Web for music artists and lovers

Yesterday I wrote a piece on how to find info about music on the web, and ended with Pandora Backstage. But that leads me to talk about Pandora: a great way of knowing new music. I'm a heavy Pandora user: at work I arrive, open a tab for Pandora, and start listening to it until my work day is over, when I close the tab. Yes, Pandora is an online music player, but with a twitch: you tell it what do you like, and Pandora aplies some genetic algorithms to find out what other stuff you like to listen. I'm impressed on how good their algorithms are: it almost never fails on me, and it's a really great way of knowing about more music and more artists, and, in the same time, is a great way of listening to the music you like, without having to care about moving your mp3's or CD's to the places you want to listen to them, and stuff like that... It's a great service, and in those people tend to emphatise the flaws, so who am I to mark a difference? Pandora has two main issues: first of all it is a Flash player, which really sucks. Besides having to restart the browser sometimes to get sound from Pandora, don't even try to let Pandora running over a weekend, it will suck each free byte of memory you have.

When Pandora appeared, lot's of people tried to compare it with last.fm, but I really don't understand why, since they do quite different things. With last.fm you can download a player or use the last.fm plugin to your music player of choice (iTunes, amarok, you name it) and start rating the songs you have and like. Then, you can see charts and recommendations (based on camparisons between user tastes) and stuff like that... Well, a mix between Pandora and a social network. It has it's value and I'm glad it exists, but if you want to find new music Pandora is better than last.fm for you, specially if you're no computer geek.

It was no surprise for me, but quite interesting since I was thinking on writting this post when yesterday at lunch I heard a friend telling to another "hey, every band needs a MySpace page!". While not necessarily truth (if you pick the last post's example "Marilyn Manson", you'll see that he isn't on MySpace), this is truth for every and each band that is less known and needs to be more. While Marilyn Manson or any other billboard bands don't need the exposure MySpace can give bands, other known bands do: if you look to my contacts on my MySpace's corner, you'll see I'm linking there to well-established bands like Novembers Doom (7 full-length released), Antimatter (4 full-length released) or ThanatoSchizO (3 full-length released), so if bands like those are investing their time in MySpace there must be a reason, right? Well, the advantage of MySpace is it's userbase: half-world has an account there and the other half already heard about it. In MySpace (music-related) you have an easy way to browse between artists, kisten to their music while reading their MySpace pages, and still maybe download those tracks. The concept is good, but poorly implemented, as I ranted about before.

While there's no ultimate sollution to solve artists and lovers problems while using the web to reach their purposes, there are several services that try to do it better than MySpace. From all the alternatives, and please don't make me name them all, the best, IMHO, is PureVolume. you just need to go there and view a band's profile to easilly notice three things: it has all the band features MySpace has, it's an only-music social network, and it's way more usable and clean. Who wants the mess of those MySpace pages when there are pages so nice as this? Then, the player: it's also a flash player, but this one works perfectly, even if I would prefer a different behaviour in some cases. The pages are quite Ajax'd which is perfect if you want to browse and don't loose track of the music you were listening to... If you're an artist, take in consideration that there's a limit of 4 songs published in the free accounts, and then you have to pay something (I don't know and I don't care) to be able to post more songs.

Being an artist myself, when Crash (the last released album from Merankorii) was released I faced a problem: I wanted to have the entire album available for download somewhere, and had no web service where to put it on. OK, I could use PureVolume for that, but since I want to offer the music as free mp3's available for download, I don't have to add to that an expense just to host a couple of mp3 files. So I decided to create an account on SoundClick. This service is worse than PureVolume's: you have a worse player, navigation is bad, but you have no limit in the number of songs hosted. People can listen to them with no trouble, but if you want to download them you have to be registred (is free). Having to be registred sucks: most people won't bother doing that to download some music, and artists want having people downloading their music the easiest way possible.

In the beggining of this week a new service appeared, still on it's Alpha version: Amie St.. This is a service that, like SoundClick, lets you host the number of songs you want, freely, and that people have to be registred to download them. But this service has a completely different business model: people don't "download" music, they "buy" it, even if it is "buying a free music" (when the cost is 0 you don't have to pay for it, obviously). More, the price one track isn't fixed by the artist (as you see in several other services) but, instead, Amie's ecosystem creates a market where your tracks have a value of worthiness. "Better" music is more expensive and "worse" music is free. I think this is an awsome application, but it is still too young to have no fear, and I really have some concerns about it. Besides, there are lot's of features lacking there: what if I have a band and I want all my tracks to be for free, even if they could be sold? On those cases Amie St. isn't for me.

Unfortunately, there's no "killer app" for Music Artists and Lovers. And yes, the "killer app" have to be the same for both: in a web full of social features, you just have to put bands and listeners together, giving to both of them the possibility of doing everything they might want. We're not there, yet, but some inside info in the Web 2.0 market tells me that the future might be brighter... Let's hope and see.

Pandora bug

As some of you know, I'm a Pandora heavy user, I think it is better than Last.fm, and I think it will get a lot better. Of course it still has lot's of problems, and I know some of them... But now I've just stumbled upon a curious one.
I indicated to Pandora some weeks ago that I like Steve Roach. Now, I've started a new "session" on Pandora and this has been the songs it gave me:

• Steve Roach - Flatlands
• Steve Roach & Vir Unis - Born of Fire
• Byron Metcalf featuring Steve Roach - Raven Medicine
• Steve Roach & Robert Rich - Soma
  

OK, now, I'm not complaining - I'm liking to listen to them, but Pandora algorithm gave me this four tracks as something like "similar tracks from different artists". OK, the "Artist name" on the track is different, but the Artist itself is the same.

The Social Web of Music

For those who read this blog for a while now, you've probably noticed that I write a lot about music and technology, sometimes both. A pair of posts I did on the issue may be already somewhat outdated: one about finding music on the web, and other about the web for music artists and lovers.

While there's some discussion around the web on wether Web 2.0 is better or worse than P2P for this kind of stuff, an issue I would love to talk about in a future post, today I'm going to talk about "The Social Web of Music", impelled by the fact that Techcrunch made a Social Music Review that, IMHO, doesn't really reflect the great web apps out there in the field.

They chose eight products: FineTune, Pandora, Last.fm, Mog, Radio.Blog.Club, MyStrands, iLike and iJigg.

My first comment about the chosen applications is that FineTune, Pandora, Last.fm, Mog, and Radio.Blog.Club aim exactly for the same, so they're concurrents themselves.

FineTune lets you create playlists of music you want to hear, which is great if you want to be listening to some music instead of knowing new music.

On the other hand Pandora (here are some posts where I talked about it) has the easiest user interface of all, and has the best algorithm of finding out music that you'll probably like. On the other hand, it has two major problems: it almost only has mainstream music (almost everything comes out from the major labels) and it's only legal to use it in USA (so, no Pandora for us European guys).

My favourite of the bunch is Last.fm (my cover here): while it wasn't until some time ago, the social features it has are preety good. I'm intending to do a full cover of Last.fm and the way I use it, but for now I'll only say that it has an impressive social component that lets you (only if you want, and that's good) tag, rate, talk, know new stuff, get free tracks, and a lot lot more. It has something that beats those others: it lets bands or labels to create their pages there and promote their music. That makes it preety cool for bands and for those wanting to listen music, mainstream or not. The social component there is strong enough to make a band, by publicising themselves there (upload a music free for stream or even download, and it will surely be heard) to get fans or even sell your music in a much success rate than any other webapp I know of.

Mog also lets artists upload their music, but... well, it quite sucks. It's confusing, it has bad design, and the real use for which I can imaging Mog being the app you're looking for is only if you want to blog about music. And, for that, Last.fm would also be fine...

Radio.Blog.Club was a big surprise: I can't imagine it being relevant in a discussion about the "social web of music". I guess that the only reason why it was referred is that the author thinks that "the interface is good". Sorry, but I do not agree. Call me stupid, but while the website says that artists can upload their music, and while, by the file names, users are obviously submitting (copyrighted stuff, BTW), I walked around for 10 minutes or so and didn't find out how to do it. I don't intend to come back there.

MyStrands might be "social music", but isn't web: it's a desktop application you have to download, and there are only versions for Windows or Mac OS. Since I'm a Linux user, this isn't for me.

iLike is even worse: it's an iTunes plugin. No, I don't use iTunes.

Finaly, iJigg: the music digg. I don't really like digg, so I might be biased on this, but iJigg is just... well, if you want to discover music and you want "anything" (forget finding stuff similar of what you already know and like), or if you want copyrighted stuff that others post there (lot's of it, there), then you might find it interesting. But I doubt that it will be "the music web app you'll get used to use".

So, if these are my oppinions about the choices, what would be mine?

For me, only five stand out:

Pandora - I've talked about it up there, so go back and read it :-) If you're resident in USA and what you want is to get at your job in the morning, open a browser tab and make it play music you like until it's time to go home, this is for you. Easy, fast learning, great interface, preety cool. If you like something enough, you can buy the track or album in iTunes (please, don't - those tracks have DRM) or Amazon.

Last.fm - The music experience and interaction. Put your music player to feed Last,fm, use it to listen what other people recommend you, bands similar to the one you're listening now, other bands from the same music label, leave a comment, take a peek on what other Last.fm users that listen to it like to hear, know new bands, get some free, legal, DRM-free music.

SellABand - I promised a full review of it that I never did (shame on me). To give you an example... I have a musical project and I've used the internet to promote it - and even to get the label that released my last album. Of all those music services my music can be heard, SellABand is the one where I probably have less people listening to it - but in the other hand is the one that possibly granted me more fans. Also, Last.fm and SellABand were direct creators of revenue: I sold at least one CD thanks to each of them. What's SellABand? What makes it so different? No better than this page to explain it, but basicly bands, for free, create their profiles there, with (at their choice) free-to-listen music. "Believers" (the name for listeners) may "believe" in an artist by buying one "part" of the band ($10 per part). Then, "Together Believers have to raise $50,000 to get their Artist of choice in the studio. At any point before your Artist has reached the Goal of $50,000, you can withdraw your Parts and pick a different Artist. You can even get your money back. It's your music. It's your choice." If one band reaches $50,000 (in four months two already did), a CD is released, you get a copy, 50% of the profits go to the band, and the other 50% are distributed to their believers.

Amie.st - I talked about this before, and Mike from Techcrunch is a big fan of this, so my surprise was huge when I noticed that this wasn't on their list. Basicly they consider that every track has a value, but music lovers are the ones who should decide whats its value. So, When a band uploads one music there, it starts costing "0 credits", and if people say that the song should cost more than that, it starts costing something, and more, and more. It's the free market aplied to music - a way better way of knowing and buying digital music - you're basicly paying it's "real value".

MySpace Music - This had to be here. I don't like MySpace (nobody does, right?) but it's the biggest website on the Internet, and that means something. If you ignore all the kiddy social crap and take a look to in only taking into consideration the music aspects, you'll see that this is the most used "music webapp". You have from really big and well-known bands like Björk there, and you have that until the "I don't have or want a band, but I once did this track" stuff. You have music for every kind of tastes, some you can only stream and some you can download. You can see, specialy from the "top friends", what other somewhat simmilar bands you'll possible like, and discover lots of music.

And you? What music web applications do you use?

Pandora big improovement

Starting last night, Pandora's playlist system suffered from a big upgrade so that now when we collectively tell them that a song is a terrible fit for a particular station, they listen and everyone listening to that station benefits from the feedback. Read more about that on Pandora's blog.

I obviously think that there's still lot's of work to do on Pandora (namedly getting a decent player instead of the Flash one, or at least having a non-flash alternative), but I really like their effort of allways being improoving...

Pandora [Juke]box

I've just discovered Pandora, a music webcast site with a really nice idea: you feed the site with musical bands that you like and it uses genetic AI to find out bands that you'll probably like too. There's nothing really big to say about it, it's up to you to read the site and use it for a while to find out if you like it... But if I'm really like the concept, the application is quite heavy, and the site quite slow. Things that they hopefully will enhance. Oh, and they know lot's of music that I don't like, but they've only found musics that I like from Marilyn Manson... I'll wait for improovements from the IA.

Recomended.

Web Music Services for bands - revisited

I've talked about this before, but the social web is developing fast and well, so there are news on the field... So let me revisit the topic, and talk a little about the "new web music services for bands".

I'm going to list five services that can help bands promote themselves, and fans to easily access to their favourite bands and even help them. Here they are:

ReverbNation is a newcomer on this blog. Basicly, ReverbNation started last October as yet another music social network, in the vein of services like PureVolume. The thing is that since they started they didn't stop adding new features, some of them really cool for artists. But what makes them start this list is a feature that they don't yet have but will do in July: an ad revenue sharing program for their artists, called “Fair Share”. With this, fans are giving to their artists money each time they visit the artist webpage and specially when clicking in the ads presented there. Alternative sources of incoming are allways cool, right?

Then, another newcomer. Poptopus isn't a music social network, or something that lets bands have pages. Instead, they make widgets with songs submited by artists, and that widgets contain ads. That means that a blogger, for instance, can have a music player with songs of his choice in its website, and the revenue from the ads in there are splited between the blogger, the artist of the tracks presented there, and Poptopus, of course. Once again, yet another source of incoming. Their closed beta is going to start soon.

Then, we're back to those I've already talked about. GrooveShark is getting bigger and better day by day, even if still in Alpha. I'm still swapping e-mails with them and plan to have a new blog post about it soon enough, but the concept is good: a legal p2p music network where you're paid to share and artists whose tracks are shared too.

SellABand also keeps going on, and are, at least, a very successful case of an indie label - after all in less than an year they've managed to launch several bands albums and compilations, besides organizing events - for instance. Here listeners pay to give the bands a chance to release an album, and after they can make money out of it.

Last.fm continues to be awsome, a great way for a band to expose themselves if well exploited. They're experiencing a boom of users now that Pandora is enforcing their users to be located in the United States, yet there are rumours of Viacom wanting to buy them which are no good news.

Also, I'm curious about two new services that might be quite interesting: We7 and Playable. When more info on those are announced, I'll surely let you know...

meme: top ten UNIX shell commands

So, it seems that there's already another meme flooding the blogsphere, and who am I to break the chain?

This are my most used shell commands in my work station:

[marado@noori ~]$ history | awk '{print $2}' | awk 'BEGIN {FS="|"} {print $1}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -10
  144 mplayer
   81 ll
   81 cd
   67 fg
   61 perl
   58 mv
   49 vi
   41 ssh
   35 wget
   33 ls
[marado@noori ~]$

Some notes on this:

• I was surprised with mplayer being the first command. Yet, that's justifiable if you take in consideration that I use mplayer as my music player whenever I'm playing stuff I have on my hard disk (not that frequent since I spend my work time listening to Pandora, tho), as my podcast player (twice a week, since I only listen to two weekly podcasts) and to listen to online radio (when the Flash player stops spitting sound and I don't want to restart the browser (there are so many tabs!).
• ll and ls should be aggregated as one, and its use is obvious.
• fg should be aggregated in vi, since I almost never :q my vim instances, but, instead, put them in background...
• perl is quite obvious, since I work coding with it. While I don't code in this machine (I ssh to some boxes where I code remotely) I write some scripts and similar stuff here.
• Finaly wget. 10 are .zip's, 6 are .pdf's, 13 are mp3. .zip's, .pdf's and others are all because everything people link me to and that I get to read later is wget'd. That include .pdf's, .zip's, .pps's and such. The downloaded mp3's are all from a netlabel called tlhotra.
  

Wishlist update

In the right site of this site I have an allways updated list of things that I'll eventually going to buy. At this moment I have the top eight items ordered, and I've just changed the ninth and the tenth... All thanks to Pandora, where I've found out that Björk has a new CD, and make me know about Esthero, a new band that mixes Björk's tunes with Anja Garbarek's experimentalism... I found it good, let's hear more from them.