The much-anticipated Beats Music on-demand subscription service launched today, following a long build-up with anticipatory marketing. Beats positioned itself in advance, emphasizing celebrity playlists and effortless listening to “the right song at the right time.” Click for our review. Continue Reading
RAIN Enterprises announced today that Jason Calacanis, one of the world’s most celebrated and successful digital entrepreneurs, will be the keynote speaker at this year’s RAIN Summit West on April 6th in Las Vegas. He will deliver his annual and much-awaited State of Media address at RAIN Summit West. Continue Reading
Why is audio less viral than video? Audio has to work harder to be good. But when it is, it’s almost better. What are the elements that make great audio that people will want to share online? Continue Reading
When Spotify and Topspin announced today that bands would be able to sell t-shirts and other branded merchandise through the music service, it hit four birds with one stone. Continue Reading
Stealing Beats thunder? Not really. Kim Dotcom, founder of the explosively named Baboom music service, which semi-announced its existence in November, is taking advantage of the U.S. holiday to get a jump on the much-publicized Beats Music debut tomorrow. But Baboom is a blip beside Beats. Continue Reading
Synergy and enhancement — those are the touchstones of Radionomy’s acquisition of ShoutCast and Winamp from AOL, which closed last week. We spoke with Thierry Ascarez, VP of Business Development for Radionomy, about how he views the integration of two iconic brands into Radionomy’s Internet radio platform. Continue Reading
As hordes of Americans spend their Sunday evenings with Downton Abbey and Sherlock, it’s worth noting that the Senate’s new spending budget, passed last week, includes continued funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). That money goes to public radio and TV. Continue Reading
Google takes “infographic” to the next level with a flowing interactive timeline of music genre popularity from 1950 to the present. You can see at a glance, as if from a cross-section of musical strata, how pop and rock displaced jazz in the 1960s, and how indie and hip-hop ate into those categories starting in the 1980s. Continue Reading
The quick and concise summary of the past week. Refresh your neurons, and prepare for the coming week. It’s going to be an eventful one! Continue Reading
When an old-media celebrity makes a “Gee Whiz!” recommendation of an online service that’s been around for nearly six years, you know that the service is inching into the mainstream. That’s what makes Bill O’Reilly’s video endorsement of Pandora more than just amusing, but also significant. Continue Reading
This week’s most-read articles! An odd reader survey, Kurt Hanson’s latest blog post, Spotify goes free in a new way, preview of Beats Music, Shazam and SoundHound take from radio and give to streaming, and the Net Neutrality law goes down. Continue Reading
Radio plays a strategic advantage over digital: non-variety. An interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal emphasizes the divide between the music-discovery advantage of music services compared to radio, but also spotlights what might be an odd competitive advantage of radio’s increasingly narrow playlists. Continue Reading