careers in the A&R department at EMI records in the early 1990s. Since then, Ruxin has worked at a number of ad agencies, while Pugliese co-founded several startups

Investors include Guggenheim Partners, Baseline Ventures, True Ventures, Tekton Ventures, and AOL Ventures (which, like TechCrunch, is part of AOL), as well as angels Andrew Anker, Mich Mathews, Paul Bricault, Ted Rheingold, Michael Kassan, and Mike McGinley. TastemakerX’s advisors include John Battelle, Marc Geiger, and Ian Rogers.

Editor’s Note: This post is written by guest author Peter Csathy, who is President & CEO of online video enabler and transcoding company Sorenson Media. Previously, he served as President & COO of online music pioneer Musicmatch. Thus, the following is written from the perspective of a long-time media executive, and meant to be a conversation-starter. Csathy blogs at Digital Media Update.

Apple’s all-in-one physical flat-screen iTV is coming, make no mistake. And, when it does, it will represent Apple’s attempt to reinvent the television experience in much the same way it did for music. But, while media execs were hopelessly naive in Apple’s presence back then, they feel they are ready this time. They are determined not to let Apple rule the premium online video world like they did (and still do) for online music. The question is, do they have the will?

Apple will, of course, follow its established playbook, which most CE companies inexplicably still do not follow, and seamlessly marry its beautiful hardware (the iTV) with its underlying software and services (in this case, movies and television) in the same way it did with music via the iPod and iTunes. Apple’s goal is to be the center of the online movie and television universe for consumers (just like it is for music). Yes, content is king to Apple, but only because content serves as the Trojan Horse consumers ride into Apple’s kingdom of riches (initially Macs and iPods, and later iPhones, iPads and the inevitable iTV).

Ay, but there’s the rub. The content king-makers — motion picture and television studio execs — now know this. They have seen this movie before, and this time they are determined to monetize content more directly for content sake – for themselves. Apple transformed itself into the #1 most valuable global company and juggernaut that we see today precisely because those media execs handed Apple the keys to unlock music value in the online world.

Steve Jobs wooed them with his charms, pitched a great story, and established the rules of the online music licensing game. Apple’s massive growth in the past decade all started there with its iPod-iTunes 1-2 knockout punch. That, in turn, led to the resurgence of Macs, which led to the iPhone, then the iPad. Apple would be a very different company today if didn’t get the music it needed 10 years ago.

And, how did Jobs’ playbook work out for the labels and musicians? Not so well. Online music sales (and royalties) were an asterisk next to iPod sales. Don’t get me wrong. Rampant piracy — and the music industry’s misplaced attack strategy — destroyed significant content value. Nevertheless, the music industry’s negotiations with Jobs one decade ago resulted in a massive transfer of value and wealth to Apple.

So, what lessons have media executives learned from this past decade?

Lesson #1 — Dictate the Rules of the Game, Rather Than Have Them Dictated to You.

Music execs were on their heels reeling in fear when Jobs approached them a decade ago with the promise of iTunes. They had no real experience with the Internet. They certainly had no experience with technology (many still do not) – and how it could be used for both good and evil. Piracy was rampant. Napster ruled the day (the bad one, not the good one). Kazaa’s Niklas Zennstrom was public enemy #1 (now of course he is a media insider with Skype, Joost and others). The music industry was understandably panicked.

Jobs promised a way out – under three conditions. First, Apple must be able to sell individual tracks unbundled from albums. Second, its price for those unbundled tracks must be $.99 each. Third, Apple must define and control the entire online music experience. The music industry capitulated, and these 3 commandments are fundamental rules of the game that still largely rule the day.

Well, those rules haven’t worked out too well for music creators and owners. Lesson learned. So, one decade later, media execs are striving to proactively dictate the value of their content and support multiple online experiences and business models. But, even now, they frequently significantly under-value their content. More on that later.

Lesson #2 — Never Again Put Too Much Power in the Hands of One Distributor.

Prior to iTunes, piracy was rampant, and only relatively small players (including my former company, Musicmatch) played legitimately in the online music world. Amid this backdrop, media execs empowered Apple to be the first and only established online music source and experience. As a result, iTunes incredibly still commands 60-70% of all online music sales. That represents incredible power in the hands of one. It represents a downright monopoly.

Media execs are determined not to allow that kind of power in the hands of any single player in the online video world. They instead are committed to fostering an eco-system of as many legitimate distributors as possible. They actively license their prized motion picture and television assets to all those willing to pay.

That’s why we already have myriad established behemoths in the premium online video game. We have Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Google/YouTube, Comcast. The list goes on and on. Apple too is on that list, but it is behind the curve this time. Those same media execs who ceded control to Apple ten years ago have refused, thus far, to broadly license their crown jewels on Apple’s terms. But Apple — or more accurately, Apple’s massive hoards of cash – can be very persuasive. More on that later.

Lesson #3 — License Broadly & Make the Licensing Landscape as Confusing and Opaque as Possible.

Media execs aren’t panicked this time. They have a decade of learning under their belts. Yes, piracy continues to be rampant, but they now understand that it cannot simply be litigated into oblivion. The best defense truly is a better offense. Support better customer experiences, make your content available broadly to those legitimate distributors willing to pay, and experiment with business models and terms.

That’s why we have over-the-top (OTT) “Internet TV” models in which content is monetized via paid downloads, subscriptions, and ads. We also have big cable’s “TV Everywhere” models in which consumers must continue to pay their monthly cable fees. And, coming soon, Google and others will become virtual cable operators that will also distribute live linear programming like ESPN. Apple too wants to be on that “virtual MSO” list, because that is the kind of premium content that ultimately moves mountains of consumers. Case in point: DirecTV’s “NFL Package.”

This melange is great for the studios. No two content licensing deals are the same. Each negotiation takes place in a black box. No clarity. No certainty. Just the way media execs like it (I know, I have been there). Now THAT’s power! Right? Up to a point. More on that later.

Lesson #4 — Be Audacious — After All, Content is King.

Jobs ultimately taught music execs one fundamental truth – that content is THE key to unlock tremendous value online. The corollary to this is that without content, value is lost. That’s why all the deep-pocketed tech titans are lining up for a chance to play in the premium online video game. Just as it is for Apple, premium online video distribution is strategically central to their business. Apple? Sell its hardware. Amazon? Sell more goods and services. Google? Sell more ads. Comcast? Hold onto those cable subscriptions. Netflix? Survive!

These players have inked a steady stream of significant licensing deals just in the past few months, the financial terms of which are almost never disclosed (remember, just the way the studios like it). But, one telling deal’s terms did slip out – Netflix agreed to shell out nearly $1 billion to stream shows from the CW Network. Think about that – if the CW can command those kind of numbers today, think about the price tag for real “premium” content like ESPN. And, we are still in the early innings of this premium online video game.

Apple – with its head-spinning $100 billion war chest – is a lock to win (or at least be a massive winner in) the online video game, right? Most likely, the answer is yes. The inevitable iTVs will fly off the shelves. But, Apple isn’t alone this time. It is playing on a crowded field with other deep-pocketed and committed players (including CE guys like Samsung). Even more importantly, to really hit it out of the park, Apple’s coming iTV must be an experience. That means Apple must offer an extremely deep pool of compelling video content from the start (including sacred programming like ESPN). Otherwise, consumers will find holes, get frustrated, and look to fill those holes with programming offered by others.

Each frustrated customer represents real significant loss, which is especially magnified in Apple’s case because of its closed product eco-system. For Apple, it’s not just about a single product sale (like an iTV). That sale, instead, marks the beginning or continuation of a long-term lucrative purchase relationship, which is the key driver of Apple’s stratospheric growth. That’s why Apple will be willing to strike very different content licensing deals with media execs this time around.

Of course, Apple doesn’t control the content – the studios do. So, who really holds the cards here? Will the studios be as audacious as Steve Jobs was one decade earlier and demand terms that they believe reflect the true value their content creates for distributors over time? In Apple’s case, one truly audacious idea could be to seek a share of revenue for every iTV sold. Remember, not every license deal must be the same. Value means very different things to different players. If Apple, or any other online distributor, refuses to play, then they lose out. No soup for you! There are many others (including the studios themselves), but only one ESPN!

Or, will media execs instead go for the quick-fix of easy money? After all it’s hard to say “no” to someone writing a big check. If they do go this instant gratification route (which is more consistent with their DNA), at least they should realize that their prized motion picture and television assets will be worth significantly more than they think in the online world over time. Avoid long-term deals!

So, yes, media execs have learned their lessons well. Content is, in fact, king. Apple will continue to wear the crown, however, unless media companies have the will and creativity to take it back. After all, Apple made $46.3 billion this past quarter alone, a number that dwarfs global motion picture box office receipts for the entire year. Apple could buy Hollywood. But, will Hollywood let it?

Excerpt image from SoulInTheMachine.com

955 Dreams, the startup behind Apple’s iPhone App of the Year Runner Up “Band of the Day,” is today releasing the new tablet-optimized version of the app for the iPad. In addition, the company announced it has closed on a $3.25 million round of seed funding. Investors participating in the round included 500 Startups, m8 Capital, Kapor Capital, Felicis Ventures and CrunchFund (Disclosure: TechCrunch Founder Michael Arrington is an investor in CrunchFund).

As a part of the funding, Dave McClure of 500 Startups will join the company’s board, filling the first seat held by an outside investor.

955 Dreams’ Band of the Day app was released late last year, and was soon adopted by hundreds of thousands of users in its first few weeks on the App Store. The app, which features free songs (full songs, not just clips), artist bios, reviews, music videos and more, caught the attention of those at Apple thanks to its popularity as well as its unique design. The company had previously focused on long-form experiences like the App Hall of Fame title, The History of Jazz, but with Band of the Day, the team began to push out new content on a daily basis.

955 Dreams is not just a development shop that builds apps – it actually writes the artists’ reviews itself for Band of the Day. Explains Co-founder Kiran Bellubbi, “we’re a publishing company, and [our apps] are built on our own publishing platform.”

The platform powers all of 955 Dreams’ mobile apps, including Band of the Day, The History of Jazz and On the Way to Woodstock, all three of which were App of the Week, two of which made it into the App Store Hall of Fame, and one (BotD), which made it to App of the Year runner up. In other words, every time the company launches an app, they hit it out of the park.

With Band of the Day in particular, it was the combination of the editorial and the app’s overall design, with its simple, efficient and elegant navigational elements, that helped it reach over half a million users in just four months. With the launch of the iPad version today, the company expects to reach several million by the end of the year.

The new tablet version of the app is similar to the iPhone version in terms of feature set, but takes advantage of the large screen. Although the style is very magazine-like, the app is careful not to take up too much space on the iPad’s hard drive, as some magazine apps do: it’s only 10 MB.

Says Co-founder and CDO T.J. Zark of the new iPad version, “we refined every speck of the experience, the UI, the backend, and the overall look of this product. Just like the calendar that Band of the Day is built around, the way band photos reveal as you run your finger over the calendar…this is the result of a thousand tiny iterative decisions. We try very hard to take nothing for granted about the end experience. We strive to delight users!”

The company is also now experimenting with Android and is preparing to make its app publishing platform available to select partners, perhaps one or two content providers this year. “We’re talking to a few of them,” says Bellubbi, “but it depends on the reach of the content and the quality of the content. That’s extremely important to us.”

In fact, Bellubbi was downright obsessive about his products’ quality, scoffing at any so-called competition. “My personal belief is that when you put garbage into a garbage platform, you’re going to get garbage out…We try to focus very much on the user experience, and there are no compromises made.” (No wonder Apple likes them).

The new Band of the Day iPad app is available for download here.

At some point, you may have found yourself bored out of your mind by your current music selection, and resisting the urge to try one of the eleventy million music discovery services out there, you think, “By God, I’m going to do it myself.” You rush home, download a music suite, start furiously clicking and recording, only to be sooner or later confronted by the reality that you have no idea what you’re doing, and reprimand yourself for turning down those music lessons in fourth grade.

The Korea-based, VC-funded MusicShake launched back at TechCrunch40 in 2007 to solve these woes, allowing users to create their own music in a fun an intuitive way.

Today, MusicShake provides over 2 million different music patterns, categorized into different generes and samples, to allow users to build music — as if with Lego blocks. For music novices, MusicShake has an intelligent algorithm that, when starting with a blank slate (or staff), you can add different samples or templates, picking and choosing from sounds you like, and the algorithm works in the background to optimize them, make sure the different parts are aligned — so you sound like a maestro.

MusicShake General Manager Kihong Bae tells us that it’s essentially a free, web-based GarageBand, which has very low barriers to entry and is a bit more novice-friendly. It can’t compete toe-to-toe on every level, but its a great alternative.

All of the service’s samples are created by the team’s very own musicians and “music robot,” which means they’re copyright free. The team revamped the service last year, offering a brand new website, and a user experience that allows you not just to create new music, but comment, listen, consumer not only your music, but those of other aspiring musicians — the goal of which was to create a mini-community for all music lovers.

MusicShake also enables users to add their tracks to slideshows and videos, then upload those videos to YouTube or their social network of choice. To date, MusicShake tunes are acting as soundtracks on over 300,000 YouTube videos that have generated over 1 billion page views. Again, this is all free, unless of course you’re looking to use the tracks for commercial purposes, in which case the company charges a reasonable $20 for licensing. (The company recently released its “YouTube Producer” iPhone app, which lets users search for copyright-free music, add to their videos on their iPhone and upload directly to YouTube.)

Naturally, many video and content creators want to add music to their content, and as MusicShake provides a trove of license-free tunes, it’s a great resource to quickly find and upload soundtracks. With this in mind, MusicShake has recently launched a whole new addition to their service that focuses on education — in bringing its service into the classroom. Nearly every school, whether it be elementary, middle, or high school, has media class where students learn to generate video, music, slide shows, etc. — and there’s always musical accompaniment.

Of course, some schools have the funding resources to buy Macs for their classrooms, and thus already have GarageBand in use. Of course, most schools don’t have that budget, and when teachers want to grab music, they’re forced to rely on paying for stock music, which isn’t cheap, or taking their chances with free music.

MusicShake EDU gives students an unlimited supply of music to use in their projects without requiring them to have prior music experience. Songs can be created instantly and used immediately, or students can refine each block in the song; plus, music samples are copyright free. At $499 per year, the service is pretty affordable, especially as it provides unlimited MP3s and WAVs for every student in your school, which, in most cases is less than one dollar per student per year. (It also helps that MusicShake meets the California Learning Resources Network review criteria, meaning it’s approved for social content.)

Next up, MusicShake will be building out an API, so that smaller video-creation services can quickly add tunes from the MusicShake catalog into their content, in addition to focusing on creating an award system to encourage users to return and up the level of stickiness.

MusicShake struggled through the recession, but they’ve seen increased traffic since launching their web app. Bringing the service into the classroom and to small video providers is a great way to increase their reach. We’ll see if it can help turn the startup around.

For more, check out the introductory video below, and let us know what you think.

Finnish startup PlayMySong, the crowdsourced music DJ’ing service that lets a store’s customers remotely program the stereo, has just closed a round of seed funding totaling $350,000. The round was led by Lifeline Ventures, a Helsinki-based accelerator focused on funding web and gaming startups and includes participation from Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation. Though relatively small, the company says it’s enough funding to open an office in New York and head out to San Francisco for meetings and other fund-raising efforts.

PlayMySong, which is live in Heleski and a handful of U.S. locations, has also just launched its service in New York as of today.

For those unfamiliar, PlayMySong is a mobile application that allows you to remotely control the songs being played on a venue’s stereo system, while also simultaneously checking in to Foursquare or Facebook. The service has a bunch of competition, from startups to side projects, like Jelli, TuneTug, Roqbot, Spartify, AutomaticDJ, DJtxt, StereoPill, Hey I’m Like, Diskly, and many others.

To use PlayMySong, venue owners connect their iOS device running a special app to their stereo sound system using a standard 3.5 mm audio cable. Customers can then connect to that device over the Wi-Fi network or a 3G connection and choose which songs from the venue’s playlist they want to hear.

For businesses on the premium service, they can also communicate with customers via ads and messages. They also have better listings in the search results, complete with logos and other features.

The company is also now inking a deal with a major beer brand that will put PlayMySong in hundreds of bars, but the deal isn’t closed yet.

Founded in Finland in 2011 by Rami Korhonen (CEO) and Timo Kari (CTO), the company arrived in the U.S. this just month.

In August, I remember seeing YouTube links for the band One Like Son, who recorded an entire song using only their iPhones and a few iPhone peripherals (in addition to their instruments and drum programs). Today, I received a press release indicating that the band have finished recording an entire 10 song album using the same setup.

Intrigued, I contacted Stephen Poff, the mastermind behind the record, to get a few more details about the impetus and methods behind the project.

The 10 song record was an intentional project by Mr. Poff that started on January 1, 2011 and was recorded, mixed and mastered right up until December 31, 2011. So it took a full year to complete this side project, amidst an undoubtably busy day job as a videographer/photographer at the agency LWT in Montgomery AL.

As a former “four-tracker” myself, I have to say the results are surprisingly good. Poff clearly has a flair for writing pop punk/rock songs and he and his remote bandmates are adept at using some of the audio tools we have reviewed here at TechCrunch.

Here is an example from the new release so you can hear the quality – Glory Days by One Like Son

Remote bandmates? It was interesting to hear that Poff and fellow musicians Bill Rester (Bass and Backing Vocals), Perry Brown (Backing Vocals), and Bryan Segraves (Piano/Organ) crafted these songs together in different locations using Dropbox as their repository for adding their parts. Apparently, Poff would lay a MIDI drum part, guitar riff and main vocal line, then upload the file to Dropbox where his bandmates would download, add their parts and then put the files back into Dropbox.

The main technology the group used in the recording process, other than iPhones included:
GuitarJack, AmpKit and the AmpKit LiNK, FourTrack, Multitrack DAW, Pocket Organ, ThumbJam, the Moog Filtatron and GarageBand.

One Like Son are not the first band ever to do this (see The Gorillaz and The Ultramods—both using iPads), but they may be one of the first groups from more of the “Pop/Rock ‘n Roll” tradition to attempt recording this way. I would estimate that tracking analog riffs this way could present many different challenges than music styles rooted purely in synth pop, mashup, or minimalism. So props for this effort!

Oh, you liked that band since before they were cool? Now you can prove it with Splash.FM. Launching in private beta today, the music social network lets you share songs and raise your Splash score when you help others discover them. Splash.FM lets you follow other tastemakers and listen through lists of the most popular songs across the site or your network.

Splash.FM’s biggest weakness is also a differentiator — it has no streaming licenses so major label songs only play as 30-second samples, but tunes by independent artists can be played in full and downloaded for free.

If you want to join the private beta, the first 500 readers to enter the code “TECHCRUNCH” in the bottom right of Splash.FM will gain exclusive access.

Splash.FMs share box lets users select from an expansive library of pre-loaded songs and samples, or upload anything they can’t find similar, to Turntable.fm. If a song appears on iTunes it plays as a sample, otherwise it can be played or downloaded unless the artist complains. This naturally skews the site towards undiscovered indie bands, remixes, covers and other content more likely to appear on Hype Machine blogs than the radio.

If Klout is your influence score across the web, Splash.FM wants to define the influence of your music taste. Users can “Splash” or favorite songs they discover on the site. Each song displays a Splash Lineage, or the order of who discovered it first. As a user’s shared songs are splashed by others, their Splash Score increases creating an addictive gamified experience.

Splash.FM was founded by two students, Alex Gatof from University of Michigan and Jason Fiedler of UPenn, using a friends and family seed round. Built on HTML5, the site is accessible from mobile. The startup plans to monetize through a combination of iTunes store affiliate links, sponsored placement for artists, and analytics services for the music industry.

The big question is whether users are willing to discover music on Splash.FM if they have to listen to elsewhere, such as on subscription streaming services, YouTube, or iTunes. It’s certainly annoying when you start grooving to something shared by a friend and it suddenly cuts off 30 seconds in. A year ago people were used to hearing samples, but in the age of Spotify, serious music fans who Splash.FM is targeting demand more. Many of its use cases are now handled by on-demand streaming services, or one-upped by Facebook’s new Listen With simultaneous playback feature.

I think Splash.FM would work better as a Spotify app allowing major label tracks to stream in full. However, This would exclude user generated uploads as well as the newest tracks from the blogosphere, and reduce revenue options. Rdio’s API are another option. As it stands, Splash.FM is a fun companion app for discovering music and taking pride in your own taste. Unfortunately, its appeal is limited to hardcore independent music seekers who won’t miss streams of mainstream acts or mind keeping another tab open.

Editor’s Note: This guest post was written by Prerna Gupta, who is CEO of Khush (now part of Smule), whose music apps, like Songify and LaDiDa, have been used to create over 125 million songs worldwide. You can follow her @prernagupta.

As technology continues its march toward the Singularity, transforming the way we work, socialize and play at an increasing rate, there is one very important aspect of American society that lags behind: education.

Many in Silicon Valley have strong opinions on how education should be improved, perhaps most notably Peter Thiel, who believes we are in a higher education bubble and should be encouraging kids to skip college and pursue entrepreneurship instead. I agree that Americans are placing too much emphasis on higher education, but I think the debate over Thiel’s statements misses a much deeper point.

Why is higher education overvalued?

It’s because our primary and secondary education systems suck and are thus shifting the burden of educating our population to college. Of much greater concern to me than the college bubble is that 18 years of almost every American life are wasted learning nothing in primary and secondary public schools. By now we’ve become habituated to the alarming statistics that show America falling behind in all subjects. While the public sector struggles to innovate, however, the private sector is taking note.

Dave McClure’s fund, 500 Startups, plans to invest in 10-20 education startups this year. I recently had a chance to chat with Dave about why he’s so bullish on the space, and he said, simply, it’s because education is “incredibly backwards, and has huge potential for change.” He cited a disruptive trend of teachers integrating technology from everyday life into their classrooms voluntarily, rather than technology integration being mandated top-down by administrators. As tablet devices become pervasive, teachers are embracing apps as learning tools, with iPads leading the way in the U.S., and Android tablets taking hold in third world countries such as Brazil and India.

Increasingly, many teachers are also looking beyond apps designed specifically for educational purposes and turning instead to apps from the Entertainment category to help make their daily lessons more engaging. It’s called “Edutainment.” I learned about this phenomenon after teachers started blogging about my company’s app, Songify.

Songify is an app that turns speech into music. As it so happens, this technology is useful for more than crying about how much you love cats. Lisa Carnazzo, for example, uses Songify in her 2nd grade English lessons. Ms. Carnazzo finds that lesson plans integrating Songify are more engaging for her students than traditional methods; by posting her students’ Songifications online, she also encourages parents to get involved. Nancy Branchbill views Songify as a memorization tool and has her fifth graders Songify their class notes or use the app to learn steps in a process.

There are other examples as well. Talking Tom, the popular talking character app, has been used to teach homonyms and to help kids memorize multiplication tables. Puppet Pals has been used to help students learn about historical events. There is even a regular podcast on iTunes, hosted by educator Lisa Johnson, which gives lesson ideas based on “Surprisingly Educational” apps.

The success of digital learning tools is motivating the public sector to adopt technology too. Using software as a teaching aid is not a new concept. It’s known as “blended learning” in pedagogical circles. But it’s newly in vogue with some forward-thinking institutions like the Los Angeles Unified School District, which is currently developing a five-year plan to deploy blended learning across LA schools. Priya Chordia, from the district’s Strategy Team, explains that “disruptive tools like Khan Academy have brought blended learning to the forefront. The mass-market proof de-risks an untested concept and helps us gain support for making dramatic changes.”

Another school district that is pushing the envelope on technology in the classrooms is Chicago Public Schools. John Connolly, the district’s Education Technology Director, recently led an initiative to purchase 6,000 iPads for Chicago students. As Connolly explains in this video from Apple’s iPad 2 launch event last March, “It is difficult to keep students motivated in school, and keep them engaged in the curriculum…You put the iPad in front of them, and you’ll see the kids focus immediately on that content and start working through it … I really believe that this is the future of education.”

Classrooms using the iPads have seen gains of 50-60% in reading, math and science performance. Connolly is also working with Chicago-based start-up, eSpark Learning, to help teachers sort through the 27,000 educational apps in the iOS store and adapt instruction to individual students’ needs. According to eSpark’s CEO, David Vinca, the software, which he describes as “Pandora for education,” has helped students raise their skills by 1.4 grade levels.

We are in a time of convergence: teachers are incorporating technology from their everyday lives to increase student engagement, while visionary administrators are using the momentum of grassroots digital learning movements to move our institutions forward. Hopefully education will catch up before the Singularity arrives.

Music streaming service MOG is today announcing partnerships with mobile, audio and video equipment manufacturer JVC as well as with Aha by HARMAN, an interactive platform that brings web content to the automobile. The companies will begin using MOG’s APIs to integrate the music service into their platforms and products. The first result of the new partnerships is MOG’s launch on Subaru vehicles.

Aha, which lets drivers access web content through their radios, considers itself the “fourth band” of radio, alongside FM, AM and satellite. On upcoming Subaru models, Aha will deliver a number of services, including the on-demand streaming music from MOG and Rhapsody, Internet radio from SHOUTcast, Slacker and CBS Radio, podcasts, audio books, traffic reports, Twitter and Facebook updates, Yelp recommendations and more. The service works through an iPhone or Android app which will integrate with future Subaru vehicles. (Exact models were not announced, but the company was demonstrating MOG in a 2013 Subaru BRZ).

Currently, Aha is available in aftermarket auto sound systems and as a free iPhone app. Prior to the Subaru launch, the iPhone app will be updated with more stations and content. Aha will release its Android counterpart around the same time.

Aha also has newly announced partnerships with Honda and Kenwood. Those join Pioneer, which began integrating Aha into its products last year. At present, Aha says that Subaru and Honda integration is planned to include MOG, while Kenwood and Pioneer is likely.

In addition to the forthcoming Subaru integration via Aha, MOG is also now working with JVC Americas Corp., a subsidiary of the JVC Kenwood Corporation. The company will be integrating MOG into its aftermarket head systems as well, including JVC’s four new AV Multimedia products being released in 2012.

MOG launched its API platform called MOG Fusion, which is designed for use by consumer electronics and auto manufacturers, at last year’s CES. Its other, previously announced partners include BMW, MINI, Airbiquity, Tweddle and Visteon.

The question of how music will be distributed in a year, five years, or ten years, is an open one. The landscape has been altered so drastically over the last ten years that the only thing that seems sure is that major changes will continue to come.

Bandcamp hopes to be part of those changes, and they’re showing healthy growth: the site pulled in a million dollars in sales just in December. Not, of course, much of a challenge to the sudden empire of iTunes and the inverted economics of streaming services of Spotify — but the Bandcamp approach to the distribution question is building legitimacy.

The post commemorating this one million in one month mark also has some interesting stats. They started tracking referrers and found that quite a few people were actually coming to Bandcamp after searching for a way to pirate an artist’s music. Bandcamp popped up in the search results, they followed the link, and ended up paying for the music instead of pirating it.

Gabe Newell of Valve has said that piracy is a failure of service. In the case of someone searching for and finding a torrent or zip of an artist’s music, the failure is a failure to interject with a legitimate option. It’s helpful that Bandcamp offers torrent and FLAC downloads, as these tend to snag pirates looking for those very things. Legitimate services need to cater to pirates not because they must lower themselves to the level of criminals, but because that is the price of failing to address the needs of users.

Someone wants to download some tracks by an artist. They search, and one above the other are results from a torrent site, and the official site — perhaps on Bandcamp, perhaps with a pay-what-you-like deal. Hardened indeed must be the pirate who won’t even pay a buck to support the artist. And at that point the legitimate distributor has done what they can, and although it was a lost sale, it was also an extra opportunity. Making your product available when your customer wants it, and for a price they are willing to pay, are necessary and often sufficient for a sale.

Google can help here, though Bandcamp and others need to help themselves on discoverability as well. Bandcamp works as the de facto distribution stream for a number of artists, and as it grows in legitimacy it can be made more reliably part of the curated search results. There’s no reason why Google shouldn’t detect the “Sufjan Stevens” part of a “Sufjan Stevens album torrent free” search and provide some relevant information — not sponsored, mind you, just relevant — like the official fan page, Facebook page, and Bandcamp page.

Of course, even the current situation is in flux. Independent payment systems like Dwolla and Square might spell doom for the likes of Bandcamp, though they are not strictly in the same business. But the two (that is, specialized payment and distribution networks, and spot transaction processors) are as likely to complement each other as they are to clash. The media distribution engines of the last 10 years, indeed the last 50, are leaving a large vacuum behind them. Think of the vacuum that will be left by Paypal and Visa.

Last week at Le Web, Alexia interviewed Sean Parker and Shervin Pishevar onstage in what turned out to be one of the most-buzzed about sessions. Here is the full video for your weekend watching pleasure. It’s a great discussion that ranges across the state of startups, venture capital, music, and politics .

Parker bemoans the surplus of venture capital  for its effect of diluting the talent in the tech industry, a point he’s made before. “It prevents the aggregation of talent around great ideas,” he says. He emphasizes the need for a great team from the get-go. “People are the greatest asset class,” Pishevar agrees.

The conversation quickly turns to Gowalla, which recently was acquired by Facebook, and why it failed to take on Foursquare. “If you don’t fail, you haven’t tried hard enough,” says Pishevar. He warns against “success amnesia.” Behind every great success there are failures. Learn from them. ”The product was too similar to Foursquare,” says Parker, noting the obvious. He thinks that “there were things they could have done,” which he suggested to the team at the time, but “they did not want to consider alternatives.” Both however say they are happy with the outcome (Parker is a big Facebook shareholder).

Speaking about his own failures, Parker says, “We failed with Napster to build a legal licensing model. As a result, we watched the industry we loved collapse.” But “the biggest failure we made there was hiring. We built the wrong team.” He warns that when you have a startup with a lot of hype, “it inevitably attracts a certain breed of parasitic leech that if you do make the mistake of hiring, you have to realize your mistake quickly and eradicate it like you would any kind of insect.”

Audiosocket, the Music-as-a-Service platform provider, is today launching its own Music-as-a-Service Storefront. (Yep, in acronym lingo, that’s a “MaaS.”) The company already powers the backend of the Vimeo’s Music Store, allowing for the integration of appropriately licensed tunes into online videos. Now, with the new hosted service, Audiosocket aims to connect indie musicians and digital media companies, including launch partners IndieFlix, The National Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY) and a new e-learning company LearnCreate.

The MaaS Storefront will offer AudioSocket’s catalog of over 33,000 pre-cleared songs from emerging artists in need of discovery and distribution to others in content creation communities, specifically those who are also focused on supporting indie artists themselves. (Well, those are the most likely partners for this service, that is.) The Storefront will be provided as white label offering which partners can customize, brand, and have up in running within 24 hours.

For example, IndieFlix, which likes to call itself the “Netflix for indie films,” says it gets a lot of submissions where the music hasn’t been properly licensed. Until now, it has had to spend its own time and money to resolve these problems, the company reports. With the Audiosocket Storefront, though, IndieFlix will be able to simplify this process. With the IndieFlix Storefront, available here, filmmakers can now browse and search for music by genre, mood, tempo, vocal, themes or instruments.

This isn’t the first deployment for Audiosocket’s “MaaS” – Vimeo’s Music Store was. But where that was a custom integration designed just for the Vimeo website, you can think of this one as “Vimeo Lite.” Instead of a full-on integration, this is a hosted product, a plug-and-play music storefront that anyone could use.

More details on the Audiosocket Storefront will be available from the company website: audiosocket.com.

There are two main complaints that always crop up whenever you mention Pandora: its music catalog is too small and it’s not available outside the U.S. That’s room enough for another startup to move into the streaming radio space, at least according to the folks at the new Miami-based streaming music startup Senzari. The service recently launched into private beta in the U.S. and Brazil, with plans to expand further into Latin America, Spain and Australia in the future.

In addition, where Pandora currently offers a catalog of 900,000 songs, Senzari has launched with over 10 million. It also includes Facebook integration, including live chat with Facebook friends.

The new startup is backed by $2 million in funding from undisclosed angel investors in Silicon Valley and Boston (mainly friends and family) and a private equity group in Southern California. It’s the fourth startup from serial entrepreneur Bill Hajjar, who has previous experience in wireless, mobile and the location-based service industries.

Of course, the main value proposition for any new radio service is the same as Pandora’s: people want radio. “80% of the U.S. market would rather have a lean-back experience,” Hajjar explains. What he means is that the majority of listeners want to just push play to enjoy music and discover new bands, not search for tracks and build playlists.

But streaming radio doesn’t have to battle against the paid music subscription services, like the increasingly popular Spotify, MOG, Rdio or Rhapsody, Hajjar says. Both can co-exist.  It’s the like the difference between buying CDs versus just flipping on the (terrestrial) radio.

Still, taking on the newly IPO’d Pandora is no small matter. That’s why Senzari is focused on Pandora’s weakest spots, mainly its catalog’s size and the market it serves. Hajjar says Senzari has managed to secure the licensing rights for radio webcasting in the U.S., Brazil and Spain, which allows it to operate outside the U.S. (Spain’s launch comes later this month).

It also has a strategic partnership with RED Viacom, which represents ad sales for other Viacom properties, like Nickelodeon, VH1, MTV and Comedy Central. However, this partnership is only in Latin America right now.

As for Senzari’s web-based player, it’s not too bad (except that it requires Flash, that is). The uncomplicated user interface is easy to navigate and it pulls in photos from Flickr and Last.fm to provide an interesting background image to complement the music. While opinions are subjective, of course, coming from Pandora, I prefer Senzari’s darker colors and minimal feel. If anything, it looks more like Spotify’s desktop app than it does an online player. (See comparison shots below).

Also like Spotify, Senzari is focused on deep Facebook integration. You can see what friends are listening to (radio stations, though, not custom playlists) and like Pandora, you can post what you’re listening to on your Facebook profile. But Senzari goes a step further: it also functions as a Facebook instant messaging client, listing your Facebook friends in a column to the right of the player. You can click to see what they’re playing or simply start a chat session. Full Open Graph integration is planned for January.

Each station is personalized to an individual user, not just via your playing behavior, but also using data pulled in from your Facebook user profile and “likes.” That means your “Adele” station may be different from your friends’. To allow you to experience broader music discovery, you can favorite your own station but also subscribe to those built by others. An “Activity Feed” section is also available, which, much like Pandora’s (for those who authenticate with Facebook), shows you who’s listening to what and when.

As Senzari is still in private beta, there’s no advertising interrupting the radio streams just yet, but later, the site will feature a combination of takeover ads, banners and audio ads. Mobile apps for iPhone, iPad and Android will arrive early next year.

In order to get into Senzari, you’ll need an invite from a current user, sent to you via Facebook. TechCrunch readers, however, can go to senzari.com/techcrunch to get in today. This link will only be good for 24 hours starting now.

All the world’s music and no way to figure out what to listen to next. This was the problem with Spotify until today. Its flimsy What’s New and Top Lists discovery channels showed you what’s popular, but there was no way to learn about artists or get recommendations from experts. And the radio feature? Ugh, it followed a great track by UK indie rockers The XX with a 10 year old Creed song. But during the launch of its app platform this morning in New York, Spotify unveiled new integrations that unlock the potential of its massive music catalogue. Last.fm contributes band biographies, Rolling Stone provides celebrity and editor playlists, and Songkick helps users find nearby concerts from their favorite bands. The apps could inspire longer listening sessions that expose users to more ads, get them more attached to their paid accounts, and share more links that drive referral traffic from Facebook.

A core disadvantage of music on demand services is that they put the burden of choice on the listener. Unlike Pandora, which you can fire and forget, Spotify requires attention as users have to pick what to hear next when their current song, album, or playlists ends. If they’re not sure what to pick and are tired of the bands they already know, they can disengage.

But the beauty of Spotify’s comprehensive catalogue and subscription model is that you can listen to anything, and you don’t have to pay for each additional song like with iTunes. This gives discovery on Spotify high potential and low cost, but users need guidance. Rather than try to convince them of its own expertise, Spotify has tapped trusted music services and publications to lead users to the promised band, err, land.

Many of its partners are great standalone utilities to briefly checkout, but with Spotify they’ve found ways to gain longer exposure and build their own businesses. Meanwhile, Spotify creates more inroads to its service as partners promote their apps. Spotify’s new App Finder (access it here) helps users discover the apps in the first place. These HTML5 apps run within the Spotify desktop client using a Javascript API.

Last.fm was a powerhouse in the days before legitimate streaming on demand. Its scrobbling plugins let users track their listening activity on iTunes, Spotify, and other players. With the launch of its app, listeners will no longer have to skip out to Wikipedia to find out how and where a band formed. Last.fm will leverage its rich music interest graph to create playlists for users based on their previous listening history.

Rolling Stone will also contribute playlists, but these are handcrafted by the magazine’s editors and the artists themselves. Rolling Stone puts out a playlist issue each year, and inevitably someone collects the MP3s of each list and starts torrenting them to others. Rolling Stone’s Spotify app will make listening to Bono’s favorite David Bowie songs easier than piracy.

There’s a debate over whether Spotify’s streaming royalties can financially support bands. I believe the key is using cheap or free listening to get people loving bands and then paying big bucks to go to their shows and buy their t-shirts. Songkick‘s new Concerts app for Spotify formalizes this flow, allowing users to discover and buy tickets for nearby shows by the bands they’re listening to. Songkick’s co-founder and CEO Ian Hogarth tells me “The average American goes to 1 concert a year. We want to get them to go to 5 shows a year.”

Other partners that will be launching apps include TuneWiki, The Guardian, Dagbladet, Hunted, Soundrop, Top10, Billboard, Fuse, Gaffa, Pitchfork, ShareMyPlaylists, Tunigo, and Moodagent.

Spotify seems to be following in Facebook’s footsteps. Rather than divert attention building niche functionality, it has opened a development platform so it can concentrate on the core product. Every music publication and startup should be thinking what they could do with access to Spotify’s library. Imagine playlists based on your location, Facebook Likes, or Twitter updates. Recommendation apps that pair music with your current mood or meal. Printed poster collages of your favorite bands. T-shirt suggestions. Hogarth tells me, “A ton of creativity was unleashed by the Facebook platform, by the iPhone platform. This is going make developers excited about music again.”

The music lover’s social network Flowd, which recently arrived stateside after its European debut, just updated its mobile applications with a boatload of new features that make them worth a look. Up until now, Flowd was only mildly interesting, as it was primarily touting its 600 or so artists and DJs who had signed up for the network – a number which, in the grand scheme things, is merely a drop in the bucket of all things music.

But with the new mobile apps, Flowd is now aggregating artists’ activity from other social networks, including Twitter, YouTube, SoundCloud and Last.fm, allowing users to access artist updates, bios and gig calendars, even if the artist is not on Flowd.

Although in testing, this added import/aggregation functionality didn’t mean that every artist profile page was now filled with data (it was still sort of hit-or-miss), there’s certainly more information than before. Plus, it should be noted that the problem with filing out profiles through automated means could be affected by the simple fact that some artists don’t have gig info online right now. In other words, nothing to pull in.

In the updated Flowd mobile apps, there are nifty Twitter-esque “follow” buttons which let you quickly build a stream of updates from your favorite bands in order to get details on new concerts and other news. In a way, the Flowd apps can serve as a Twitter client for those interested in music, without you having to…you know…actually use Twitter.

Also new in today’s app updates (iOS and Android) is a feature that lets Flowd scan your device to see what music is currently being played or the last track played. It can then post that info back to Flowd and optionally cross-post it to Facebook or Twitter. It’s not as elegant as the Spotify + Facebook integration (or MOG, Rdio, Rhapsody, etc. + Facebook), but it can serve as a path for social music sharing for those old-school people who still like to purchase MP3′s from services like Amazon or iTunes instead of paying for a music subscription. (And yes, there’s a lot of those people left yet).

The Flowd mobile apps are available for free on iTunes, Android and Ovi (Nokia), but the app updates are on iOS and Android only.

Flowd is a portfolio company of Digia Ventures, the venture division of leading Finnish technology services firm Digia, Plc with offices in Helsinki, Finland and Santa Clara, CA.

As expected, the launch of iTunes Match is now upon us, with today’s release of iTunes 10.5.1, available from the iTunes website here. For those living under the proverbial rock, iTunes Match is the new service from Apple that gives you legal access to store all your music in iCloud – even those songs you didn’t originally purchase from iTunes. For $25 per year, iTunes Match will match tracks in your music collection to those in the iTunes catalog – a catalog that now includes over 20 million songs.

In theory, iTunes Match is meant to pair up the songs in your library you ripped from CDs, but in reality, it means your pirated tunes can now be made legal for a mere $25/year. And if you have an extensive collection of indie artists, local bands or DJs that live outside the i-Universe, iTunes Match will upload those MP3′s to iCloud, too. Once in iCloud, music can be streamed to any device and stored at 256-Kbps AAC DRM-free quality – even if the original song was pirated purchased at lower quality.

The new service is just one of the features in iTunes 10.5.1, which also includes baked-in iCloud support, enabling you to access your songs, apps and books across all your Apple devices, without having to manually re-download the purchases on each additional device you own. The iCloud service lets you access and download past purchases, too, on whichever device you want.

The update to iTunes is out now, but iTunes Match is available only for U.S. users (sorry, world). To enable the service, you’ll need to switch it on after iTunes is installed.

P.S. For those of you who remember the debate about whether or not what iTunes Match is doing can be called “streaming,” you may be interested to see that Apple now uses the word “streaming” on its website to describe the service: “Once your music is in iCloud, you can stream and store it to any of your devices…”

Last year, Tim Heineke of Twones and Tone.fm, Marcel Corso and Diedrik Martens launched a new Amsterdam-based music startup, called Shuffler.fm, to let users listen to the tunes and artists being covered by music blogs while they read.

The startup thus began its career as a cool web app for music discovery, with the goal of aggregating music from blogs across the Internets — based on genre. Over the last year, Shuffler.fm has evolved into a service that now allows users to play continuous mixes of their favorite music blogs, browse through popular songs and artists through a nifty search function, as well as create personalized channels based on “favorite-ing” tracks and blogs. Music blogs can also create their own pages, including a “Play this blog” button that launches the blog’s own channel. (Check out Sarah’s coverage in August here.)

With its initial functionality, Shuffler.fm was really a hybrid of Pandora and ex.fm for music blogs-curated tunes. Yet, on Tuesday, the startup expanded that influence to include Flipboard, launching an iPad app that transforms music blogs and websites into radio stations, curating them in a Flipboard-style layout of words, pictures, and streaming audio.

The Shuffler.fm iPad essentially app creates an aggregated music magazine that serves content from a diverse set of music bloggers and experts in realtime (content is updated by the minute), providing a ready-to-consume filtered stream of music optimized for discoverability and at the same time presenting a curated experience so that users don’t have to deal with parsing the ridiculous amount of noise being dished out by music content producers. In other words, it’s music listening with an editorial filter.

Of course, rather than basing the content it serves on your existing tastes, like so many other music services out there (Last.fm, Pandora), Shuffler’s audio is brought to you in genre-based channels that are populated by (only the coolest) blogs, like Pitchfork, TheMusic.FM, and Stereogum to name a few.

Users can create playlists of songs from these visual RSS blog feeds at the bottom of the app, where they can then listen via the app’s player, all while reading about the songs they’re listening to. The app also supports AirPlay so that users aren’t just confined to listening to music from their iPad’s speakers.

For those who’ve already been using Shuffler’s web app, the experience of using the iPad app will be familiar. The two experiences are comparable, with perhaps even a bit more simplicity in terms of design and UX in the new iPad app. The experience is also, of course, very reminiscent of that of Flipboard, in that content is displayed in a visually attractive, tile-based layout that does a great job of balancing visual candy without distracting from the music and discoverability features.

Listening to a blog-powered radio stream while being able to view relevant video content or swipe through to the band or blog’s homepage is at once a familiar experience that may not sound particularly earth-shaking, but it’s done in such a way that it still feels new. It’s a great human curated alternative to the slew of machine algorithms that are today powering many of our favorite music apps. And it also helps that the app has built-in bookmarking and sharing features that let you come back to your favorite tracks or blog posts while sharing the music you discover with friends.

To help it in its mission to become the new Pandora/Flipboard of the iPad, Founder Tim Heineke told us that the startup has just closed a $700K round of angel funding. While Heineke was not yet able to share the names of the investors, he did say that Shuffler.fm has gained nearly 500K users to date. Will update as we learn more.

Check out Shuffler.fm on the App Store here.

Dum dum dum dummmmm. Do do do dee dee dooot! The London Philharmonic Orchestra has just released “The Greatest Video Game Music” featuring full orchestrations of all of your favorite themes including Super Mario Brothers, the Legend of Zelda, and Halo. That’s right: Angry Birds finally has its own multi-part score and trilling woodwinds.

And the cover art, featuring a soldier playing a cello, is wildly goofy.

You can listen to a sample of the Call of Duty theme composed by Hans Zimmer and pick up the album here. With the coupon code “GAMESMP3″ you can get the MP3 version for a mere $1.99, about the price of a tiny Super Mario Brothers eraser at the Nintendo store.

Here’s what you get:

1. Advent Rising: Muse (Composed by Tommy Tallarico, Emmanuel Fratianni, and Laurie Robinson)
2. Legend of Zelda: Suite (Composed by Koji Kondo)
3. Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 2: Theme (Composed by Hans Zimmer)
4. Angry Birds: Main Theme (Composed by Ari Pulkkinen)
5. Final Fantasy VIII: Liberi Fatali (Composed by Nobuo Uematsu)
6. Super Mario Bros Theme (Composed by Mahito Yokota and Koji Kondo)
7. Uncharted – Drake’s Fortune: Nate’s Theme (Composed by Greg Edmonson)
8. Grand Theft Auto IV: Soviet Connection (Composed by Michael Hunter)
9. World of Warcraft: Seasons of War (Composed by Jason Hayes)
10. Metal Gear Solid: Sons of Liberty Theme (Composed by Harry Gregson-Williams)
11. Tetris: Theme (Composed by Alexey Pajitnov)
12. Battlefield 2: Theme (Composed by Joel Eriksson)
13. Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (Composed by Jeremy Soule)
14. Call of Duty 4 – Modern Warfare: Main Menu Theme (Composed by Stephen Barton and Harry Gregson-Williams)
15. Mass Effect: Suicide Mission (Composed by Jack Wall and Sam Hulick)
16. Splinter Cell: Conviction (Composed by Michael Nielsen, Kaveh Cohen, and Amon Tobin)
17. Final Fantasy: Main Theme (Composed by Nobuo Uematsu)
18. Bioshock: The Ocean on his Shoulders (Composed by Garry Schyman)
19. Halo 3: One Final Effort (Composed by Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori)
20. Fallout 3: Theme (Composed by Inon Zur)
21. Super Mario Bros: Gusty Garden Galaxy (Composed by Koji Kondo)

No Castlevania theme? Come on, London Philharmonic Orchestra, aren’t you down with Akumajō Dorakyura?

Unlimited streaming music service MOG is expanding its footprint yet again with a new AT&T deal that will see its mobile application pre-installed on AT&T’s first new LTE smartphones: the Samsung Galaxy S Skyrocket and the HTC Vivid. The app will be pre-loaded onto these two AT&T 4G (LTE) phones, and customers will be able to try the service for free for a week. In addition, the company has integrated with AT&T’s billing system, so customers can pay for MOG via their regular phone bill.

This is the first carrier pre-load deal for the all-you-can-eat streaming music service which is now offering a catalog of over 13 million songs for $9.99/month on mobile. MOG is already available as a standalone iOS app, Android app, desktop app, in BMW vehicles, and on media centers, TVs and Blu-ray players, including LG and Samsung TVs, Samsung Blu-ray players, Boxee, Roku, Sonos and more. The service also recently saw a big bump in usage thanks to the Facebook integration. Over the past month, MOG reported seeing its monthly active users jump over 264%, reaching 160,000 users via its Facebook app during the month of October (source: AppData). If the growth rate continues, that could bring MOG to 2 million Facebook users by year-end, CEO David Hyman says.

Now as a pre-installed app on AT&T’s new LTE phones, the removal of the pre-registration process eliminates a big hurdle in acquiring new mobile user sign-ups. However, MOG will not disclose the current size of its user base, or how many more it expects the AT&T deal to bring, only saying that it expects the growth to be “significant.”

If rap lyrics like “Real G’s move in silence like lasagna” stump you, check out Rap Genius. The crowdsourced hip-hop lyrics explanation site will inform you that Lil Wayne is describing how skilled gangsters can assassinate someone without making a sound, like the letter ‘g’ in ‘lasagna’.

But the three-man team behind Rap Genius aren’t satisfied with their current vertical. Today they told me they’re preparing to launch a site for rock music lyrics called Stereo IQ, and one day hope to expand to sites for country music, poetry, legal documents, and religious texts. While presently focused on user growth, the network of sites could monetize through sponsorships of brands mentioned in or related to the explained texts.

Rap Genius Co-Founder Mahbod Moghadam tells me “Google wants to index all of text. But what’s more interesting is to try to explain all of text, anything that lends itself to line-by-line analysis.” While a lofty ambition, the bootstrapped startup site is off to a good start, receiving several million unique visitors a month.

There’s plenty of runway in the industry, as Mogahadam says 2% of all Google searches are for lyrics. Dozens of lyrics sites now exist, but most are plagued with inaccuracies and awful user experiences cluttered with intrusive ads. This includes frontrunner MetroLyrics, which as of a few years ago had 13.5 million uniques a month and $10 million a year in revenue.

Mogahadam and his co-founders were inspired by VH1′s Pop-Up Video, initially writing all the site’s explanations themselves. Eventually it opened up to contributors using a Wikipedia-style peer review system. Mogahadam says, “I had all this paranoia that the crowdsourced explanations were gonna be shit, but if you have a strong hierarchy of reviewers, crowdsourced content can be even better than using professionals.”

Soon people started adding explanations to all sorts of text, not just rap lyrics. The site now features the Bill of Rights, excerpts from the Bible, rock songs, and poetry by Emily Dickinson. Currently, all this is hosted on Rap Genius but Mogahadam wants to launch standalone sites where tight knit communities can gather around specific content.

When asked about Quora, which sometimes receives questions on lyric meanings, Mogahadam says “Mad respect for the guys who started it, but I think it’s too big — trying to do all of knowledge in one site. If you look at answers in areas other than technology, they’re not as good.” He says he’s willing to forgo the SEO benefits of a single site in favor of creating destinations that enthusiasts of particular verticals will keep coming back to for the latest explanations.

For monetization, Rap Genius currently offers branded merchandise that doubles as promotion, and is reluctant to sell ads. I told the company I think it’s best bet is to get brands that are name-dropped in their lyrics or explanations to buy for sponsorships or site take-overs. If you just found out your favorite rapper is talking about Ciroc vodka or Audi automobiles in his songs, you might be highly susceptible to marketing from those brands.

Rap Genius  is quickly becoming the top result for some songs and seeing more “[song title] rap genius” queries. While individual rap lyrics can be difficult to decipher, standalone sites for rock, country, legal, and religious texts could provide macro-level analysis on what entire songs or passages mean. There’s also potential for the original authors to add official explanations that could draw more people to the sites. Says Mogahadam, “I want to see what The Strokes think about their own lyrics.”