Tag: Music
We7 goes ad-free between Christmas and New Year
In an attempt to grab some of the marketshare back off Spotify, web-based ad-supported music streaming service We7 has announced that between Christmas and New Year, all their ad-supported music won’t have.. er… ads. It’ll basically be un-supported music. A big money sink, I should imagine, but hopefully a big draw to their audience.
The company has assured us that it’ll still be paying royalties, so if you’re a songwriter, then don’t worry, you’ll still get your December cash to pay for those presents. However, even We7 without ads probably won’t tempt me away from my beloved Spotify. Sorry guys.
Related posts: EMI adding over 400,000 new tunes to We7’s free streaming library | Spotify – stream all the music you could ever want
VIDEO: 49 microwaves play "Jingle Bells" – one note each
If this video is legit, then it’s right up there with staggering works of artistic genius like the Mona Lisa, the Taj Mahal, and Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. It’s a series of microwaves timed perfectly to go ‘ding’ so as to play Jingle Bells. If they actually managed to do it, I’m enormously impressed, but I have a lingering suspicion that it might not be entirely real. If anyone’s able to prove it, either way, then let us know in the comments.
(via Core77)
Related posts: Best. PC case mod. Ever: Microwave hacked, now a working computer | Christmas Tech Trumpet: Twelve Days of Christmas
NOISE GATE: 6 Tenets for a New Music Industry – Conclusions
It’s okay, you can open your eyes again. I’ve reached the end of my Six Tenets series. I hope it’s proved interesting and perhaps even useful. The way people consume music is changing very fast right now, faster than it ever has done before. At the end of it, will there still be the same infrastructure we have now? I highly doubt it. So, in full then, here are my recommendations:
- Music must be sharable – word of mouth is more important than ever
- Revenue must come from multiple sources – if one bit of the industry becomes obsolete, it shouldn’t sink the whole ship
- New technologies are to be welcomed and understood, not feared and litigated against
- A&R can be crowdsourced, but remember the long tail
- “Added value” is key – give people a reason not to pirate things
- Your artists are your most important spokespeople
Universal Music: We're getting heaps of cash from YouTube
For a long time, Google has struggled to monetise its video-sharing site, YouTube. Experiments with advertising have been coldly received by the community but perhaps things are starting to perk up – the executive vice president of Universal Music Group’s eLabs, Rio Caraeff, has said that his company is getting “tens of millions of dollars” from YouTube.
Universal is one of a handful of companies who have a deal with YouTube where ad revenue from Universal’s content is split between the parties. As Universal has a hell of a lot of back-catalogue content, that’s a decent chunk of revenue, but “tens of millions” is far more than I would have expected.
Christmas Tech Trumpet: Twelve Days of Christmas
It’s the third Christmassy Tech Trumpet, where I attempt to make vaguely musical (and festive) sounds using a variety of gadgets and computers.
Actually, I’ve cheated a bit this week due to the pressures of Christmas preparation and a lack of Vitamin C, and instead am sharing with you one of the most wonderful Christmassy MIDI files I’ve ever heard…
Relentless releases 'The Rev' visualization
Do you like energy drinks? I’ll admit that I’m not a massive fan – they taste like robot sweat – but some gamers love them, so I thought I’d point out this quite cool iTunes plug-in that Relentless has made for a marketing campaign of some kind. You can see it in action in the video above.
The website is a bit confusing, and you’ll have to register and give up your email address (or *an* email address, wink wink) to download the plugin, but if you’re the sort of person who digs visualizations, then this one’s more attractive than most. Blow it up big screen, and it’s like being friends with an aggressive squid. In a good way.
Relentless
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Christmas Tech Trumpet: Rudolph around the world
It’s the second Christmassy Tech Trumpet, where I attempt to make vaguely musical (and festive) sounds using a variety of gadgets and computers.
Last week you got a slightly different version of O Come All Ye Faithful. This week, I’m paying tribute to Rudolph, the infamous red-nosed reindeer.
In a hat tip to Santa, who has to travel the entire globe in just one night, this version uses lyrics gleaned from multiple automatic translations from Google Translate.
The original English lyrics were translated into Bulgarian, then Croatian, Danish, Finnish, Filipino, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Russian, and then back into English…
T-Mobile adds Last.fm and Wikipedia to its mobile jukebox service
This is potentially game-changing for mobile music. T-Mobile has added music-discovery functionality from Last.fm to its mobile jukebox service. The addition means that users of the service can simply put in an artist’s name, and they’ll receive a list of other musicians that they might like.
With each option presented, you’ll have the option to stream a 30 second preview (why not a full preview?) and then buy the track. Users will also get plenty of biographical info about the artist, thanks to a partnership with Wikipedia.
Jay's c-JAYS headphones are lightweight, but heavy hitters
The world of mid-range headphones has just got a little more cluttered with the release of the c-JAYS, from Swedish manufacturer Jay’s Headphones. They’re over-the-head jobbies and they come with three sizes of foam cushion, from small to whopping (whopping pictured above).
You’ve got to love that way that whenever technology companies invent something, they give it a silly name and acronym. In this case, Jay’s has invented something called the Elastic Multi Layer (EML) Membrane, which apparently makes things sound nice, and SGSCC (Single Crystal Copper) cables, which reduce distortions.
For those keeping score, that’s the second time today that an abbreviation doesn’t match up with what it’s abbreviating. I’m not a happy bunny.
Deafness charity finds 67% of you lot are listening to music TOO LOUDLY
A survey conducted by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People discovered that two-thirds of us are listening to MP3 players at dangerously loud volume levels that could break our earholes for good.
The RNID accosted 246 people in the streets of Edinburgh and plugged listening gadgets into the headphone sockets of their MP3 players, testing the volume output levels. The level considered safe for blasting music…
