We’ll stop writing about all the neat stuff to emerge from Music Hack Day Sydney at some point, but I’m not done with this thing yet, even as my jetlag is finally waning. Although this latest iteration of the Music Hack Day series produced only just north of 20 functional apps, they were all humdingers….
First, let us note that you cannot yet use Soundtastic, built by Eric Bae at Music Hack Day Sydney this past weekend. But we witnessed a fully-functional demonstration, and it was pretty impressive. Bae likens his creation to “StumbleUpon for music,” and in a way, he’s right. Soundtastic mines your Facebook page for your Likes, then starts…
We were mightily impressed with the music apps created at Music Hack Day Sydney — the first such hackathon ever to be held in the southwestern hemisphere. The latest to float our boat: Ivy, a web app that lets friends or coworkers add songs to a group playlist that they can all hear at the same…
Anonymous — yes, the people with the funny masks whom Time magazine recently named one of the “most influential people in the world” — appears to have released a music app. Anontune (demo here), the work of software developers who claim to be a part of the collective, works by “automating what most people do online…
What an original idea: A bunch of rooms where cute little avatars can DJ music to each other! That’s what we said last May, before breaking the news (we think) about Turntable.fm, after surprising its cofounder Billy Chasen with a call to his cellphone. If you’ve tried the social DJ web or iOS app Turntable.fm,…
We heard it again at the Digital Music Forum East conference earlier this week: YouTube, which most people consider to be a general video site, is where “the kids” go to hear music these days. It’s arguable the biggest music service in the world, even though it lacks a premium tier, and includes only fairly…
In order for a technology to take off these days, it has to be simple. Twitter, Facebook, iTunes, Spotify — each can be summed up in a sentence or so and readily understood from the very first time you use it. Tomahawk is more complicated, but if you’re a music fan who listens to music…
Here’s one for the “How on earth did nobody think of this before?” files. Video Star for iOS facilitates the creation of homespun music videos to go along with any song on your device. To use it, you simply choose a song from your music library and start shooting. You can act along with the…
This was the first full year of Evolver.fm, which we recently redesigned with a new, cleaner look, and the world’s first cross-platform directory of music apps with categories, reviews, videos, and more. To celebrate, we figured we’d take a look at Evolver.fm’s top five stories of 2011, as chosen by our readers. (Note: This doesn’t…
Google announced on Friday that it has purchased the music licensing company RightsFlow for its detailed information about who should get paid when any of over 30 million songs get played. Neither Google nor Rightsflow would comment on the deal beyond their official statements, but we have pieced together some of the reasons Google would…
Google will announce a music service this afternoon in Los Angeles. Evolver.fm won’t make good on our invite, but instead plan to watch a private webcast of the announcement, which appears to be a rather poorly-kept secret. According to Bloomberg and others, Google’s music store will do the same thing Amazon and iTunes do: sell individual…
We wrote this post on October 25 and are re-promoting it a part of the SOPA blackout protest. It’s important to note that the bill has been revised to apply only to foreign sites, however that would appear to protect MegaUpload.com and other sites that are registered as U.S. domains — another reason to wonder…
Google’s generous policy towards its YouTube API (application programming interface) lets app developers build all kinds of neat music apps out of the music videos found there. Most recently, we came across Cull TV at a recent NYC MusicTechnology meetup. It’s something like the 50th app we’ve seen to date that applies a filter to YouTube…
Facebook’s big push into digital music could be a boon to music services, artists, and the fans, because it can provide the “connective tissue” that has been sorely missing from the industry for well over 10 years. Microsoft’s Zune promised us “The Social,” but nobody bought the hardware and now it’s gone. With Facebook music,…
All around the world, musicians are sitting alone by their webcams, and they’re nervous. They’re about to appear in front of strangers everywhere, where they’ll have to bring their best stuff. Otherwise, these hopefuls will be unceremoniously booted from one of YouNow‘s two (and counting) stages. “What you’re seeing here is live,” YouNow founder Adi…
