3.4.3 Canais de streaming

Music Steering Project - mais um projecto de musica

«Music Steering Project
Researchers Frank Seide and Lie Liu previewed their Music Steering Project, a music application that analyzes audio content to build a playlist of similar music for MP3 devices. Internet radio station Pandora has a similar service, but music steering differs from Pandora's offering in that it uses software to analyze songs, whereas Pandora has a "large army of music specialists that listen to every song and create attributes," Seide said in a Microsoft video.»

Facebook quer serviço de streaming musical

«Facebook is reaching out to the major labels and scheduling meetings to discuss the potential implementation of a music acquisition service with the popular social networking site, Billboard.biz has learned.

Sources at multiple major labels say discussions and meetings regarding the potential service are taking place this week. The sources said they expect something similar to the music service MySpace reportedly is working on, though details of Facebook's proposal remain unclear at this point. (...) Facebook's 66 million-strong members and open development platform -- which allows virtually anybody to create an application (or widget) that pulls data from user profiles to use with it -- have attracted more than 16,000 developers to the network. Just under 1,000 are music specific, including iLike, Imeem, Last.fm, Pandora, Qloud and RealNetwork's Rhapsody.

Facebook will have to be careful how it positions its own music service against these others, as well as determine how to integrate third-party music apps with whatever it comes up with. (...) "The logical conclusion of setting music free of DRM is that every profile page on MySpace or Facebook immediately becomes a music store where friends sell friends their favorite tracks," he wrote in the report.»

fonte: Facebook music service in works», Hollywood reporter, By Antony Bruno, Billboard March 6, 2008

Taxar o streaming musical

«(...) How idiotic is it to overtax Internet streaming when the Internet is the only guaranteed growth engine that could help the dying record business. They don't agree. To the music industry and the lawyers who love it Internet streamers should pay their fair share. While they're effectively stunting the growth of their new best friend, I get the feeling the labels are going to do everything they can to make an example of Internet streamers so they can expand their taxation of other music platforms (...). The record industry lawyers don't care about the next generation or radios problems or that the Internet is their future -- they only care what percentage they're going force them to pay.»

O relançamento do Qtrax

The 'world's first free, legal P2P service' Qtrax has redeemed itself since it 'launched' at the end of January, when they failed to deliver music from Universal Music Group, Warner Music, Sony BMG and EMI as promised.

Wired's Listening Post scored an exclusive scoop on the Service That Embarrassed Itself, and reported that Qtrax has succeeded in signing up EMI, Sony/ATV Music Publishing and TVT Records. Not quite the big four as first claimed, but it's a good start for what's essentially a legal BitTorrent.

The files contain DRM, however can be loaded onto PMPs compatible with WMDRM, excluding iPods at this stage.

fonte: «After a wobbly start, Qtrax announces licensing deals with EMI, Sony and TVT Records», Tech digest, 4/03/08

Mais: «New York-based Qtrax generated some controversy when it claimed at the MIDEM conference in January that it would launch its service with over 25 million tracks, but later conceded that it had not yet obtained the requisite licenses from the major labels to offer their catalogs»

MySpace aposta em musica via streaming?

«Several companies, including LastFM and Imeem, are attempting to build ad-supported music services. I'm a fan of most of these, especially for the service they provide for independent artists. But lets be clear about one thing… these companies are not offering "free music." They’re offering free on-demand radio. There’s a big distinction.

SpiralFrog and Qtrax are building a reputation for delivering free, downloaded tracks, with the cost recouped through advertising revenues. I've had some previous thoughts on the subject. It would take more than traditional ad revenues to support the cost of music given the price points set by labels.

But the MySpace story is different, and raises two questions. Can MySpace actually provide even a streaming service supported by advertising when great services like Pandora and Live365 have stumbled. And even if MySpace can, who cares?»

MySpace Ad-Supported Music: Feasible or Fiasco? 22/02/08

Sobre o Social.FM

«(...)Social.FM, the innovative social music service for mobile and web users, and Handmark®, a global leader in the development and distribution of mobile media, today announced a strategic distribution agreement whereby Handmark will market and deliver Social.FM through its global channels. As a result of this partnership, wireless customers in the U.S., Canada and Europe will have immediate access to an immersive social music experience directly from their mobile devices.

A unique and engaging social music service, Social.FM allows wireless customers to enjoy their favorite music anytime, anywhere, directly from their mobile phones. Social.FM is the only social music service which leverages user-contributed content, social discovery and recommendations, and 3G-optimized media streaming to deliver the ultimate music experience across the mobile and web environments. (...) Social.FM is defining the future of social media consumption by building innovative products and services that leverage social broadcasting, social networking and user-contributed content to enable consumers to enjoy their favorite media anytime, anywhere and from anyone. Founded in 2003 by McAfee.com (NASDAQ:MCAF) founder and CEO Srivats Sampath, Social.FM is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, USA. For more information, please visit us on the web at www.social.fm.

Social.FM and Mercora are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Mercora, Inc. Handmark, Pocket Express, and the distinctive hand design are registered trademarks of Handmark, Inc. in the U.S. and other territories»

fonte: «Social.FM and Handmark Sign Global Distribution Partnership » 3/03/08

Sobre o melhor site de musica - FINETUNE

«(...)  is now offering Finetune – a premium digital music service that lets anyone create their own playlists and discover new music through one of the largest online catalogs of licensed major and indie labels – to iQ Music System customers running version 4.6 software. A one year subscription is available for $150 in the USA only.
With a library of more than 2 million songs and compositions, compiled from major and independent music labels is available through Finetune. Finetune delivers powerful yet virtually effortless customization that empowers listeners to “fine tune” their streaming listening experience with impressive quality and total freedom from commercials, DJs, or interruptions.
“Finetune is a powerful new value-added feature that can only help to further ReQuest’s position in the whole house audio world,” says V.P. Sales & Marketing Bill McKiegan. “Now a customer can manage their own collection plus have access to millions of additional songs.”
Subscribers can easily create individual playlists, discover new music and revisit well-loved classics with equal ease through one of the world’s largest licensed online music catalogs. Unprecedented in the industry, Finetune also offers expert-guided editorial recommendations with community-driven suggestions further enhancing the music experience for every individual music lover, driven entirely by personal tastes. The Finetune discovery engine incorporates accumulated listener data, almost 200 million listener hours and over 600,000 user-created playlists.
(...) Finetune is the ultimate digital music service – two parts personal player, one part social network. Create your own playlists and discover new music through one of the largest online catalogs of licensed major and indie labels. Music you didn’t know you love is just seconds away through Finetune’s expert- and community-driven discovery engine. Never complicated and always free, Finetune comes with no strings attached. No downloads. No questionnaires. Lean back and listen, or sit up, spin and share. Just type in an artist and the experience begins – on your browser, on your desktop, on your blog, and beyond. What music do you love?»

fonte: ReQuest to Offer Finetune Digital Streaming Music Service for iQ Music Systems, Nicoll Public Relations, Inc. on Friday, February 29, 2008

Fiasco Qtrax

«La promesa eran 30 millones de canciones gratis compatibles con todos los reproductores de música digital y procedentes de los catálogos de las cuatro grandes: Sony BMG, Warner Music, Universal y EMI. Pero, de momento, el lanzamiento de la web Qtrax, en la que desde ayer se iban a ofrecer los catálogos de dichas discográficas con el único peaje para el usuario de aguantar la publicidad previa a la bajada de cada canción y con código antipiratería DRM (digital right management), ha quedado en el limbo»

http://www.qtrax.com/

http://www.qtrax.com/download.html

as principais desvantagens dos canais de streaming

«But there are some inherent disadvantages to these services. For starters, unless you want to take your whole computer with you, you can't take the services with you, because the playlists can't be offloaded to digital music players like iPods.  “So in order for these websites to be considered web radio you can only skip a certain amount of songs, so if you don't like five songs in a row you can't just skip five songs,” said Monson. “Also, the playback order is going be randomized so you can order the songs in the order you want to play them back. You have to have at least 15 songs, so you can't just pick a playlist of five songs and play it over and over again.”

fonte: News 10 now, Make your own free online radio station 29/02/08 Adam Balkin

O modelo de comercialização dos canais de streaming

«Basically these are all ad-supported websites supported through visual ads, not through audio ads,” said Kyle Monson of PCMag.com. “So unlike terrestrial radio, where you're hearing ads every few songs, you're not going to get any interruptions of your songs. You're just going to have ads to look at when you go to the websites."»

Notas sobre mais um site de música, Jango (que eu ouço)

«If you're tired of tuning in to the same old music, try shaking things up with Jango. Similar to sites like Pandora and Last.fm, Jango streams custom Internet radio stations based on your favorite artists. But it goes way beyond playing DJ; the beta version I tested integrates a social aspect that makes it fun to discover new music by matching you with like-minded listeners.

When you enter the name of an artist, the site creates a radio station centered on that artist. (Unlike Pandora, it won't let you enter a song title.) Jango also adds other tunes it thinks you'll enjoy based on a number of criteria.(...) Jango saves an unlimited number of stations to your profile, and it allows you several ways to customize them. You can add multiple artists to a station (Jango provides suggestions, or you can plug in your own), ban certain musicians, or choose whether you want it to play popular songs, more obscure music, or something in between the two. You can also rate songs so the site knows whether or not to bother you with them.

Customizing stations certainly helped me shape the song selections more to my liking, though with only 15,000 artists and 200,000 songs in rotation, the service has limits to what it can play. (...) Since Jango follows restrictions defined by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act--and pays royalties to labels and artists--the site is perfectly legal. Jango makes money when you click on links to buy music through its partners (like the iTunes Store and Amazon.com) as well as through advertising.

Jango's real prowess lies in its social networking features, which help you hook up with people who have the same good (or bad) taste as you when you create a Jango profile. (...)Despite a few minor snarls like these, Jango is more than solid. If you dig the whole social networking scene--and want to see how it can expand your musical universe--then Jango is worth a spin.»

fonte: «Jango (Beta) Internet Radio Site» PCWorld, 27/02/08

Leitores de audio associados a serviços de streaming

«If you're not living in an Apple-centric musical world, the chances are good that you get your tunes from an online subscription music service. But what about when you're not at your PC? Slowly but surely, manufacturers are rolling out portable media players (PMPs) to work with these services so you can enjoy an on-the-go listening experience. Rhapsody and Slacker have recently released innovative PMP companions that are worth a look if you're a fan of either service. If you're not familiar with them, Rhapsody is subscription-based and you pay a monthly fee for tunes (instead of by the song). Slacker is a free Internet radio site that programs stations for you based on your musical tastes. For a $7.50 per month upgrade, you can get unlimited song skipping and avoid the occasional commercial you'll hear in between tunes with the free version. Regardless of which service you prefer, it's now possible to take your accounts on the road with you with these PMPs.

fonte: «The Best Subscription MP3 Players 02.28.08 by Tim Gideon PC Magazine

«Streaming - o futuro da rádio?»

«The SanFran MusicTech Summit is underway at the Hotel Kabuki. RAIN publisher and AccuRadio founder/CEO Kurt Hanson is scheduled to speak and moderate a 1pm (Pacific time) panel called “Streaming: The Future of Radio?” Panelists include SomaFM founder Rusty Hodge, Pandora CTO Tom Conrad, and KFOG-FM/San Francisco PD Dave Benson.»

«O futuro é de graça»

«Martin Stiksel, Last.FM co-founder, said: "Free is the future, and this is signalled not only by the industry's growing acceptance of what we're doing, but more importantly, by the incredibly fast increase of users accessing music on Last.FM since we launched free-on-demand."»

Serviços de subscrição musical ou pirataria?

«There's Slacker's WiFi Net radio player which is mobile. It has a four inch screen that pushes the Internet radio stream to the player because it is able to cache stations on flash memory -- works when WiFi doesn't. It's built to fail, however. The service is free but you have to pay -- here we go again -- $10 a month to get unlimited skipping, no ads and option to save songs.

There is persistent thinking that free trumps paid -- and that subscription services delivering millions of tunes will be a clear winner with the next generation. But to date, music rental services have not been all that popular. Stealing music is still the number one means of acquiring songs and that when music is purchased it is bought through the intuitive interface at the iTunes store.» Jerry Del Colliano, Free Music vs. Subscription 7/02/08

Trocar downloads por publicidade?

«The labels have shown almost no interest in giving away downloads via an ad-supported site. SpiralFrog has struck a partnership with only one top record company (Universal Music Group) in two years of trying. Qtrax, another ad-support download service, can't boast a single major label yet, but the start-up is still negotiating. Ruckus is an ad-supported download service that has partnered with all the big labels but caters only to college students. Meanwhile, social networks Imeem and Last.fm stream music to users' PCs and each has signed deals with all four majors. The labels like streaming because it locks up their music on PCs and protects it from piracy. Streaming also encourages sales, or so the music companies hope. The thinking is that Imeem and Last.fm users will eventually purchase music they discover on the social-networking sites. What could sink my theory is if MySpace is willing to pay so much for downloads that the labels have to say yes. With Facebook breathing down its neck, MySpace could bet that offering free music to users--in exchange for looking at some ads--would be a whopping advantage over competitors. News Corp. has the kind of deep pockets that it could afford to keep a loss leader like this going for a couple of years. Regardless, the big winners in either scenario are consumers. Free and legal music is getting easier to find all the time.» (MySpace's music plan likely to be streaming service, CNET Greg Sandoval, February 18, 2008

SpiralFrog (só EUA e Canadá)

Welcome to SpiralFrog. We've got a couple of questions for you, and we'll have you downloading music in a matter of minutes. (Don't worry, credit cards are NOT required!)

There is a problem with the information you've typed in.

! That email address is not recognized as valid. Sorry, SpiralFrog is only available for residents of Canada & the US»

Pandora e Last.fm

«There's not much serendipity left in music today. Commercial radio stations play the same top 40 songs over and over. iPods are great, but unless you are listening to somebody else's, you won't hear any new artists. Even satellite radio channels can be redundant.
Two free Internet radio services, Last.fm and Pandora.com, aim to re-create the joy of discovering new artists -- without the pain of having to sit through songs you don't like.
Both use the music you know you like in order to select and play new music they think you will like. Both do a good job, but depending on your comfort with technology and your habits, one may be better for you.
Pandora's interface is easier to use and you don't have to download anything. It's best for people who don't have a lot of music saved on their computers and want to quickly and easily find something new.
Last.fm is great if you have a huge digital-music collection or are a heavy iPod user. It does a better job connecting you with friends or people who share your taste in music. Only Last.fm lets you type in a song and listen to it instantly.

You can add friends on Last.fm just as you would on Facebook or MySpace and listen to their personalized music. Pandora also lets you listen to other people's music.
When you listen to new music on Last.fm, you can enhance your profile by expressing your love or hatred for individual songs, just as you can on Pandora.
You can use Last.fm without downloading the program but the recommendations won't be as good. That's a key difference between it and Pandora.»

fonte: «Internet radio services help you discover new artists Etan Horowitz | Orlando Sentinel, February 23, 2008

Comprar música on line (além da iTunes)

«(...) how much we pay and what we get for our money can vary, depending on which of the 50 legal sites we choose.  (...) other providers offer downloading services for the same price or less. Single downloads from hmvdigital.com, for example, can be 20p cheaper than iTunes; albums are £4 less.

Napster.co.uk, which offers subscription services as well as pay-per-track, is iTunes’ best-known rival. Tracks cost 79p on Napster Light, a pay-per-listen service, and albums from £7.95. The songs are yours to keep and you can transfer them to more than 75 compatible MP3 players. Alternatively, Napster Membership costs £9.99 a month and gives you access to Napster’s catalogue of four million tracks to play on your PC. If you want to transfer the tracks on to another device, such as an MP3 player, you will need Napster-To-Go, which costs £14.95 a month. (...)

Peter Ruppert, founder of Entertainment Media Research, says eMusic.com is probably the cheapest site at £8.99 for 30 downloads – or about 30p for each track. “The disadvantage is that it is a subscription service and they have a limited repertoire,” he says. “They won’t let you browse before agreeing to a trial subscription, so there is a bit of an anticlimax. “Don’t expect too many major hits, but an indie fan could probably be happy here. The advantage is that they deliver tracks in MP3 format without DRM.”Meanwhile, Tescodownloads.com charges 79p a track, Wippit.com anything from 29p to 75p a song, Easy-music.com between 25p and 95p, and Woolworths.co.uk 59p to 79p. Album prices vary from site to site and by artist – current chart toppers are more expensive. »

fonte: «How to buy music online, Times, Emma Lunn February 23, 2008

Negroponte e o futuro (aplicado aos canais de streaming)

«Nicholas Negroponte, el segundo gran utopista contemporáneo citado, cofundador y columnista de Wired, la revista emblemática de la utopía encarnada en Internet, y Director del Media Lab del MIT, sostiene también que el mundo digital trae consigo una 'era de optimismo". Una era que "no podemos negar o interrumpir", porque posee cualidades muy poderosas que la harán triunfar: " es descentralizadora, globalizadora, armonizajora y permisiva". Además, los monopolios y los imperios mediáticos nada tienen que hacer, puesto que se están disolviendo en una serie de empresas locales", de la misma forma que se están disolviendo en una serie de empresas locales", de la misma forma que en el conjunto del "negocio del bit" el reino será de las pequeñas empresas. En ese camino hacia una "estructura socIal global, totalmente nueva" las fuerzas dominantes no son sociales, raciales o económicas "sino generacionales". En consecuencia, hace falta menos regulación y menos legislación anti-concentración para garantizar la pluralidad (Negroponte, 1995).» (Bustamante, 35-36)