Bud To Bud – The Online Sharing Of Music Is About To Reach A New Height

BudToBud

Name: Bud To Bud
URL: http://www.budtobud.com

I usually don’t cover startups that are yet to launch for the simple reason that I prefer to review sites you all can head to directly and use within seconds, but today I have decided to make an exception. Bud To Bud presents itself as a really cool way to experience music. As such, I have felt it was in order to let you know about it so that you already know what to expect when it finally launches.

In general, Bud To Bud creates a shared environment in which people get to listen to the music their pals are playing in real time. It’s just as if you were sharing headphones with the other person, only that you are going to be located in separate places. Different rooms, different cities… even different countries.

And when you discover a song that means business, you can proceed to buy it and have it added to your music collection. Of course, users of Bud To Bud can also message each other out and either compliment themselves for their good taste or pull each other’s legs. I mean, imagine what would happen if you caught someone who is mad about AC/DC listening to the Jonas Brothers! Priceless or what… Continue reading

Durocast – Listen To Worldwide Radio On Your Computer

Durocast

Name: DuroCast
URL: http://www.durocast.com

“What if, like the radios commonly found in cars and stereos, there was an online central hub providing easy access to thousands of real radio stations, both local and national?”

That is the inspiration behind DuroCast, a startup company that hails from Portland. Its founders are Bryce Clemmer, Matt Polzin and Elliot Swan.

DuroCast empowers people to listen to radio stations from anywhere in the United States, Canada and some parts of South America (yes!). The idea is that users will be able not just to listen to their favorite radio stations, but actually discover new ones as they go along. Eventually, they will build up their own personalized radio dashboards, centralizing all the good music that they have found. And the best bit is that these radio dashboards are instantly shareable. Continue reading

Apple Is Tripling The Length Of Song Previews On iTunes

Apple Is To Let You Preview Songs On iTunes Three Times More Extensively

Apple Is To Let You Preview Songs On iTunes Three Times More Extensively

Nothing to complain about here, really. If you are based in the US, you will soon be able to listen to 90-second previews instead of the 30-second clips that can be sampled right now on iTunes.

This is the letter that Apple itself has sent to record labels:

“We are pleased to let you know that we are preparing to increase the length of music previews from 30 seconds to 90 seconds on the iTunes Store in the United States. We believe that giving potential customers more time to listen to your music will lead to more purchases.”

Shuffler.fm – The Pandora.fm Of Music Blogs

Shuffler

Name: Shuffler.fm
URL: http://www.shuffler.fm

Shuffler.fm is a site that redefines the way in which Internet radio has always been approached. In a nutshell, it’s like Pandora for music blogs. The site aggregates all the music-related content that surfaces on the blogosphere, and has it arranged by genre on its homepage for you to listen.

Each genre has got its very own channel, and you can jump from one to the other at will. You can also skip songs that start as energetically as Stephen Bishop on downers and find something that can at least make you tap the table and hum along.

It’s important to make it clear that the music featured here is not aggregated from just any old blog. In fact, the music is culled from a curated list of blogs in order to ensure a minimum of quality. And an effort is also made not to present users with duplicate songs. Continue reading

A New Version Of Justin Bieber’s “U Smile” Goes Viral

A Remix Of Justin Bieber's "U Smile" Has Ended Up Giving An Unknown Producer A Lot Of Notoriety

A Dirge-like Remix Of Justin Bieber's "U Smile" Has Ended Up Giving An Unknown Producer A Lot Of Notoriety

It’s amazing, but a producer who was fooling around with a song by the Canadian teen star has actually ended up with a viral hit in his hands.

The song in question is “U Smile”, and it has been slowed down beyond all belief (800 %, in fact). You can listen to it below, on the Soundcloud profile of the remixer (an aspiring producer named Nick Pittsinger)

Anyway, this is the song. Again – the amount of plays it has garnered is nothing short of breathtaking.

Eyeball.fm – Another Way To Share & Discover Music Online

Eyeball

Name: Eyeball.fm
URL: http://www.eyeball.fm

The amount of services to discover (and recommend) music online has no end. If someone asked why, we could but reply “Elementary, my dear Watson” with a smirk. “There is no end to these services because today absolutely everybody can upload his songs to the WWW and make them available to just everybody. These services are vital – or do you fancy sitting for a whole week chained to your PC listening to newcomer after newcomer?”

I have already reviewed a couple of these services, and you (being the diligent reader of MusicKO that you are) already know how they work. I will simply enumerate some of the most notable (and in some cases unique) features of Eyeball.fm for you.

For starters, it is more than merely a service for recommending music – it is a true backup service since you can upload your whole iTunes library to your account and access your music from there. And when you do that you are automatically gaining access to information such as bios and song lyrics.

Integration with services like Facebook is also accounted for, so that you can get down to recommending songs with your already existing circle of friends.

Best of all – in contrast to services like Pandora and Rhapsody, Eyeball.fm is available globally. This means that someone like me (who resides in South America) can use it to the full from the word go. Continue reading

Songr – Finding New Music To Try In A Social Context

SongrName: Songr
URL: http://www.songr.com

Songr is a social site for the discovery of new music. The way it operates is by having people submit these songs that they are listening to in real-time. A ranking with these tunes is there and then created. The songs can be voted up and down (like any social service that aggregates content such as Delicious or Digg), and the ones that are met more effusively end up topping the list for each respective genre.

The featured genres, by the way, are quite representative of the tastes of the general public. You have “Rock” and “Pop” along with “Metal” and “Rap”, and a couple more like “Country”, “Jazz” and “World” are thrown in for good measure. These will be enough for the site to get going, but as a fan of Anime and Japanese music I wish there were at least a J-Pop genre available. I hope that is implemented in due time. Continue reading

iMusicTweet – Sharing Your Songs Through Twitter & Facebook Simultaneously

iMusicTweet

Name: iMusicTweet
URL: http://www.imusictweet.com

I think we all will agree that sharing music using services like Facebook and Twitter is the most natural step in the evolution of the Social Web. After all, what good is connecting with everybody and telling them about what you do if you can’t show it to them at the same time?

The startup I am reviewing right now enables you do exactly that: spread both individual songs and full albums around, and the best thing might as well be that Twitter and Facebook alike are supported. The way it works is by letting you upload the song or playlist and having it played in your Twitter’s profile page, or streamed from your Facebook wall.

Best of all, you can make your songs both downloadable and embeddable. If you are looking for maximum exposure that is always useful, although I can’t help but wonder (and worry) a little about the copyright of what you are sharing when it is your own work what you are putting about. Continue reading

Music Matters – Combating Piracy In A Fair Way

MusicMatters
Name: Music Matters
URL: http://www.whymusicmatters.org

Weighing the pros and the cons of the Internet and the way it has modified how music is consumed always boils down to two arguments. On the plus side, artists nobody would hear about otherwise are brought recognition beyond their wildest dreams. On the down side, music is pirated left, right and center because the act of downloading an album (not to mention a mere song) seems innocuous.

When companies try to impose a solution, they invariably add fuel to the fire. The attempt to close the Pirate Bay had the opposite effect – the number of torrent trackers shot through the roof. It has always been the same all through history – something is prohibited, and people just do it three times more. Just think of the US in 1920, when the Dry Law was enforced.

The best course of action to me should be simply to remind people that what they are doing is wrong without sounding patronizing, and without doling an actual punishment. Because in 8 out of 10 cases these punishments end up affecting those who did go by the rules. Continue reading

DemoHero – A Community Site Devoted To Demo Recordings

LODemoHero

Name: DemoHero
URL: http://www.demohero.com

There is nothing more thrilling for a fan than getting his hands on some demo recordings, although the actual substance of a demo changes from artist to artist. On the one hand, we have someone like Pete Townshend that used to assemble meticulous recordings where he insinuated the parts John Entwistle and Keith Moon would play. He was to release several collections when he went solo, and the public finally realized that what Keith Richards once said had more than an inkling of truth – “Peter Townshend made better Who music than The Who”.

On the other hand, demos are included unscrupulously as a bait to lure in collectors in compilation albums by certain artists. That kind of artist is the one described in the song “Box Set” by Barenaked Ladies, as the contents of the fictitious musician’s boxed set are enumerated disc by disc:

Disc Four
Never released before,
and you can tell why;
it’s just some demos
I recorded in my basement.

The fact remains that hardened fans don’t care where or when a demo was recorded. It could have been recorded by the singer while he was taking a shower. If it is a song that speaks to us, we are going to offer and arm and a leg in order to listen to it. Well, not any longer. Listening to these rough sketches has become very easy. This brand new site makes it a doodle. Continue reading