music Archive

Google is currently offering “millions” of music singles for $0.49/track or $4.99/album. Usually this type of music sale is just a bunch of unwanted tracks but so far the selection for this sale is far and wide! The music is all DRM-free and can be used on any device including Apple devices (iPod, iPad, etc). To download the music, you can either do a browser download (limited to 2 times) or use Google Music Manager. The nice thing is that it appears the music will always be available in your Google Music Library and you can stream it anytime and/or download it to your device.

A warning: you will spend a lot of time browsing the millions of songs on the deal. From what I can tell, the songs on sale include every genre of music and seems to include all of today’s top hits.

Some of the artists/songs include (the whole albums are available too):

• Nirvana – Smells like Teen Spirit
• Hanukkah Music – this cd has 25 tracks so buy the cd for $4.99 – includes popular hits Dreidel and Dayenu
• Katy Perry – Last Friday Night
• Beastie Boys – No Sleep Til Brooklyn
• Rachel Stevens – Negotiate With Love
• LMFAO – Party Rock Anthem
• Vanilla Ice – Ice Ice Baby
• Other artists include: Guns ‘n Roses, Elton John and every other artist you could imagine

I am not sure how long this deal will be running for so make sure you grab the songs that interest you asap.

The Interactive portion of the SXSW conference ends tomorrow and the Music portion of the conference begins. This is my first year in-town during the music festival. If you are planning to remain in Austin for the next week but don’t plan on purchasing a music badge, here are a few ways you can still get in on the action.

The Auditorium Shores Stage Concert Series will take place this weekend and will feature a variety of bands. The concerts are open to the public although badge holders receive vip seating. Saturday is made up of bands that are family friendly. Make sure you read the notes on the schedule page as there are serious restrictions about what you can bring into the arena.

If you aren’t staying in Austin for the Music portion of SXSW, you can download a large number of songs from artists playing at the various events around the city.

• XRT Radio has a list of 140 songs that can be downloaded individually or in batches
• Amazon has a 12-track Don’t Mess With Texas SXSW music sampler

While I haven’t heard of any of the bands and artists playing at the SXSW events, I am looking forward to hearing some new music around the city over the next week.

We initially covered Vienna-based Tunesbag in April 2008 when they launched their private beta. Today the company announced that they have received funding and support from the INiTS incubator based in Vienna, Austria.

From the announcement post, “INiTS offers funding, coaching and networking and aims at young professionals who want to start up their own company in the fields of technology, biotech and lifescience.”

The INiTS incubator looks similar to the startup incubators we have in the U.S. It sure seems like incubators are hot in 2010!

I will attempt to get the amount of funding that TunesBag received from founder Hansjoerg Posch and will update the post once I get confirmation.

Yesterday we took a look at the new 2011 Ford Edge which has the Ford MyTouch software. Today’s video will show how Ford wants to interact with developers. The program is named Sync Mobile App Connectivity and will allow mobile app developers the ability to interact with the Sync interface inside Ford cars.

In the video below, the Ford rep shows us how the Sync Mobile App Connectivity works with Pandora. Basically you can control the Pandora iPhone app using your voice inside the car. The music is played through the car speakers and when you want to change the station you hit the speak button and say, “play station Justin Bieber”. Pandora has built the Ford Sync SDK into their general application available in the iTunes app store.

We also tried to take a look at a Twitter application built with the Sync SDK but it didn’t load correctly. Had it worked, the app would read the Twitter messages in your stream and/or your replies and direct messages. How exciting would it be to travel to grandma for Thanksgiving and be able to listen to this:

• I just ate a bologna sandwich – Peter R 7240
• I am the mayor of Taco Bell – MaryLou14
• In reply to PinkFluff24 – yes

I wonder if the apps will be able to use the 8″ display on some of the Ford cars for display.
Continue reading “Ford Wants Developers With Their Sync Mobile App Connectivity (video demo)” »

The textbooks market is really heating up over the past few months. The startup in the space, Chegg, recently raised $57 million in venture capital. Earlier this month Amazon launched a textbook trade-in service.

Today Barnes & Noble launched a program to attempt to woo students over to their side of the field. The program offers students 10 free music downloads when they purchase their textbooks on bn.com. And if the student is willing to spam their friends, they will get a bonus 10 music downloads.

There are thirty artists to pick from. Honestly I’ve never heard of any of these artists – here’s the full list: Vampire Weekend, Neko Case, Diane Birch, Phoenix, Grizzly Bear, Gossip, Devendra Banhart, Tegan And Sara, Swell Season, Tom Waits, Alec Ounsworth, Mayer Hawthorne, Polly Scattergood, Amanda Blank, White Demin, Black Lips, Au Revoir Simone, The Raveonettes, Cage, King Khan And The Shrines, Temper Trap, White Rabbits, Cage The Elephant, Jonah Sees In Color, Metric, Avett Brothers, Wale, Chester French. Built To Spill, Fanfarlo and Brandi Carlile.

Most of the songs are available on Amie Street for 34 cents to $1.29 each. Considering that next week all of the calendars will be 50-80% off, why not throw in a nice calendar when a student buys a book? I am guessing the students already have the music they want and the calendar will make sure they don’t miss their exams and B&N could have created a calendar with monthly coupons and offers.

Here’s a great stocking stuffer for office gifts. Found via Fatwallet, Amazon is offering a free $3 credit towards their MP3 store.

Just add the code MP34FREE to your account and you can grab $3 in free MP3 music.

Here are the terms of the offer:

• Promotional offer valid for a limited time only and subject to change. Promotional offer is valid from November 23, 2009 12:00 AM PST through November 30, 2009 11:59 PM PST. You must redeem the code by November 30, 2009 11:59 PM PST.
• If you’ve previously entered a promotional code, clicking the “Enter Your Code” button above will show your remaining balance.
• After your purchase, you can confirm the dollar amount of the code was applied by checking your order confirmation, which will be sent to you by e-mail.

The popular songs list shows most songs at $0.99 so you could grab 3 tracks although some are priced at $1.29. If you redeem the code, leave a comment with the songs you picked up!

Musician ecommerce widget service TheBizmo has announced their public U.S. launch today. Previously TheBizmo has been operating in private beta here in the U.S. and in full operations mode in the U.K.

TheBizmo has a NYC presence as well – David Hazan heads up their U.S. operations. You should see TheBizmo around NYC this summer as they are sponsoring a number of music conferences.

TheBizmo is described as offering, “a new embeddable e-commerce widget that enables artists to sell MP3s, videos, merchandise and more, straight to fans, from any social networking page, website, or blog.”  The service is free to setup and both the musician and TheBizmo share in the revenues. The musician earns the following:

• Music – 70% of retail
• Tickets – 100% of the face value of all tickets
• T-shirts – musician decides on the share
• All other offerings (ringtones, e-books, sheet music, etc.) - 70% of retail

After the musician creates their store, they can push it to Facebook, Ning, MySpace and other social networks. And since it’s a widget, it can be embedded anywhere. The service could be a good way for musicians to gain more visibility and new fans.