3.4.3 Canais de streaming

Mais comparações entre serviços

«I'll start with AOL, the portal I've been most impressed with because its music offerings are the best of the bunch. AOL has a link to XM Satellite Radio, where I've been listening, for free, to the best and most reliable Internet music stream I've heard. (...)
At MSN, the home page is exceptionally busy, so quickly navigating the site to find music or radio was an unnecessary challenge.
MSN has a deal with Pandora, an Internet radio service that allows people to build a music playlist based on preferences. It's similar to what you can do at other music sites, such as Last.fm, and it's the type of service I enjoy since I usually hear something from an unknown-to-me musician I'm inclined to like. Unfortunately, I could not get Pandora to play properly on my office computer. (...)At Yahoo, the radio could be customized for one's preferences, too, but it was the only portal that asked the user to register. That's not a plus. However, the radio feed worked well.
Then I downloaded the Yahoo Jukebox application. This is a robust media player that I could probably write a single column on because it is excellent. The sound is very clear, the radio stations, which I can also customize based on my preferences, come through without buffering, and the Jukebox can be synced to a digital music player and Yahoo's subscription music service.

I really like Jukebox, but Yahoo's insistence I use its other products is grating.
The bottom line: AOL impressed me the most, MSN the least, and Yahoo needs an attitude adjustment.»

fonte: Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft find ways to stay relevant, Chicago Tribune, Eric Benderoff | February 18, 2008

LastFM a crescer

«CBS' social networking site Last.fm is the fastest-growing online music network in the U.S., according to new stats. Last.fm features a free-on-demand music service, which has seen a 92% increase in the number of unique listeners since it was launched four weeks ago. CBS says the site got a "tremendous boost" after Last.fm received on- air promotional exposure during the Grammy Awards and a Garth Brooks concert on CBS-TV.» CBS owns the fastest-growing online music site. Inside Radio 23 (22?)/02/08

«Music recommendation website Last.fm has seen its user numbers rise by 59% after introducing a free streaming service, the CBS-owned web company claimed today. Last.fm said its new on-demand music service has been a major driver of traffic growth in the US where the site is not as well known as in Europe. The free Last.fm service was launched last month through deals with the four major music labels - Universal, Sony BMG, EMI and Warner Music Group. Last.fm now has 21 million unique users each month, based on its internal traffic figures for the last four weeks, and has seen the number of people listening to music on the site increase by 92% in one month. The site does not sell music directly, but links to services including 7digital and Amazon that allow users to buy downloads.»

As audiencias no streaming musical

«Web-based music radio services generated 4.85 billion total listening hours in 2007, a 26% increase over 2006, according to a report from AccuStream iMedia Research.Total listening hours averaged 404.2 million hours per month, compared to a 320.5 million hour average in 2006.
AOL's Shoutcast remained the top platform for Internet music radio, claiming 48% of total listening hours for the year, and was followed by Clear Channel Online, Yahoo Music, AOL Radio Networks and Pandora.
The Internet music radio ad market was worth approximately $92 million in 2007, including $80 million in audio ads -- a 194% increase from 2006 -- and another $12-$15 million generated through video ads placed within radio sites.
AccuStream credited online commitments from terrestrial broadcasters such as Clear Channel and Citadel Broadcasting in part for the improved ad market for the medium, but noted that the top ten radio sites still captured over 90% of total listening hours monthly. »

fonte: «Report: Web Music Radio Listening Up 26% in 2007», Digital Media Wire Mark Hefflinger on February 20, 2008

MySpace lança-se na musica via streaming?

«Beware, SpiralFrog and Imeem. A powerful new player is eyeing your ad-supported music turf. MySpace.com is in talks with the four major record labels about starting a free-to-consumer music service, a source with knowledge of the talks told CNET News.com on Monday night. So far MySpace and the labels are just talking, the source said, but PaidContent, the blog that broke the news, reported that the music companies are being offered an equity stake in the News Corp.-backed start-up. A MySpace spokeswoman declined to comment Monday evening. There are conflicting reports about whether the new music service would offer downloads or stream music to PCs. PaidContent reported that it's downloads, but Silicon Alley Insider reported that its sources said the site would stream songs»

fonte: «MySpace's music plan likely to be streaming service», Greg Sandoval, CNET February 18, 2008

Controlar a emissão mas também a recepção

«La recepción es un momento del proceso comunicativo en el que reside buena parte de la clave de la influencia de los mensajes: Umberto Eco nos advirtió hace tiempo (1986,131 ss.) que, poseyendo el control de la emisión, no conseguimos nada mientras no  controlemos la recepción» (Noriega, 1997: 140)

A escuta de streaming on demand não diminui o consumo de rádio (!?)

«Personalised Online Radio is an online service that uses a music recommendation system. Intelligent software selects music for listeners based on their personal likes and dislikes. Some of the better known examples are LastFM and Pandora. Asked if they were aware of such services, 30% of Internet radio listeners (3.97 million) said that they were.

People who said they were aware of POR were asked how often they used it. Almost a quarter of a million people (247,000) use a POR service everyday, and nearly a million people are weekly users (973,000). (...)

All users were asked if POR had changed how much conventional radio they listened to.

Table 7: Has using POR changed how much traditional live radio you listen to?
Sample size = 71	(‘000s)		(%)
Base = All POR users	1,649		100%
I now listen to…
(5) …much more live radio	46		2.8
(4) …more live radio	70		4.2
(3) …just as much as before	1,171		71.0
(2) …less live radio	189		11.5
(1) …much less live radio	53		3.2
Mean score out of 5		2.91

The table shows a marginal negative effect, which is understandable given that POR is positioned as "personalised radio". However, for 78% of users, POR has not eroded their traditional radio listening, and only 6% admitted that it had made a significant difference – 2.8% listening to much more and 3.2% to much less. »

o estudo: Podcasting and Radio Listening via Internet Survey RAJAR January 2008

Música de nichos: A longa Cauda está certa (e os canais de streaming ganham com isso)

«(...) One recent study, conducted and reported by a respected music industry publication, The Lefsetz Letter, compared the overall music sales — both physical and digital — of the calendar year 2000 (the peak sales year to date for the industry) with sales in 2007, and found that the 2007 figures were down about a third (–36%) from the 2000 sales.
Then Lefsetz compared the individual sales of each of the top 10 selling records for those two years with one other (i.e., sales of the #1 record of 2000 compared to the #1 record of 2007, #2 with #2, and so on), which you would expect to approximately reflect the same one-third drop — but they did not.
Instead, the records that occupied each of the top 10 slots for 2007 were off from over 50 percent to nearly 70 percent compared to the sales for the records in those same positions for 2000.
Always in stock
This substantially disproportionate drop for the bestsellers of 2007 indicates that music sales are clearly trending toward greater diversity and choice.
One possible reason is that across that seven-year period, online music stores have made it possible to search, browse, sample and purchase a far wider variety of music than consumers ever could in any physical store.
In other words, a digital inventory allows the complete “Long Tail” to be kept in stock at all times, and as a result, the comet’s head is shrinking and its tail is getting fatter. (See the Sept. 1, 2006 edition of this column at rwonline.com if that reference escapes you.) (...) On the other hand, there are other purveyors of music radio — Internet and satellite broadcasters — that do more closely embrace the trend toward greater choice and diversity with narrower formats.
They can do it because their environments allow them to operate more simultaneous services on a full-time basis. That and other efficiencies of digital processes (automation, etc.) allow them to build a viable aggregate audience with fewer listeners per service than terrestrial radio requires.
Ironically, this is not because these new media operators have more channels per se. The largest terrestrial radio companies actually own a far greater number of channels than any satellite or Internet radio service operates, but because of the geographic distribution of terrestrial channels, the same narrowing (or “niche-ing”) of formats cannot be applied there.» (Skip Pizzi, Toward an Embarrassment of Niches, RWOnline, 2.13.2008)

12 serviços de musica personalizada em revista

Jango, TheSixtyOne, Musicovery, BoomShuffle, finetune, last.fm, Pandora, Slacker, Skreemr, Songza, MySpace, and imeem.

«Free, legal music has existed forever—or at least since the invention of the radio (...) These days, a good radio station is hard to come by and CDs are $20 a pop. So, what's a music lover to do? Turn to the Internet, of course, where you can find music-streaming services that are not only free and legal (like all radio) but customizable. There are plenty of services out there that offer either loose customization or full-blown playlist building. Services like Pandora, Slacker, and Jango let you enter the name of an artist or artists and listen to a stream of songs tailored specifically to your tastes. Other music sites like BoomShuffle and finetune allow you to pick the actual songs you'll hear; once you've added X number of songs, your playlist is treated as a full-fledged Web radio station and you can listen to it as often as you like, pass it around the Web, and embed it on a blog or social network. As with anything free, there are some caveats. In order to get the blessing of the music industry, these music sites can't just let you play any old song you want, whenever you want. The playlists you build and the streams you customize need to be considered Web radio stations. Here are some of the conditions that have to be met to be considered Web radio:

• Any playlist you build must include songs from at least 15 different artists
• The playlist order is randomized
• The listener can only skip a certain number of songs per listening session
• The site—not the user—must make royalty payments

 

These are minor hang-ups—after all, the payoff is that you get to listen to free music legally—but they're worth mentioning. These sites are a perfect match for a certain type of music listener: the kind who wants a little more control than typical Web radio affords, but who also wants to listen to new music that might not be in his or her iTunes folder. They're also perfect for office workers who can't store their personal music libraries on work machines but go crazy in their cubicles without tunes. Even better, they're all free, and you won't get sued for using any of them. So what are you waiting for?»

Os doze sites em revista

fonte: Get Free Music! PC Mag, Kyle Monson 02.15.08

A nova 'revolução' dos sites de musica online

«There's a new music revolution brewing, and it's social. Social music sites Imeem and Last.fm — which offer on-demand, ad-supported free music — have grown rapidly to 20 million monthly users each. Their success has the music industry seriously exploring the viability of ad-supported, free music as the next big business model for online music. (...) The latest trend is ad-supported, on-demand online music streaming, most notably, Imeem and Last.fm.  The old negative for such Web-only services — that you can listen to a song, but can't download it — no longer appears to be an issue. In the age of always-on, high-speed connections, "Who cares?" says Quincy Smith, president of CBS Interactive, which bought Last.fm for $280 million in 2007.

Imeem and Last.fm are positioned as music communities, where friends tell each other about what songs and artists they like. Since the sites have licensing agreements with the four major labels, fans can share songs and playlists with each other. Last.fm restricts users to listening to a song just three times, while Imeem has no restrictions. Both services are online radio stations, but they are different from competitors Pandora or Slacker, which create personalized stations based on your musical tastes. Here, you pick the songs and the artists, or choose music based on recommendations from peers. "Friends pay a lot more attention to what their peers say than music reviewers," says Mike McGuire, an analyst with Gartner.  The sites also differ from social networks like MySpace and Facebook in that "our audience isn't looking for dates," says Steve Jang, Imeem's chief marketing officer.» (fonte: «Music websites are fighting to be free, 5/02/08, USA Today)

«There’s now a bevy of free, ad-supported music services emerging, including CBS' Last.fm, Spiralfrog, imeem and Qtrax. The message to consumers is clear: Music is an add-on; it has no retail value of its own. With each new service, the $0 price point is reinforced and music becomes swag – like logo embossed ballpoint pens or branded refrigerator magnets.   

Maybe this evolution is natural – after all, it’s often been pointed out that recorded music has a zero marginal cost to produce (meaning that every additional MP3 produced by a record label costs no more than the original recorded track.)  Proof of exactly how cheap it is to produce music is the billion MP3 files each month that are created via P2P sites, mostly illegal.  How can consumers really be expected to pay $1 for a product they know costs nothing to produce?» (The Brooding Savage, 7/02/08)  

Songerize: era demasiado bom...

Songerize promete muito; mas «Sorry, couldn't find song» é a expressão que mais vezes aparece...

«Songerize is a dead-simple interface for quickly playing streaming music, and it's destined to become a quick-fix addiction for music fans. Type in a song name, then the artist you think performs it, and hit "Play." If Songerize can find the song, it plays it in an embedded Flash device. If not, try another song. Described as the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button for the more full-featured streaming music search site SeeqPod, Songerize is the perfect tool for clarifying misheard lyrics, quickly playing a song for a friend, or just listening to music one track at a time. Songerize found 8 of 10 songs I threw at it this morning, and I mixed it about halfway between big radio hits and indie hip-hop and rock. Nifty. To get even more out of SeeqPod, download-wise, check out Songbeat.» (aqui))

 

 

O poder dos ouvintes na rádio e na internet

«If you want to influence what gets played on traditional radio you have the option of calling in a song request to the disc jockey (DJ). Or, if the station is more technically savvy, you can send requests by fax, e-mail, or instant messenger. This, of course, presumes that the show is live and the DJ is available to review your request—which is often not the case. Most Internet radio stations are similar in this regard: your ability to influence the playlist is limited, and your main choice is whether to listen or not. The Internet is a two-way medium, however, and a number of services have emerged to exploit this fact. As a listener you get some control over the broadcast. At its most basic, this control includes the ability to skip or pause songs that you are listening to. At its most sophisticated, personalized radio allows you to fine tune a broadcast based on your musical preferences. This can range from genre preferences (I like Classical but I don’t like Rap) to artist and album preferences (I like David Bowie but not his latest album), and song preferences (I like the original version of The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down). While personalized radio does not allow you to control the exact composition or sequence of your playlist—for this you need a true on-demand music service— it does help you control the content of your station. In many situations this is all you need—especially if your intent is to discover new music. Personalized radio gives you the means to follow a musical trail—using favored songs or artists as “scent.”»

fonte: BREEDING, Andy (2004), Internet Music Services, MA: Giant Path, pag 33

Dois mundos distintos: rádio on line e canais de streaming

Da leitura de mais um relatorio da JPMorgan sobre audiencias na net, o que mais impressiona é, por um lado, a incompatibilidade entre aquilo ali é designado por terresterial radio operators online (ou seja, a industria de rádio que tambem tem streaming) e os internet radio providers (canais de streaming neste giria) e o desinteresse destes por aqueles.  Ou seja, a industria de rádio não se interessou em lançar canais autonomos de streaming e as empresas que os têm tambem não pensam em emissão hertziana. (a excepção é a Last.Fm e a CBS)

Por curiosidade: «Terrestrial radio operators online include Beasley Broadcasting, CCU, CBS Radio & Last.fm, CDL, CXR, Educational Media Foundation, ETM, EMMS, Greater Media, Maranatha Broadcasting, Midwest Communications, NPR , Radio Disney, Radio One, Regent Communications, and Spanish Broadcasting, as well as the individual website metrics for wbal (HTV), wgn (TRB), and wtmx (Bonneville). Internet radio providers include, AOL Radio, Yahoo! Music, MSN Radio, Pandora.com, social.com, windowsmedia.com music, LIVE365.com, Accuradio, accutunes, BigRRadio, 181.fm, Lucksysevenradio.com, orsradio.com, Sky.fm, 1club.fm, di.fm, rock.com, 1.fm, gotradio.com, broadcasturban.net, and 202online.com. Also, getnetradio.com, and myclubradio.com, were included in all months until June 2007 when comScore stopped reporting their metrics.»

Table 4: Unique Visitors to Pure Play Internet Radio's Websites, Dec. 2007 vs. Nov. 2007

Unique visitors in thousands                   

Nov-07 Dec-07 Sequential Growth

Yahoo! Music 21,546 20,685 (4.0%)

Windowsmedia.com Music 3,721 4,086 9.8%

AOL Radio 3,353 3,680 9.7%

Pandora.com 3,774 3,957 4.9%

LIVE365.COM 905 1,069 18.2%

Social.fm 22 NM NM

Accuradio 154 NM NM

181.fm 231 351 51.5%

Luckysevenradio.com 280 173 (38.3%)

O sucesso do Pandora

«Oakland-based Pandora brought nearly 4 million unique visitors to its site in December, according to JP Morgan’s “Radio Broadcasting : Internet Radio Scorecard December 2007.” December was Pandora’s sixth “up” month in a row» (fonte: JP Morgan)

«O preço a pagar pelo progresso» (a desumanização)

«(...) existe sempre um preço a pagar pelo progresso. Na maioria das vezes, uma nova tecnologia resolve um problema pendente, mas cria outros, e há uma forte tendência para omitir este segundo aspecto. Ve-mo-lo constantemente na automatização dos serviços, dos bancos, dos comboios... Após haver suprimido os homens em proveito de máquinas mais eficazes, constata-se uma profunda desumanização e a necessidade urgente de os reintroduzir no comércio, nos comboios, nos servIços. Amanhá na educação, após se ter querido complementá-los, e por vezes substituí-los, por terminais inteligentes e interactivos, constatar-se-á o mesmo processo. Os investigadores há já trinta anos que fazem soar o alarme face aos riscos da desumanização da sociedade sob o pretexto que a maior parte das tarefas podem ser executadas por robots. » (Wolton, 2000: 183) 

«As técnicas não chegam para criar a comunicação»

«As técnicas não chegam para criar a comunicação. É claro que transmitir, cada vez mais rápido, e nos dois sentidos, suscita uma forma de comunicação. Contudo, para além disso é necessário um projecto e um modelo cultural. Em suma, a "ligação à rede" não constitui por si só um projecto de comunicação, e muitas transmissões não são sinónimo de muita comunicação» (wolton, 2000: 122) 

Explicar o sucesso dos canais de streaming

«Existem três conceitos fundamentais para compreender o sucesso das novas tecnologias: autonomia, domínio e rapidez. Cada um pode agir, sem intermediário, quando quiser, sem filtro nem hierarquia e, o que é mais importante, em tempo real. Não se tem que esperar, age-se e o resuItado é imediato. Isto confere um sentimento de liberdade absoluta, e mesmo de poder, que se manifesta na expressão "surfar na Net". Este tempo real que desarruma as escalas habituais do tempo e da comunicação é provavelmente um factor de sedução essencial. » (Wolton, 2000: 77)

«Um outro aspecto positivo diz respeito ao facto de as novas tecnoIogias satisfazerem a necessidade de agir. É a filosofia "do it yourself', que se encontra um pouco por todas as esferas da vida prática. A necessidade de agir e a capacidade para a interacção que caracterizam os indivíduos da sociedade moderna encontram aquI terreno propício ao seu desenvolvimento. É bom de ver que o acesso a máquinas semelhantes não reduz por si só as desigualdades sociais, mas pelo menos confere a alguns um sentimento real de que é possível operar uma revolução. Ora, isso permite ao jogo social renovar-se, sendo indispensável a cada geração para compensar uma outra percepção, por vezes bem real, a de que "isto é que vai uma crise!" (...) Se, por um lado, é indispensável não confundir nova tecnologia com nova cultura, por outro lado, pode-se, no mínimo, sublinhar que este novo suporte facilita uma determinada expressão cultural e linguagens ainda em gestação, embora seja ainda demasiado cedo para saber se, a prazo, representarão uma ruptura cultural relevante» (Wolton, 2000: 79) 

Bebo e Imeem salvam a industria musical?

«(...) Especially among 15- to 25-year-olds, people seem to need their peers to validate their musical tastes, making the Internet a perfect medium for the intersection of MP3s and mob psychology. (...) Imeem and Bebo are two Web sites trading on the idea that music is a social phenomenon, and that the Internet is the place to be to gather around it. Imeem asks, "What's on your playlist?," while Bebo calls itself a "social media network." Imeem draws 20 million visitors a month by specializing in free streaming music and music-video playlists that you can customize. The offerings are surrounded by information about the artists, rankings, related songs, polls, and profiles of other fans. (...)"We can target to hip-hop fans in L.A. who are also into indie films," said Steve Jang, Imeem's chief marketing officer. The most successful sites in any category, Jang maintains, are not the ones with the most money or the best technology, but the ones with the best "user experience," like the simple interface that Google started out with.The recent wave of social music sites that Imeem is a part of is showing the music industry that a free, open, ad-supported system is better than tying down digital songs with software that limits their playability, Jang said. Just look at radio and MTV, which have been sustained by advertising for years, he said. (...)Like Imeem, Bebo surrounds its offerings with extras: fan groups, artist information, concert dates and charts. Bebo, which has 40 million registered users and drew 11 million visitors last month from Britain alone, also lets its users bring in music and other media from Web sites like YouTube by using "widgets" that can be dropped on to personal pages. (...) Shields acknowledges that teenagers, the age group most attached to socializing around entertainment, do not have the kind of income that many advertisers would like to attract. But they make up for it with loyalty. As a testament to how attached Bebo users are, the average time spent on the site per session is 40 minutes - an eternity by Internet social-networking standards.»

fonte: «Could social networking sites save the music industry?», Victoria Shannon, IHT, 30/01/08

Imeem compra Anywhere FM

«(...) Popular social media network Imeem has wasted no time in responding. It issued a release early this morning announcing its acquisition of San Francisco Internet radio service Anywhere.fm. Among the benefits for Imeem users are a new music player and an enhanced recommendation engine. Users will also be able to upload their olwn music to the service a la MP3Tunes, making their entire music libraries streamable from any browser. Playlists, song ratings, and play counts can also be uploaded to Imeem's new music player, which will be integrated into the site's existing services. "Anywhere.FM makes it simple for consumers to bring their music to the Web and discover new artists through recommendations and social connections," said Imeem founder and CEO Dalton Caldwell. "That's a great fit with what we do. Combining Anywhere.FM's expertise with the reach and scope of the Imeem community creates some truly exciting possibilities, and we're psyched they're joining our team." Toward the end of last year, Imeem announced several partnerships with music labels, including the four majors, Universal, EMI, Sony, and Warner, giving the company one of the most comprehensive free streaming libraries on the Web.» fonte: «Imeem Purchases Internet Radio Service Anywhere.fm», PC Mag, 01.28.08

As telefónicas dinamizam os serviços de musica on line

«French telecom Orange has partnered with Lagardere Active and music service provider Yacast, to launch a new ad-supported streaming music service in France called Musiline, Billboard reported. Available for free to Orange France's 7 million broadband subscribers, the personalized radio service also offers paid downloads for about $1.45 per track.»

fonte: «Orange Debuts Ad-Supported Web Radio Service in France», 22/01/08

Ruckus.com, mais um serviço de música personalizada

«Ruckus is a completely legal and advertising supported music service geared exclusively to the college community. All students with a valid school email (.edu) have free unlimited access to the entire Ruckus music library.  Why Sign Up?   Free unlimited download access
   Download full albums in under a minute
   New music every week
   Create and share your playlists
   It's 100% Free!»

«The company supports itself through advertisements on the Web site.
Students can choose from a database of over 3.2 million songs to download, which are completely legal and virus free, according to Ruckus' Web site.
"The downside is that unless you buy an MP3 player from (Ruckus), you can't download music to (other MP3 players)," he said. Students with iPods, for instance, wouldn't be able to use music from Ruckus on that player.
Students interested in using Ruckus can download it at Ruckusnetworks.com using their student e-mail account».

You need a school email address that ends in .edu to register as a student or faculty with Ruckus. However, you can still register as an alumni and pay a small fee to access our music catalog. Keep in mind only students with .edu email addresses get Ruckus music for free.