http://criticalmetrics.com/playlist/81784
One of my issues with in-page playback is that you essentially get "trapped" on a page, if you follow any of the links the song you are listening to stops playing. It looks like they are remedying that by including an pop-up player (based on the open source XSPF Web Player) although it seems buggy right now and wouldn't load the playlists.
There is also no notion of community, users are annonymous (which is nice in some ways since there is no registration required - but this cookie-based way of identifying me means that the playlists I create on this machine aren't available to me on my work machine (unless I email or post the share link somewhere I can get to it). It also means that comments I leave on songs have no attribution, but I'm guessing that is in the works.
But, all-in-all, Critical Metrics is a very slick site and service with a lot of potential. I'll see if it sticks as part of my daily routine.
Viacom executives are in London negotiating the purchase of LastFM, the London based "online social music network" (read: internet radio station), according to a music business source familiar with the negotiations. The purchase price is said to be $450 million dollars.
http://www.dealbreaker.com/2007/02/the_rumor_mill_lastfm_being_pi.php
I don't know how real this story is, but certainly interesting. I've made no secret that I think Last.fm is an acquisition target for someone... but I didn't figure Viacom (I would assume with MTV being the main benefactor of such an acquistion). I guess they are looking to fill the void left by a missed YouTube opportunity?
And a player that plays back in page and can be "popped" out of the page so that you can continue to listen even when you navigate to another page.
Suppossedly, your radio stations are easier to find now... but they moved it out of the sidebar and I actually had a hard time finding them. But, they now also generate "user radio" for everyone (not just subscribers). The catch is that you aren't allowed to listen to your own station unless you pay. I'm sure this is due to the DMCA compulsory license stipulation that you can't have too much interactivity in the creation of your own station. Of course, I have had no interaction with YOUR station... hence the ability for you to create one, even though you can't listen to it.
Other features include:
What: This program will look for tracks played from Real's Rhapsody service and submit them to the Audioscrobbler database.
Why: Tracks you listen to from Rhapsody will appear in your Last.FM profile.
I found this RhapsodyScrobbler mashup on ProgrammableWeb at the end of last year and was very excited by it. Unfortunately, something wacky with my PC and/or network kept this from working for me, but hopefully you guys won't have the same problems.
I think it is pretty clever in its approach... basically it just pulls in your Rhapsody Just Played feed, parses it and then submits it to Last.fm using their plug-in protocol. It would be great to see more work done on this that it supported other web-based players/services via standard RSS too.
paidContent.org: The Economics of Content: "two of the longtime fixtures at Yahoo’s music group have resigned, and the company says it is for personal reasons. Dave Goldberg (VP) and Bob Roback (GM), both of whom came into Yahoo through Yahoo’s acquisition of Launch in 2001, are out, and Vince Broady, Head of Entertainment and Games at Yahoo, is overlooking the division now as part of his broader responsibilities. "
For the record, Goldberg has long been a proponent of abolishing DRM, and perhaps he just got tired of waiting?
UPDATE: Techcrunch is actually reporting that they are hearing rumors that Yahoo may be looking to divest of some/all of their music properties.
Microsoft Announces Breakthrough Technology Enabling Simple Access to Broad Set of Digital Content, Including Music, Games, Video, Ring Tones and Pictures: Microsoft PlayReady powers next-generation media experiences on mobile networks; mobile: "Microsoft PlayReady technology enables a broad spectrum of business models such as subscription, rental, pay-per-view, preview and super-distribution, which can be applied to many digital content types and a wide range of audio and video formats."
They are introducing a new DRM scheme that they are promoting to content distributors and device manufacturers - this is after they just royally screwed everyone in the portable media player/music space by basicaly abandoning "Plays For Sure" in favor of their own closed-DRM ecosystem around the Zune. They are also said to be working on a Zune Phone, that would then compete with all of the phone manufacturers that they are pitching "PlayReady" to.
Fool me once Microsoft..... you won't be fooled again.
UPDATE: There is an interesting exchange between Wired and a Microsoft spokesman on the subject here.
I have a feeling I'm late to the game here, but as I was struggling through the process of trying to download songs one at a I time while using Streampad, it finally struck me that a great compliment to this streaming media web application is a small podcatching client. Honestly, I'm a bit embarrassed that it took me this long to come to this realization, the concept is one I'm very familiar with (and fond of) from Music Now.
Simply copy the RSS feed URL (from the details window in the lower left) for any playlist that you have created, subscribed to, or that Streampad created using their very useful PageStreamer bookmarklet:
Paste that URL into your podcasting receiver of choice (I'm using Juice - the artist formerly known as iPodder), and let it run. Now you've got all of the songs from your playlists on your machine where you can then sync, burn or listen offline.
The beauty of the PageStreamer capability is that you can easily subscribe to (and download) songs from your favorite music blog with no work required beyond adding the URL ("Open URL") and clicking "subscribe" and then taking the resulting feed URL into your client (as shown above).
When Stereogum (for example) adds a new review and MP3, it just flows to you - ready to throw on your portable device the next time you sync.
And a number of others. I'll have to find another script that lets me display more links, but in the meantime you can always see/subscribe to the entire list here:
http://del.icio.us/rss/jherskowitz/music2.0
Sorry guys, I wasn't dissing you.... but thanks for bringing it to my attention
Not that I need to tell you guys, but things are moving fast in the digital music space. The DRM dike is springing leaks and Edgar Bronfman doesn't have enough fingers to plug the holes...
Are we in the making of a perfect storm? Let's look at what is going on:
You see where this is going, right? Steve Job's is going to stroll on stage and announce that iTunes has the entire Beatles catalog... and it is available as unprotected MP3s. The flood gates open, they sell billions of tracks, EMI makes a boatload, the digital music consumers go crazy, everyone that isn't yet a digital music consumer becomes one, Apple sells a billion more iPods. Kaboom!
Hold on to your seats... this could be the big one.
Now, what happens if I have a virtual house in Second Life? What happens if it's a mansion? With it's own ampitheater? Can I invite thousands of people to come and listen to my music? Can I leave my music collection exposed on my virtual PC, connected to my virtual stereo in my virtual living room? And leave my virtual front door unlocked? And put a big billboard in my front yard that says, "come on in and listen to my music". Is if fair use? What if someone at my party wanted us all to listen to their music (something I didn't have)... could we all teleport to their virtual house and listen to their virtual stereo? What if I created a playlist out of all of the MP3s that existed in the virutal world, and when I listened my virtual self just teleported from house to house to house? Obviously there is a line where things are more obvious infringements... but where is that line?
My head hurts... yours?
So, I was very excited to see that somone (obviously far more motivated than I) got a very similar model and service built for indie artists. It is called SellaBand, they are run by some ex-major label guys in Europe, and I just discovered them yesterday. I think they have done some very interesting things, and obviously have a nicely flushed out model with some interesting angles that I had never thought of.
Here's how it works...
Sellers (the artist), post their content (generally demos) to www.sellaband.com where investors (the fans) can find them and listen. If the fan is a "believer" they can then invest $10 in the artist. Once the artist has 5000 believers (aka $50K raised), SellaBand will then finance a recording studio, producer, A&R consultant and physical CD production. They take the resulting content and make it available for free to the public (presumably as unprotected MP3s) for download. They also send each investor a physical CD (there's their $10 back right there).
Where's the money? Well, SellaBand does a 3 way advertising revenue share between themselves, the artists, and the investors. The split between groups of sellers/believers is based on the popularity of the artist's content on the site. Additionally, they will provide CDs for the artists to sell at their shows (or online).... the revenue from each CD is sold is split 50/50 between the artist and the investor. It looks like they are getting ready to launch a webshop soon for artist merchandise, and I'm guessing a similar revenue share model will be instituted there.
I'm biased, but I love this concept. The artists have a vested interest, the fans have a vested interest to promote their artist, and the consumers win with free MP3s. The only thing I'm leary of is the advertising revenue (how much is there to split), and the fact that to generate the ad-revenue Sellaband needs to bring everyone to their front-door (limiting syndication/viral distribution opportunities). I think there are solutions to both, and it will be interesting to see if (and how) the model is tweaked in the future.
I think these are some good points, although I'd argue the point about it killing subscription services. I agree that a move like this would force the subscription guys to re-tool their model slightly. For example, the $15/month "to-go" models would not be sustainable in a world where users can sync and burn any track they get as often as they want. But, it *may* enable some interesting moves around marketplaces that support variable pricing of tracks (for example, Amie Street prices tracks based on their popularity).
Ultimately, what I think it would do is create subscription and/or advertising play-on-demand streaming (only) services. All of a sudden, those services whose content and links are most widely syndicated (Rhapsody and Last.fm come to mind) can flip on a model where for a small fee ($5/month?) anyone that stumbles across one of their playlists, charts, widgets, etc. can stream all songs in their entirety. Obviously, you could go to their destinations as well and listen all day long. If you want to take a song "to-go", then you pay for them and download an unprotected track at $1/pop (or less). While this could also be done with some of the free streaming services like Streampad, Webjay and others, what you lose with those is Quality of Service.... I'm a fan of those services, but the fact that I often hit dead links has me wondering how long before consumers get fed up (like back in the Napster 1.0 days where half the files you downloaded were corrupt, sounded horrible or were not the track they pretended to be).
As with most of my posts, this opinion is a work in progress, but I'd be interested in what others think.
"The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music."
The main points he makes are:
I think both are valid points. Where it gets a little more sticky is with subscription services.... totally unprotected all-you-can eat would undoubtedly require a different business model than $15/month. Basically, most would need to move to a model more closely aligned to a wireless carrier model where you purchase the right to use X minutes (or songs)/month. Some providers may choose to have these be use-it-or-lose it credits, while others may offer rollover credits.
I'm sure I'll be thinking about this more tonight, and may add some more thoughts later....
