Archives Posts
May 27th, 2007 by musicinterfaces
Dear Readers,
Wow, I’ve just realised I’ve been writing this blog for almost 6 months now. I hope you’ve found it interesting so far. I’m happy to be learning about and reporting on all the new developments in this area. One thing I’d really welcome is feedback - is there anything I’m missing out on that I should be covering? (For example, I know I’m not so strong on PC-related products and I’d love to publish someone’s experience of Apple’s iTV in relation to listening to music.) Do you think I could be doing anything better than I am currently? Is there a service or product that’s relevant to Music Interfaces that you have experience of? Is there a product that you wish existed but doesn’t exist at the moment? I’d love for you to write a review or post for this site. If you’re interested, please don’t hesitate to get in touch either in the comments or via: colin - the at sign - musicinterfaces - dot - com. Whether you’re interested in contributing or not, thanks for reading!
All the best, Colin.
PS I won’t be able to update Music Interfaces for the next week, but will be back in touch directly after that.
Archives Posts
May 26th, 2007 by musicinterfaces
We7 is a new venture, currently in beta, that offers free, legally downloadable music. The catch is that each track is prefaced with a brief (10 second) audio advertisement. There are currently only a few tracks available, but they’re from relatively well-known artists e.g. Herbie Hancock, Hall and Oates and Coolio. This may well be evidence of the sort of backing for this project (Peter Gabriel is the big name). The music is DRM-free. The We7 website states that relevant ads will be attached to the track on download so that they can be targeted according to user demographics.
When I registered with the website, the technology worked smoothly and I was able to download and play a Herbie Hancock track without a problem. The advertisement consisted of a female voice stating “I’ll pay for a download when I die, until then… We7″. I’d rather not have had to listen to it, but it was brief and pretty painless. The business model is certainly innovative - it will be interesting to see whether it succeeds when it launches properly this summer.
Link: We7
Via: Soundtracking
Archives Posts
May 25th, 2007 by musicinterfaces
Archives Posts
May 18th, 2007 by musicinterfaces
Last.fm move from the virtual to the real world with the following event. I wonder whether it’s the first of many such moves. I can’t quite decide whether the decision to play tracks from Last.fm subscribing attendees’ recent listening habits is intriguing or a little lame. Ninja Tune lost the plot a few years back, but they’ve a rep for getting involved in interesting things so may be interesting all the same:
Social music network Last.fm has teamed up with seminal label Ninja Tune to create a groundbreaking ‘user-generated’ club night at The Big Chill House on Pentonville Road on June 2nd. All Last.fm users going to the party will help decide the setlist for the upstairs room, DJed by Ninja Tune’s Sparky. They’ll register their intention to attend at the club’s event page on the Last.fm website, and on the night Sparky will play tracks drawn from music listened to by those users in the preceding weeks.
(…) This party is the first time that Last.fm has taken its ‘collaborative filtering’ ethos out into the real world. Sparky’s user-generated set will also be recorded and made available on Last.fm for users unable to attend. (…)
Generous souls that they are, Last.fm will be posting a recording of the event for those unable to attend. Nice.
Link: Last.fm event page
Archives Posts
May 16th, 2007 by musicinterfaces
That’s a question that’ll quicken the pulse of many a music geek. Am I narrow-minded or open-minded? Am I just right? What is right? Okay, I’ll rein back on the worrying, but I have wondered whether the plethora of music recommendation services will result in more or less homogeneity. Anthony Lieken’s script isn’t going to provide the answer, but - if you have a Last.fm account - it does promise to tell you how eclectic your listening habits are relative other Last.fm subscribers:
The following script takes the 20 top artists in your musical profile from Last.fm, and finds the collection of top 5 similar artists for this top 20. The resulting is a list of artists similar to your preferred artists. As the list is larger (maximum = 100), your musical preference is more diverse.
If this tweaks your curiosity, the author has a number of other online scripts that might be of interest.
Just in case you were wondering (as I was), how eclectic Music Interfaces is - I got a 90 out of 100 (I ascribe that to my love of Barbra Streisand and Bad Brains - er, I’m joking about one of those…)
Links: Anthony Lieken.net, Last.fm,
Archives Posts
May 14th, 2007 by musicinterfaces
Archives Posts
May 13th, 2007 by musicinterfaces
FoxyTunes started out as a Firefox plug-in that provides users with the ability to play their music without leaving their browser. It’s one of many similar services which may be either useful or redundant depending on how you’ve set up your computer. FoxyTunes Planet is of more interest as it’s a mashup that aggregates a diverse range of music-related services into one webpage. As they claim on their FAQ:
There are a lot of cool music sites and services out there and their number is constantly growing. The problem is that there are simply not enough hours in a day to discover, try and use all of these services. FoxyTunes Planet plans to solve this problem by integrating all the best music sites and services into one convenient place.
Type an artist’s name into the search box and by default you’re presented with:
- YouTube videos
- Lyrics from LyricWiki
- Flickr photos
- Artist info from Last.fm
- Pandora’s artist radio
- MP3s from Hypemachine
- Google links for video, blog, news and general search
- Amazon albums
Despite the awful name, Foxytunes Planet provides a much more usable interface than, say, MusicMesh. It could do with - besides a better name - tools to personalise the interface, a proper URL and even the ability to add user comments so fans could add their enthusiasm.
Links: Foxytunes Planet, MusicMesh
Related: Fan Sites RIP (Net, Blogs and Rock’n'Roll)
Archives Posts
May 11th, 2007 by musicinterfaces
e-Consultancy reports that Last.fm is planning the imminent launch of a music video service. Interestingly, initial content will be provided by independent labels like Warp, NinjaTune and Mute with plans to introduce more mainstream fare in the coming months. The service will inevitably be personalised as per Last.fm’s streamed radio. They claim that file quality will be double that of YouTube.
This will likely reduce visitor figures for the recently announced Last.tv which sought to offer a similar service using Last.fm data combined with YouTube content.
Links: e-Consultancy article, Last.fm, Last.tv
Archives Posts
May 11th, 2007 by musicinterfaces
A new service launching 14 May will supply purchasers of vinyl with 320Kbps non-DRM MP3s of their music at no extra cost. Digiwax is a new enterprise from UK-based First Word Records, suppliers to the DJ market. Every purchase of double-weight vinyl comes with access to a password-protected area to download the same music from the Digiwax’s website. It’s not clear whether this is limited to artists signed to the company or not. However, it sets a welcome example to other vendors and neatly sidesteps the irritating process of having to digitise vinyl. I’d very happily purchase more records if this service were offered more widely.
Links: Wired Gadget Lab blog, Digiwax
Via: Mediaor
Archives Posts
May 10th, 2007 by musicinterfaces
Proposed laws in Florida and Utah intended to curb the resale of stolen goods will impact significantly upon the market for used CDs and DVDs:
The new legislation requires all stores buying second-hand merchandise for resale to apply for a permit, would be required to thumb-print CD sellers and get a copy of their state-issued identity documents, such as a driver’s license. Furthermore, stores could only issue store credit — not pay cash — in exchange for traded CDs, and then would be required to hold them for a 30-day period, before re-selling them.
The number of shops in London selling used CDs has plummeted in recent years. In the unlikely event that similar legislation were to be enacted here in the UK, it would certainly hammer home the final nail in the offline market.
Link: Billboard article
