 RAIN 8/28: Apple approves Spotify iPhone app; "5 million songs in your pocket" ·Aug 28, 11:30 AM APP COULD “CHANGE HOW WE LISTEN TO MUSIC,” PUT EMPHASIS ON MUSIC REC SERVICES, SAYS ANALYSTAccording to Spotify, Apple has approved the much-hyped streaming music service’s iPhone app and says it will be available “soon” to customers in the UK, Sweden, France, Spain, Norway and Finland. The app will be free to download, but users must subscribe to Spotify’s premium plan (£9.99 a month in the UK) — which removes ads and delivers higher quality music — to actually listen to music. Spotify’s iPhone app also reportedly doesn’t always need an Internet connection, as songs are downloaded and cached for offline play. Spotify gives users on-demand access to a large database of music accompanied by ads (unless a user upgrades to the premium plan). It is not yet available in the U.S., but reportedly will be arriving by the end of the year.
“This is going to change how we listen to music,” writes Paul Lamere, director of the application developer community for The Echo Nest at his Music Machinery blog. “With this app, I will now be able to carry 5 million songs in my pocket.” But with so much choice consumers may become overwhelmed — how will they decide what to listen to? Consumers may come to rely on “gatekeepers” or “recommendation services” like Internet radio to navigate the daunting ocean of musical options. But, as Lamere points out, current recommendation engines will need to step up their game. He emphasizes the importance of context in the next generation of streamers, delivering different playlists to users not just based on what artists they prefer, but where they are and what they’re doing: working, driving, relaxing, hanging out with friends (and which friends)…even based on what TV show you saw last night. Find Lamere’s full list of ideas here. JACOBS MEDIA EXPANDS INTO MUSIC FESTIVAL APPSJacobs Media’s jacAPPS has released over 85 apps for the iPhone, many focusing on one terrestrial radio station. Now they’ve expanded into music festivals, delivering an app for the Detroit International Jazz Festival scheduled for Labor Day weekend. The app will provide directions to the festivals, information on each artist and when they perform, and details on concessions, parking and restrooms. It may be a good idea for radio stations to start offering similar mobile apps for local music festivals.
WEEI.COM SEES SITE TRAFFIC BOOMBoston sports station WEEI-AM says traffic to its website has increased 173% since last year. Additionally, page views increased 90% with the site receiving over 4 million hits in one month. The station pins the traffic increase to their site redesign, which started around this time last year.DARDIS: BY NOT STEPPING IN TO EARLY WEBCASTER ROYALTY BATTLES, B’DCASTERS PUT SELVES “IN THE BULL’S-EYE”Radio analyst Ken Dardis, in discussing his thoughts on the Performance Rights Act, says broadcasters would be a in a better position today if they had aided webcasters in their early royalty scuffles. “Years ago, back to 1998, I was calling for the radio industry to become involved in the Copyright Royalty Board’s excessive rates against internet radio. That cry was a forewarning; my chant was that CRB was going to eventually catch up to the radio industry. Its leaders sat silent,” writes Dardis at his Audio Graphics blog (here). “The radio industry, not having acted when those first and subsequent calls were made in 2002, 2005 and 2008, put itself in the bull’s-eye. Only the blind could not see that the record labels were ultimately positioning this as a ‘parity’ fight.”
PC WORLD: CISCO MUSIC STREAMER OFFERS NICE FEATURES, BUT SPOTTY PERFORMANCEThough offering a built-in touch-screen, good sound quality and access to Internet radio, the Cisco Conductor may be one to wait on for now, writes PC World. The device is part of an impressive networked music setup from Cisco, but at $700 PC World just didn’t get the performance it expected. “Sometimes the device didn’t show up at all [on Cisco’s own remote control], and when it did appear in the interface, often it did not respond to my commands…until someone comes up with a better way of dealing with those problems, I wouldn’t recommend paying this much money to put up with them.” Read PC World’s full review here.share: del.icio.us.  Reddit  Digg  Yahoo  Wink  Windows  Google  Newsvine 
CommentCommenting is closed for this article.  Other stories RAIN has upgraded (and moved)! RAIN 9/13: RAIN Summit Chicago takes place today! RAIN 9/12: First Summit in RAIN's hometown takes place tomorrow RAIN 9/9: Summer holidays, "doldrums" impact July Webcast Metrics, but audience up over last year RAIN 9/8: Clear Channel launches new customizable iHeartRadio beta; RAIN goes hands-on RAIN 9/7: Meet more speakers you'll hear at RAIN Summit Chicago in less than a week RAIN 9/6: Clear Channel taps The Echo Nest to take on Pandora RAIN 9/2: RAIN reviews Spotify's radio-like product Artist Radio RAIN 9/1: UK online radio aggregator Radioplayer campaigns b'dcasters to create "all radio" ratings RAIN 8/31: Execs from Merlin, Triton Digital, jacAPPS and more to appear at RAIN Summit Chicago |
