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The UK official albums chart will soon include streaming data
The way we all consume music has changed remarkably since charts began ranking the popularity of tracks and artists decades ago. In July last year, the UK's Official Charts Company thought it was about time online streaming figures contributed to the crafting of the singles chart. And today, it's announced the official albums chart will begin incorporating streaming intel, too. Starting with the chart to be released on March 1st, plays from Spotify, Deezer, Napster, Google Play, Xbox Music, Rdio, Rara and O2 Tracks will count towards album rankings. It's more problematic than it might seem at first, however, as the Official Charts Company is keen not to let a few killer singles propel an album undeservedly to the top spot.
Deezer Elite streams on Sonos systems outside of the US
If you live outside the US and want to try Deezer's high-quality streaming option, you're in luck -- so long as you fancy Sonos gear. Folks in Europe, Latin America, the Asia-Pacific region and Canada that also own a piece of the aforementioned audio tech can now opt into Deezer Elite: the company's streaming option that wrangles 35 million lossless FLAC files for your listening needs. The service debuted in the States back in September, where it's also a Sonos exclusive, and that'll be the case in other locales too, for both current and new customers.
B&O wants you to touch wood to control your music at home
Knocking on wood is said to bring you luck. Those of a less fortunate disposition will be interested to know about Bang & Olufsen's new wireless home music system then. It's called "Moment" and features (among other things) a wooden touch-sensitive interface. It could be the luckiest HiFi you'll ever own. The curious device comes in two parts: the dock/base station, and a wireless controller. It's the latter that gets the wood treatment. As you can probably already tell, the Moment is typical Bang & Olufsen, in that it's not typical at all.
Cricket replaces its music service with one you're more likely to use
Heard any good tunes on Cricket's Muve Music lately? No? We won't blame you. While the all-you-can-listen service has been easy to get on Cricket's phones, it's not all that compelling when powerful alternatives like Rdio and Spotify exist. However, you'll soon have a good reason to use the budget carrier's app of choice -- Deezer just bought Muve Music, and Cricket is unveiling an exclusive deal that brings Deezer's streaming music service to US phones for the first time. If you're a Cricket customer, you can subscribe to Deezer's unlimited access plan for $6 per month instead of the $10 you typically pay for rivals. That's a good enough bargain that even Google Play Music's $8 promo plan looks a tad expensive by comparison.
Recommended Reading: The life and death of 'The Colbert Report'
Recommended Reading highlights the best long-form writing on technology and more in print and on the web. Some weeks, you'll also find short reviews of books that we think are worth your time. We hope you enjoy the read. Stephen Colbert Is Dead. Long Live Stephen Colbert by Will Leitch, Bloomberg Thursday night's episode marked the end of a nine-year run for the The Colbert Report. Don't worry though, the show's namesake is taking over for David Letterman in 2015, but until then, take a look back at what made Stephen Colbert's overly conservative hijinks so darn compelling. As Bloomberg's Will Leitch puts it, "The politics were (sometimes, though less and less as the show aged) the canvas, but the comedy was always the paint."
Deezer bets podcasts will make its music service better
Deezer's streaming service may not have a reputation in the US to match others like Spotify, Beats and Rdio, but the "first truly worldwide digital music streaming service" is expanding by acquring the podcast app Stitcher. The company tells TechCrunch that about 1 million people are using Stitcher currently, and with 39 million Americans having tuned into a podcast in the last month (hmm, that's an interesting stat, we'll have to send that up the ladder) it figures there's a need for that along with music. Also playing into the deal is Stitcher's work on car integration, where it claims integration in 50 models, plus support for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. On its own Deezer is already some 16 million users strong across 180 countries, with 5 million paying subscribers. According to the website, Deezer's official US launch is still "coming soon," but interested listeners can tune in now by buying Bose or Sonos. As for Stitcher, in a blog post it says "Don't worry, we're not going anywhere", and that users will be able to continue on with the service like they always have.
Deezer's regular subscription plan arrives in the US as a Bose exclusive
Deezer brought its high-quality streaming option to Sonos systems in the States last month, and now it's delivering a regular subscription option... but there's a catch. The outfit's Premium Plus plan hits the US for the first time -- so long as you're wielding either a Bose SoundLink speaker or SoundTouch WiFi setup. A $10 monthly subscription allows access to Deezer's catalog of 35 million songs ad-free, with radio, playlists, offline mode and other perks you've come to expect from the likes of Spotify, Rdio and Beats Music. Bose owners will get a 50 percent discount ($5/month) for the first year though, and an October 10th software update will ensure SoundTouch systems are properly equipped to access the service.
Deezer's redesigned its web interface to look more like a tablet app
Excited to take advantage of Deezer's ad-free desktop streaming, but prefer the look of the service's tablet app? You're in luck: the company just gave its web interface a visual overhaul, conveniently inspired by its own tablet interface. The new design puts music discovery front and center, replacing the current header with a prompt for Flow, the service's recommendation engine. The updated UI also redesigns the sidebar to grant faster access to Deezer's basic features and adds more feedback options for for liking or disliking suggested music. Interested? Log in to your Deezer account and check it out --the new look should be live today.
Super high-quality music streaming is coming to your Sonos speakers thanks to Deezer
As a rule, streaming internet music has meant settling for lower-quality compressed audio. That's a bit of a disservice to pricier audio setups like Sonos' speaker line, don't you think? Apparently, Deezer agrees. It just launched Deezer Elite, a new subscription option that pipes lossless, FLAC-encoded tunes solely to Sonos devices. Provided you have the right equipment, you'll hear truer-to-life songs without having to download full-fledged copies to your computer or mobile devices.
Deezer gets rid of paid music streaming plans on the desktop
Sure, PCs aren't going anywhere anytime soon. But there's no denying people nowadays also prefer to listen to music on a smartphone, tablet and even a gaming console, not just their laptop or desktop. So, taking a cue from rival Spotify, streaming service Deezer is now prepared to stop charging users for its web-only, ad-free listening experience. Earlier today, Deezer confirmed this to The Next Web, stating that its Premium desktop place was no longer required because "listeners needs have changed." As a result, Deezer's service will only offer two options going forward -- one of which is free with ads and usage caps, the other being a £10-per-month, unlimited and ad-free plan. The obvious winner: users. Thanks to this, you can stream tunes on your computer free of charge, so long as you're willing to deal with pitches from companies here and there.
Deezer joins the small list of music streaming apps that support Chromecast
Google's Chromecast dongle is, first and foremost, a cheap piece of hardware for flinging video from various devices to the biggest screen in your home. It makes sense, then, that you should also be able to stream music to your TV just as easily -- not everyone has a dedicated audio setup or convenient ways to connect to one wirelessly, after all. There's plenty of music on YouTube, of course, but Rdio, Pandora and Google's own Play Music are the only high-profile music services to include Chromecast support so far. Streaming outfit Deezer (which still doesn't operate in the US) is set to join those ranks tomorrow when it updates its Android and iOS apps. Multiple users will even be able to connect to the same dongle and fight over who has the worst taste. There is one catch to streaming through Chromecast, however: you'll need a paid Premium+ account to do so, although you need one of those to use Deezer's mobile apps, anyway. No free option is a bit of a downer, but at least Deezer's made something of an effort, which is more than can be said for that other popular music streaming service.
UK's official music chart to include streaming from July
If you've ditched your physical music collection for a catalog of 20 million plus streaming tracks, your playback habits will soon count in the official music charts. We knew that the Official Charts Company was planning to include music streams in its Top 40, but now we have a firm date: July 6th. Spotify, Deezer, Napster, O2 Tracks, Xbox Music, Sony's Music Unlimited and rara will be asked to supply their streaming data, with 100 streams counting as the equivalent of one download or physical single purchase (if they're played for more than 30 seconds). Radio 1 will be the first to feature your 100th playback of Blurred Lines on that date. UK music fans are embracing streaming music at a rapid pace: weekly streams rose from 100 million a week in January 2013 to 200 million in January 2014. We're now up to 260 million, and already nine tracks have enjoyed more than one million streams in a week this year alone.
Spotify stays ahead of its streaming rivals with 10 million paid subscribers
Spotify has no shortage of competition, but it looks like the streaming music service is managing to stay ahead of the pack. The company has just notched up its 10 millionth paid subscriber, doubling the number of Premium customers it had a year and a half ago; the growth rate has been clearly accelerating, since it took four years for Spotify to land its first five million. Plenty of free customers have hopped aboard, too, as the total active base has doubled since late 2012 to hit 40 million.
Shazam baffles UK users by dropping Spotify integration
If you, like us, regularly use Shazam to tag and add tracks to Spotify for later listening, we have some bad news: you may now find that option has gone. It comes as one of the unexpected consequences of a deal between the music discovery company and streaming service Deezer, which has now replaced its bigger rival in free versions of Shazam in Germany, Mexico, UK and Brazil. TechCrunch spotted that Deezer and Rdio now hold the two main "free" positions within the Shazam app, but also notes that the ad-free premium version Encore retains Spotify integration. In our tests, Shazam had removed Spotify tagging from the Encore Android app, despite still displaying the feature in screenshots on both the UK App Store and Google Play.
Whyd's music-streaming aggregation now open to the public
It was, according to our calendars, nearly 14 months ago that we first checked out Whyd. The music service pulls songs scraped from sites like YouTube and Soundcloud, letting you build streaming playlists out of music often not available through the likes of Spotify and iTunes. And while we haven't heard so much as a peep out of the service in the intervening year-plus, it's clear that the team has been working on something over there. Today, the site is finally shedding its long-standing invite-only status, opening up to one and all. The news also brings with it an, ahem, wider variety of features, including Deezer-compatibility, comments, revamped profiles and more to help nudge you in the direction of yet another streaming-music offering.
Soundrop's social music listening comes to Android
Soundrop's communal listening experience is at last available on Android, hopefully in time to save those lost in the wilderness ever since Turntable.fm turned the lights out. As with the iOS app, music lovers can sign into a paid Deezer or Spotify account and join rooms with themed playlists; from there, they can both vote for songs in the play queue and discuss tracks with fellow fans. You'll need at least Android 4.0 and one of the associated streaming services to get started, but the Soundrop app itself is free to download from Google Play.
Deezer's finally taking its music streaming service to the US in 2014
With 5 million paid subscribers in 180 countries, Deezer is such a ubiquitous presence that it's easy to forget it's not yet available in the US. That's about to change, though, as the France-based online music service has told Le Figaro that it'd launch for Americans at an unspecified date in 2014. That'll at last give it a crack at the $4.4 billion dollar US music market, which it had been avoiding due to formidable competitors like Rdio, Pandora and particularly Spotify, which has a worldwide paid user base of 6 million. That competitor only started two years ago in the US and has already seen boffo growth, though it had content deals in place with US mobile operators before launching. Deezer, on the other hand, is still seeking a stateside launch partner like the one it has with Orange, France's largest wireless telecom. It's also looking to do business outside the mobile sector as well, though it had one word for Le Figaro about a rumored Microsoft Xbox partnership: "Non."
Deezer unveils personalized music discovery features and native Mac app
It's hard to talk of music streaming service Deezer and not mention the behemoth in the room: Spotify. A launch in the US is certainly needed for Deezer to become a true rival, but in the meantime, it's adding new features for current users, which hail from basically everywhere else. Today sees the reveal of "Hear This," a custom feed which recommends music based on what you've listened to before, what your friends are into, and what Deezer's global editors think is hot. Also coming is "Explore," a browsing tool that lets you filter beats by genre and region. Other minor updates include new search/filter functions and a track history within your Library, as well as a preview mode that allows you to catch 30 seconds of a song before deciding whether to hear more. Deezer also teased that it's concocting a Mac app that'll integrate with Finder, although wouldn't give any timeline for release. Hear This and Explore, however, will arrive shortly: November 12th for Premium subscribers, and November 19th for everybody else.
Streamnation cracks open your digital TV and movie stash for online sharing
Digital movies and TV shows have a long way to go before they're as easy to share as an MP3. To that end, the cloud storage service Streamnation may have created a solution. You can now upload your own movies and TV shows to the digital locker service and lend them to whoever you want, so long as they also have a Streamnation account. Folks enjoying your videos have 24 hours to stream them across a number of popular devices, and during that period you can't view the media yourself. In that way, it's a lot like borrowing them a DVD or Blu-ray. The whole thing sounds an awful lot like Steam's sharing program, but the difference here is that historically, Hollywood tends to operate differently than the game industry when it comes to passing content around.
BBC Playlister web app launches today as an open beta
Well, that was quick. Having announced its new Playlister service yesterday, the BBC's now said it's launching later today. The beta web client won't just work nicely on PCs, it'll also be optimized for mobile browsers, and instead of a dedicated app for the service, Playlister will be integrated into the iPlayer Radio app "over the coming months." Using the web platform, you'll able to add music to personal playlists from any of the BBC's radio stations, as well as tracks that've featured on TV shows aired on any of the Beeb's channels. As we heard yesterday, those playlists can then be exported to YouTube, Spotify or Deezer for listening. Having seen a brief demo, adding, managing and exporting is all pretty simple. You may not find all the tracks you've added on every service you export to, but it's clear about how many are missing -- you'll shortly be able to play around with it yourself, of course. Soon, you'll also be able to follow your favorite BBC radio DJ's and see what they're adding to their own Playlister mixtapes. This is just the start, apparently, as the BBC says many other features are to be added in the future. Update: Live!
