• Top 5 Online Music Streaming Services: The Velvets Test - Nice workmanlike test as to accuracy of streamed radio based upon Velvet Underground
• Gbox Music Downloads: Universal Partners With Google To Rival iTunes (Gizmodo) - Google and Universal unite to fight against iTunes…
• Tuning Out: Why Universal Shut Out iTunes on DRM-Free Music (Gizmodo) - Interesting appraisal of the Universal/iTunes situation
• Apple Gets Into Social Music Scene with My iTunes - Apple isn?t just sitting on the sidelines as startups like iLike and MOG and others try to tackle the social music space.
• Phone hasn’t put iPod use on hold (Macworld) - "There are just too many little hoops for me to jump through; it?s easier to just carry around my iPod too."

Share this post:

• Last.fm signs content deal with Sony (E-consultancy.com) -
• Calling Universal?s bluff (John Naughton) - Interesting thoughts about why Universal was threatening to pull out of iTunes?
• On the Web, EMI to Offer More Choices (New York Times) - "blogs and social networking sites like MySpace are will also be able to sell songs from a major label that will play on the iPod from Apple."
• Fopp closes down its 105 stores (BBC News) - "Music retailer Fopp has announced it is shutting down its 105 shops, as the firm becomes the latest victim of the slump in CD sales."
• Universal refuses to renew iTunes contract (Engadget) - "Universal Music, the world’s largest music business, has officially opted not to renew its contract with Apple for vending music on the iTunes Music Store." Potential big ouch!

Share this post:

• Peripherals: On Yer Bike with the iH85B, iHome’s iPod Speaker (Gizmodo) - Worth a look - ingenious design for an iPod speaker system designed specifically for mounting on a bicycle - whether it will enable you to take on the dubstep/junglist massive is questionable though…
• Soundpedia: A Decent Pandora Substitute For The Rest Of Us (TechCrunch) -
• iTunes moves up to third largest music store (Playlist) - "In third place iTunes captured a 9.8 percent share of total music sales, ahead of Amazon, Target, Borders, Circuit City, Virgin Megastores and others."
• Downloads fail to stem Britains’ love of the CD (Guardian Unlimited Music) - "Despite the growing popularity of downloads, UK physical music sales held up strongly last year "
• The Fall of the Record Business: What Next? (Rolling Stone) - Interesting: 5 predictions about the future of the record business from industry insiders.

Share this post:

• iPod not eco-friendly - "Environmental groups claim the music industry’s transition from physical to digital has no discernible benefit to the environment and, in the short term, is actually causing more harm than good."
• Google Music Trends - Looks like Google is dipping a toe into music charts… Apparently the service tracks users listening habits via Google Talk.
• EMI says DRM-free music is selling well - "Early sales indicate that DRM-free music is noticeably more popular than DRMed music, EMI senior VP Lauren Berkowitz recently told Bloomberg."
• Apple Links iTunes To Social Networking Through Bebo (Strange Glue Music) - "Apple are trialling a new service in the U.K that will enable almost 9 million U.K and Ireland Bebo users to download music from Apple?s iTunes store."
• Holy cow… 6mm users and growing 300k/day! (iLike Team Blog) - If their figures are correct, it looks like the new FaceBook platform has been a boon for iLike.
• New Free Music Download Service (launchr) - Following in the footsteps of Peter Gabriel’s recently announced project along the same lines: "founding editor of Gizmodo and Engadget to launch RCRD LBL, an ad-supported model to offer free, online music downloads."
• Daft bluetooth speakers (Aving USA) -

Share this post:

• Music Sheets: New Digital Paper Knows How to Play Sounds (Gizmodo) - “Researchers in Sweden have come up with a new kind of paper that’s able to play sounds.”
• Jemima Kiss on CBS’s buyout of Last.fm (MediaGuardian.co.uk) - “After last week’s CBS buyout, Last.fm’s founders are the first British Web 2.0 millionaires…”
• Apple sells DRM-free music. Throws in your personal data for free (Memex 1.1) - Ouch.
• EMI Sold: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (hypebot)
• Birth of Music Visualization (Modern Mechanix) - Precursor to today’s mp3 visualizers…

Share this post:

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.

Share this post:

• SoundExchange offers olive branch to small webcasters over royalties (Ars Technica) - Smaller webcasters offered lower licensing rates. Not good enough says Ars Technica.
• E.U. Clears Universal, BMG Music Deal (Time) - Further consolidation of the big 4 music companies…
• Zing and Pandora together on a new device? - Engadget - "Zing and Pandora announced a partnership to create a new WiFi-enabled media device."
• Pandora’s music streaming gets mobile with Sprint (Engadget) -
• Sonos partners with Pandora music service (Playlist) - Signs that Pandora is fighting back from recent setbacks: "Sonos and the grassroots music service Pandora have partnered to offer users direct access to the service through the Sonos interface."
• RIAA goes after terrestrial radio (p2pnet.net) - "More money! More money! More money! The cry echoes loudly and continually throughout the hallowed halls of the corporate music industry."
• Music Licensing Online: YouLicense - "YouLicense enables artists and those seeking musical content to conduct business directly without the need to deal with music companies."
• The Future of Pandora is Mobile (The Futurist) - Thinkpiece on potential escape plan for embattled Pandora
• Amazon to Sell Music Without Copy Protection (New York Times) - "Amazon, the Internet?s most successful seller of physical CDs, today announced plans to introduce a music download store later this year, selling MP3s without DRM."

Share this post:

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

Share this post:

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,

Share this post:

• Last.fm Adds Personalized Music Anywhere Widget (TechCrunch) - yet more Last.fm developments - don’t they sleep?
• Analysis of the Sansa Connect: wireless-enabled MP3 player (Engadget) - “The Sansa Connect may be the best implementation of web services ever to appear on a consumer electronics device.”
• Major Miner (music labelling game) - “The goal of the game is to label songs with original, yet relevant words that other players agree with. Your descriptions will teach our computers to recommend music that sounds like the music you already like.”
• earPod creation could add auditory menus to iPod, DAPs (Engadget) - It would be nice not to have to dig out the iPod at all - the best interface is no interface?
• Hear 2.0: The future of the music industry - Conclusion: “The future of the music industry is, in part, to sell its wares to licensees who value that content more than the folks who steal it via P2P.”
• Fan sites RIP? (Net, Blogs and Rock’n'Roll) - are those labour of love sites devoted to music artists in terminal decline?

Share this post: