MusicDiscovery
Latest
YouTube Music counters Spotify with its own 'Discover Mix'
Google might not have as many YouTube Music subscribers as Spotify, but it has way more software engineers. It's now applying some of those smarts to better compete against its rival with a new automated playlist called "Discover Mix," spotted by 9 to 5 Google and some Reddit users. It's very similar in concept to Spotify's "Discover Weekly," in that it helps you find new songs and artists in line with your taste and listening history.
Apple is reportedly buying Shazam and its music identification tech
In a bit of Friday afternoon news, TechCrunch reports that Apple plans to buy Shazam, the company behind the popular audio identification software and app. Apparently, the site's sources indicate the deal could be announced Monday, but it's quick to note the timing on these things isn't always solid. As you can imagine, rumored terms of the deal, including a sale price, aren't reliable just yet. The acquisition would give Apple ownership of the music, TV and movie identifying tech and a group of features it could easily take advantage of with its own products.
Tidal's redesigned app puts more emphasis on music discovery
Tidal's been in the news recently, as Jay-Z debuted his new album 4:44 as a Tidal-Sprint exclusive (which wasn't without some controversy, as last-minute subscribers to the streaming music service weren't allowed access to the album). Then, just a week later, the album was released to other streaming services (well, except Spotify). But now, Tidal has some non-Jay-Z related news: An updated version of Tidal's app is out today, and it's got a completely new layout. In fact, it looks a lot like Apple Music and Spotify.
Would you pay to get a new song texted to you every day?
On the surface, every streaming music service offers the same thing: access to tens of millions of songs. That's more music than any human being can ever consume, so the big battle now centers around helping users find songs and albums they care about. Apple Music bet big on human-curated playlists, Spotify has Discover Weekly and Release Radar, and Google Play Music has stations for every mood and activity, to name a few examples. These options help, but getting through your recommendations and actually finding things you love can still take some work. A small startup called Noon Pacific has been helping to cut through the clutter for several years now. Every Monday, the company publishes a curated 10-song playlist in its apps and on its website for visitors to stream, ad-free. If you'd prefer an even quicker way to find new music, the company recently launched its first subscription product: Noon Pacific Daily. After signing up, you'll get a text message every day at noon Pacific (naturally) with a link to a new song.
Rhapsody's Listener Network makes finding new music easier
All of the big music services have pretty much the same catalog, high profile holdouts like Taylor Swift aside. At this point, most of the innovation happening in streaming music is around trying to surface songs from those massive catalogs that users haven't heard before. Apple Music has its curated editors playlists, Spotify has Discover Weekly, Google Play Music has its Songza-powered radio stations, and now Rhapsody (aka Napster) is ready to unveil its own solution. It's called the Listener Network, and it leverages all the info the company has about what music its users play to find new songs and albums you might enjoy.
Shazam shows you the music artists are discovering
The ability to follow your favorite music artists on Shazam isn't new, but that feature is now getting a huge boost. Starting today, the service will let you see how entertainers are using Shazam to discover tunes, too. Because famous people -- they're just like us. With the refreshed iOS and Android apps, you'll start seeing the option to follow hundreds of artists, including Alicia Keys, Coldplay, Enrique Iglesias, Pitbull and Shakira, and view the music any of them are identifying through Shazam. Better yet, you can listen to these songs directly from the application. Don't expect artists to make everything they try to recognize public, though, since there is an option to keep guilty pleasures (or blunders) private.
Shazam adds in-app Spotify tracks, more tools for music discovery
Despite other methods for handling those music discovery needs, Shazam remains the go-to for many to figure out what tune is playing nearby. The company has been keen on adding new features as of late to keep pace and today it tacks on a few more. Users can already play full-length tracks from Rdio without leaving the app, and folks who prefer Spotify can now do the same. You can also have all of the songs you Shazam added to a playlist to revisit later. The expanded Spotify integration is iOS only for now, but Android support is on the way. Those two streaming services also power an in-app music player (if you have a subscription, of course) for listening to what's trending, top charts, recommendations and more. There's also a wealth of new content streams that house everything from interviews to exclusive sessions and a "Hall of Fame" for artists/songs that are particularly popular with the app. Counts have also been added in, so you'll be able to see how many times a particular tune has been spun. In case you're wondering, Avicii and Aloe Blacc's "Wake Me Up" is the most Shazamed song to date, tallying over 19 million searches.
Shazam takes its music discovery powers to the Mac
Shazam has already covered ground on mobile platforms such as iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8, but now it is prepared to bring its media identification software to more devices. And it all starts with Apple's line of personal computers. The newly minted Shazam for Mac, naturally, features the same discovery tools which have made the app as popular as it is today, with the main differentiator being that it's new for desktops and laptops. Once installed, the application performs in a rather subtle way, running its trademark ID work constantly in the background, if you allow it to. On the home screen, additionally, it only takes a spot on the menu bar to let you glance at recently discovered media. We say "media" because Shazam isn't just capable of recognizing music playing around you, but also other stuff like TV shows -- this is something that's also possible on the smartphone/tablet apps.
MTV Artists iPhone app wants to help you discover new music, provide a deeper connection with musicians
The number of media discovery apps keeps getting bigger by the day, and the latest to join the frenzy is MTV. Simply dubbed MTV Artists, the newly announced iPhone application is loaded with a vast amount of music-focused features, including detailed artists pages and the ability to search for tracks by simply typing in lyrics. What's more, MTV also suited the app with Sound ID, a Shazam-esque function which can quickly identify songs -- this is particularly useful when you're trying to find out who sings a tune that you may be hearing for the first time. MTV tells us that Artists is more than just another music discovery app, noting that the idea is to connect users with artists by way of in-depth profiles, which contain things such as image galleries, videos and tour dates. MTV Artists will only be available for iOS (iPhone-optimized) at launch, but the network did say that an Android version is in the works and set to come "sometime in 2014."
Twitter launching #Music app for iPhone alongside new service today (update: now live)
We had a strong suspicion that Twitter's new music service would figure into the company's "big announcement" promised for today, and that is indeed the case. The company confirmed on Good Morning America this morning that its #Music service will be launching on the web later today with a separate iPhone app in tow. As expected based on the company's acquisition of We Are Hunted, the service is focused largely on music discovery, letting you find music that's popular with your friends or those you follow -- specifically, music shared from iTunes, Spotify or Rdio at the moment. According to Twitter, the web version will be rolling out over the next few hours, with the service currently offered in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Twitter also says that it hopes to roll the service out to Android devices in the future, but unfortunately isn't offering anything more specific for the time being. Update: The iPhone app is now available in the App Store. If it's not turning up in searches for you, this link should work. Most should also now be seeing the web-based version at the source link below.
doubleTwist takes on Pandora with Magic Radio subscription service
Remember doubleTwist? (Probably almost as well as you remember India.Arie and Nikka Costa, but more on that later.) The player made a bit of a name for itself in the pre-Play Music days -- based as much on the default Android music app's shortcomings as its own strengths. Over the years, as the need for a third-party media manager has waned, doubleTwist has fought to remain relevant by piling on features. To its own detriment, however, many of them remain premium options, like the ability to download missing album art for $5. The latest offering to bring some much appreciated functionality attached to a rather undesirable price tag is Magic Radio. This is doubleTwist's attempt to take on Pandora with a streaming music discovery service that's supposed to help you find the music "you love." For $4 a month...
Echo Nest is the man behind the Spotify Radio curtain
The Music Genome Project is in some serious trouble. The fancy algorithm behind Pandora is facing an increasingly popular competitor in the form of Echo Nest. The company's "music intelligence platform" and its accompanying API are already powering iHeartRadio and Nokia Music's Mix Radio. Now it's getting baked into the streaming media service du jour -- Spotify. Echo Nest's capable automated mix-making was already available to Spotify users via Echofi, but now the Swedish media company is using the tech as the basis for its updated radio service. Check out the PR after the break for a few not-so-subtle jabs at Pandora and its restrictions on free users.
Last.fm Discover delivers greener pastures of music discovery
Last.fm is going all HTML5 with Discover, a new music discovery service that lets you find artists through tag search and create playlists by dragging and dropping songs from the comfort of your browser. Once you've created a mix from the site's rolling fields of music, you can share it via Facebook and Twitter to show the world just how indie you are. Check out the new service at the source link below.
Pandora Radio's HTML5 redesign hands-on
Earlier this week, Pandora announced that it would finally be dropping its longtime support for Flash in favor of HTML5. The move is one piece of a big redesign for the site, one which will begin rolling out to Pandora One (the $36 / year premium version) subscribers in pieces, as part of a limited testing period before being made available to the service's entire massive user base. The timing could have been more ideal, of course. A day after the announcement, Spotify quickly grabbed the attention of those following the online music industry by formally launching in the US. It's important to note right off the bat, however, that these two services are not really direct competitors, in spite of how some might spin it. Spotify is an all-you-can eat subscription service, making it more akin to the likes of a Rhapsody and Napster. Pandora, on the other hand, is built largely around passive music discovery. You log-in, you enter an artist, and you let the music come to you. This redesign takes that ease of use to a whole new level. Check out our impressions below.%Gallery-128497%
Shazam and Spotify team up on iOS and Android apps
In yet another sign that Spotify has gone mainstream the company has just announced a partnership with Shazam -- the ubiquitous mobile music identification service. Under the deal, Shazamers will now be greeted with a "Play in Spotify" feature for all music discovered. The feature will be fully integrated in Shazam's free app "soon" and is available now for the premium apps on Android and iOS wherever Spotify is available, namely, the UK, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France, Spain and the Netherlands.
Switched On: The DAP, the Frap, the pap and the gap
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment: The iPod and iTunes haven't ostensibly suffered for (and have arguably gained from the) lack of a subscription music service. However, while such services have proven a tough sell to consumers at large, they have their benefits. One is the general liberation from the 30-second sample, a tiny prison of time that makes it difficult to engage in meaningful music discovery, the silver lining in the digital cloud that has been raining on the music industry for so many years. In contrast to Rhapsody, Napster and Microsoft's Zune Pass, which offer several ways within their software for subscribers to hear full tracks in which they might be interested, Apple has recently turned "out of band" for music discovery. The high-profile announcement with Starbucks at the introduction of Apple's latest round of iPods brings the portable devices to where the free music is rather than vice versa. Among Apple's portable music players, the automatic track identification works only with the iPod touch and the iPhone. However, the flat-panel televisions in New York City Starbucks locations also note PCs and Macs as suitable (and prevalent) clients for purchasing music played at the popular coffee retailer. An encouraging aspect of the collaboration between Starbucks and Apple is that the right company is making the brown product. However, one hot spot of trouble brewing in this Half-n-Half is that one can listen to the music only at a Starbucks location. This begs whether Apple would continue such a partnership when the iPhone finally gets access to 3G (perhaps to the scandalous exclusion of AT&T) or whether it or another device such as the iPod touch embrace WiMAX. But extending access to Starbucks' percolated playlists need not wait for such wireless advances. The two companies could enable access via a simple option in iTunes that would stream Starbucks' Hear Music XM station -- or an equivalent -- via any broadband connection.
