May 2nd, 2013

Songza Launches Version 3.0 With Improved Search, Quicker Navigation, And Revamped UI

Songza, the app that matches expert-created music playlists to your mood or activity, has just released a huge update to its iOS app, streamlining the experience quite a bit and cleaning up the UI to ensure that users are getting the best music to match their mood and activity in the fastest time possible. To start, you’ll notice straight off the bat that the Concierge screen has changed… → Read More

April 14th, 2013

Songza Raised $3.8M According To SEC Filing, Amazon Still In The Frame As An Investor

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Songza, a free streaming music service that has expert-made playlists and runs on the web and various touch screen platforms, raised $3.8 million according to a SEC filing. While Amazon has long been an “unconfirmed” investor listed on AngelList, it parlayed its investment in the earlier Aime St vehicle into Songza. In late 2011 the startup closed what was reportedly a ‘seven-figure’ round of… → Read More

January 7th, 2013

iHeartRadio Copies Songza’s Music Concierge Feature

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Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio launches a new feature today called “Perfect for.” Available on iHeartRadio’s website and in its mobile apps, the company has shamelessly copied Songza‘s popular music concierge feature. Every step of the user experience is exactly the same, which mainly means that Songza is doing something right. → Read More

December 14th, 2012

How Music Streaming Service Songza And Audyssey Just Upgraded Your Headphones For Free

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Audyssey has gone mobile with its AMP technology, the same process used to calibrate home theater systems to deliver excellent, high-quality audio. But rather than calibrating the headphones yourself, the way owners of these major theater systems do, Audyssey has done it for you in the form of an app.

Songza, the music streaming service that brings personalized playlists directly to you, is… → Read More

August 15th, 2012

Songza Music Streaming App Nabs 2 Million New Users Since June With More Than 50% Retention Rate

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You’ve heard me talk about Songza before. After launching on iPad, bringing Concierge to Android, and surpassing 1 million iOS downloads in 10 days, the company is still on a roll, announcing that more than 2 million users from the States and Canada have joined Songza since June 1st.

But perhaps more impressive, of all the users that have ever used Songza (remember, the service launched in… → Read More

August 9th, 2012

Back To School: 5 Apps That Will Make You Fall (Even More) In Love With Your Phone

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You’re heading off to college. You have no idea that the next four years of fun will fly by, likely leaving you jobless and in debt. You’re unconcerned with nonsense like that — you’re ready to achieve your dreams! You’re ready to party! You’re ready to meet your mate in life!

But before you pack up the family van full of clothes, collapsible IKEA furniture and school supplies, there’s… → Read More

July 10th, 2012

Songza Brings Its Core Feature, Concierge, To Android

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Songza has long been one of my favorite music apps, and as an iPhone user, I’ve had access to all the latest and greatest features within it. But as I’ve mentioned the app to various friends and such, I’ve learned that Android has been missing out. But no more.

Songza’s core feature — Concierge — is now available within the Android version of the app. The update is now live, so if… → Read More

June 18th, 2012

Music Streaming App Songza Surpasses 1 Million iOS Downloads In 10 Days

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Last week, music curation and streaming service Songza launched an iPad app to join their already-available iPhone, Android, and web apps. And over the course of the last ten days, the company’s iOS apps have been downloaded more than 1.15 million times.

This is a testament to how startups can disrupt crowded spaces as long as the core idea is solving the problem differently. Songza achieves… → Read More

June 7th, 2012

Songza, The Music Streaming Service That Does All Work For You, Launches An iPad App

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Music is as annoying as it is wonderful. I mean, the listening part is great. But taking the time to curate playlists on Spotify or conjure up the right artist to feed Pandora in exchange for a fresh playlist is tedious, at the very least. But Songza brings the expertly curated playlist straight to your smartphone with little to no work on your part, and today that magic extends to iPad land. → Read More

April 2nd, 2012

Music Upstart Songza Co-Founders On Battling Pandora, Spotify

Ever since I met the Songza guys at New York Tech Meetup, I’ve wanted to learn more about the app. It’s the first music service that I’ve been excited to use, mostly because it removes the work entirely. I’ve been curious about a few things, like how Songza plans to combat the big boys, namely Pandora, and how exactly these guys are making any money. Remember, Songza has no audio ads, no limits… → Read More

March 28th, 2012

Songza App Review: Pandora And Spotify Better Watch Their Backs

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Sure, there are plenty of music streaming services out there, and even ones with amazing shareable playlists, but Songza differentiates by falling right into that sweet spot between Spotify and Pandora. The app’s most interesting feature, Concierge, sets up playlists based on day and time, with filters for whatever mood you might be in.

For example, on Wednesday morning, Concierge says that… → Read More

September 13th, 2011

Songza Raises Seven Figure Round; Launches Mobile, Sharable Music Collections In The Cloud

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Mike first covered Amie Street back in 2006. At the time, he was a big fan. Back then, the startup was targeting a new music model, which allowed musicians to upload their songs to Amie Street’s platform, offering those tracks to listeners for free. The more downloads the songs attracted, the price would slowly increase — the price then indicating the song’s popularity. In what now looks like a… → Read More

September 8th, 2010

Amazon Acquires Amie Street, But Not In A Good Way

Amie Street is one of those startups that just got me – love at first site if you will. I first discovered them in 2006, calling it an awesome new music model. Artists upload songs and those songs are free to download to start. As more downloads occur the price goes up. A cent, fifty cents, etc., up to $1. The price of the song is an indication of how good it is, as friends share the good stuff… → Read More

September 26th, 2009

Your Guide to Music on the Web, Part II

Last month, I published Part 1 of my Guide To Music On The Web, which covered music recommendation sites, Web radio, independent music sites, playlists, and music visualizations. Today, in Part II we’ll take a tour of music search engines, Web players, ways to share music on Twitter, and music mixing apps.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading all of your comments and insights on my previous post and… → Read More

April 8th, 2009

News Flash: Amie Street Swallowed Songza Six Months Ago

For months, popular music store Amie Street has kept a deal it forged with Songza, a media streaming service, under wraps. But this tweet (and a fair amount of research on our part) has uncovered the news: Amie Street acquired Songza back in October 2008, and planned to keep the deal under wraps until they were ready to announce whatever it is they have in store for the product.

Amie Street… → Read More

March 31st, 2009

Troubled SeeqPod Files For Bankruptcy Protection

SeeqPod, the popular “playable media” search service that many music sites use as the foundation for their core offering, has filed a petition for Chapter 11 yesterday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Northern District of California.

The company, which has raised $7 million in venture capital to date from undisclosed investors, is evidently doing this out of fear about the outcome of the → Read More

July 17th, 2008

Last.fm's Buggy, New Design

Last.fm has a new look today that simplifies the navigation of the main site and makes finding music easier. Or at least, it would make finding music easier if the site wasn’t so buggy. (At least for me. I couldn’t even log in without getting an error. This may be due to fans rushing to check out the new features, or simply poor planning). The new features a library of songs that you… → Read More

January 18th, 2008

Songza Adds More Songs With Help From Seeqpod

Today Songza just got bigger by embracing one of its rivals. The music-search engine (and Crunchies nominee) is incorporating song search results from Seeqpod, expanding the number of songs it can stream from 15.5 million to 23.5 million. Now you can get results from both music search engines in one place. Songza is also considering incorporating songs from Skreemr and other music search engines… → Read More

January 15th, 2008

The Music Industry's Going to Love This: Desktop Client for SeeqPod Released

A new desktop application called Songbeat has been released that allows you to search the web for MP3s using Seeqpod technology, stream those MP3s, and even download them. Seeqpod, which we covered alongside Skreemr and Songza, is a search engine for MP3s that are hosted across on the internet. Whereas with Skreemr, you can actually click on a link to download a track, SeeqPod only displays a… → Read More

November 28th, 2007

Music Search Engines Tread Fine Legal Line

Music search engines are just one of the many ways to get free music on the Internet (BitTorrent and MP3Sparks, formerly AllofMP3, are other popular ways). But for some users they are a near perfect way to listen to music on demand, and/or round out their music collection. Three that we’ve been tracking are SeeqPod, Songza and Skreemr. All three index the web, or parts of the web, looking… → Read More