A couple of weeks back, whilst visiting my parents, I ventured into the loft above their extension (basically a repository for all the crap I didn't want to bring with me to London after university but wasn't yet ready to throw out). In amongst the old computers, Whizzer and Chips annuals and back issues of PC Format I found a shoebox of cassette tapes, a good proportion of which were mixtapes, some from friends, some from ex-girlfriends, some of my own composition. Whilst I now lack the means to play them (having bid farewell to my hi-fi separates in a concession to the protocols of cohabitation), I couldn't quite bring myself to part with them just yet because of the instrumental role (no pun intended) that they played not only in my musical education but also in my emotional development during those formative years.
So, what's the modern analogue - sorry, equivalent - of the C60 mixtape? Well, if a couple of new startups get their way then it'll be the, er, mixtape...
Muxtape
http://muxtape.com
Only two weeks old, Muxtape is the brainchild of New York-based web designer Justin Ouellette and has been generating a fair amount of heat on Twitter and in the wider blogosphere. It's Flickr-esque both in its pared down design and ease-of-use, although it lacks some fairly basic functionality such as embedding and you can only upload a single 12-track mix against each username. Unfortunately it's real USP (allowing you to upload MP3s from your own collection) is also likely to prove its Achilles' heel once the copyright lawyers catch up with it. Here's my mix of 10 awesome tracks you probably don't own but should: http://fabricoffolly.muxtape.com - get it while it's hot there.
Mixwit
http://www.mixwit.com
Just one day older than Muxtape, Mixwit is hoping to sidestep the legal issues by pulling in its music from the wider web via SeeqPod and SkreemR (you can choose which to search via a dropdown). Whilst the catalogue of these search engines is potentially limitless, tracking down the exact version you're after can be a time-consuming and frustrating business and listed tracks are frequently 'no longer available' when you come to add them to your mix. On the plus side, your mixes (represented as a cassette tape, 'natch) can be visually styled and easily embedded. If Muxtape appeals to the geek elite then this one's more for the kids.
Other options include Mixaloo (which I reviewed in my latest round-up of new (to me) music apps) and the Fuzz Mixtape Creator (a.k.a. the Deck-O-Rator - no, really). Alternatively, if you're too lazy to pick the tracks yourself, why not make a request to the 'robots' powering the Tiny Mix Tapes Automatic Mix Tapes Generator or enlist the help of your friends using the Project Opus Mixx Maker Facebook app.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
The mixtape reborn
Sunday, March 02, 2008
New (to me) music apps - part three
It's fair to say that since I made the move from BBC Audio & Music to BBC Vision (almost a year ago now), I've posted a whole lot less on audio-related stuff. As a result my del.icio.us feed is now brimming with interesting new (at least to me) unblogged music apps, so I figured it was time for another installment in this occasional series. Below are five apps which have particularly tickled my fancy in recent months.
Moody
http://www.crayonroom.com/moody.php
Moody is a small but perfectly formed desktop app (Mac or PC, although the Mac version is more fully-featured) which enables you to tag tracks in your iTunes library according to mood. The interface is a 4 x 4 multi-coloured grid with the horizontal axis representing a spectrum from Sad to Happy and the vertical axis ranging from Calm to Intense. So a track like Homesick by Kings of Convenience would most likley be tagged purple (bottom left - v. sad and v. calm), whereas Tubthumping by Chumbawamba would be tagged yellow (top right - relentlessly happy and intense). Arguably one for the Nick Hornbys amongst us as you need to put in a bit of tagging legwork to get maximum value out of it (it is possible to download other people's tags, although there's no saying their tagging criteria will match yours).
FIQL
http://www.fiql.com
What marks FIQL out from other playlist sharing communities is the recent addition of video, pulling in (mostly YouTube) videos to match the tracks in the playlist. Whilst its only ever as good as the tagging on YouTube, the random nature of the videos is strangely compelling - you never know if you're going to get an artist's official video or a bedroom cover version. Below is an embed of some of my favourite music videos of all time (see earlier post on Top 20 best music videos ever).
MeeMix
http://www.meemix.com
MeeMix bills itself as "Internet radio that gets you" and the homepage invites users to "start playing the soundtrack of your life, here and now". Soundbites aside, MeeMix is a decent personalised jukebox in the Pandora mold with a slick, if slightly cutesy, interface. You can create new stations by entering the name of an artist or track and then rate tracks using a Hot or Not slider. There's also a Mood Control panel with Pulse and Surprise Me sliders, enabling you to adjust the tempo and serendipity of the suggestions.
Mixaloo
http://mixaloo.com
Mixaloo is an online playlist creator, positioning itself as the digital successor to the analogue mix-tape. Users are invited to select between 10 and 15 songs (from a library of over 3 million) and then share/promote their mix (via a selection of embeddable widgets - see below) with the added incentive of a revenue share on any resulting purchases. Whilst 3 million tracks sounds like a lot, in reality the library feels frustratingly limited - mix-tapes by their nature tend to include more obscure tracks and Mixaloo's catalogue is decidedly mainstream. Still, it's nice to have an alternative to Apple's iMixes, with the added bonus that some tracks are available to listen to in their entirety (rather than just a 30-second preview).
Songkick
http://www.songkick.com
You wouldn't guess it from the name but Songkick is all about tracking tour dates for your favourite artists, which you can either enter manually via the site's 'Band Manager' or get automatically scraped from your music library by the downloadable Songkicker plug-in. Whilst it's potentially a bit of a one-trick pony, the site does offer an appealing alternative to sifting through multiple email updates from assorted ticketing companies (NB. Currently only covers the US and the UK).
Related fabric of folly posts:
Next generation music discovery
New (to me) music apps
New (to me) music apps - part two
Monday, January 21, 2008
My Top 20 Albums of 2007
Belatedly following on from My Top 25 Films of 2007, below are the albums released in the UK last year which most tickled my musical fancy.
It wasn't a vintage year for albums imho (hence only 20 rather than the customary 25) which is perhaps unsurprising in a year when only three of the artists in my Last.fm Top 20 released studio albums (Radiohead, The Arcade Fire and Kaiser Chiefs), although there were still a few gems...
 |  | Neon Bible The Arcade Fire Standout tracks: Keep The Car Running, Intervention |
 |  | Release The Stars Rufus Wainwright Standout tracks: Do I Disappoint You, Going To A Town |
 |  | Yours Truly, Angry Mob Kaiser Chiefs Standout tracks: The Angry Mob, Everything Is Average Nowadays |
 |  | Person Pitch Panda Bear Standout tracks: Bro's, Comfy In Nautica |
 |  | Octopus The Bees Standout tracks: Who Cares What The Question Is?, Love In The Harbour |
 |  | Because Of The Times Kings of Leon Standout tracks: Fans, Knocked Up |
 |  | The Reminder Feist Standout tracks: 1234, My Moon My Man |
 |  | Under The Blacklight Rilo Kiley Standout tracks: Smoke Detector, 15 |
 |  | Wincing The Night Away The Shins Standout tracks: Turn On Me, Phantom Limb |
 |  | Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Spoon Standout tracks: Don't Make Me A Target, Eddie's Ragga |
 |  | Everyone Grand Drive Standout tracks: The Skin You're Living In, Plain Sailing |
 |  | The Shepherd's Dog Iron & Wine Standout tracks: Boy With a Coin, The Devil Never Sleeps |
 |  | We Can Create Maps Standout tracks: You Don't Know Her Name, Back And Forth |
 |  | Boxer The National Standout tracks: Fake Empire |
 |  | In Rainbows Radiohead Standout tracks: Nude |
 |  | Myths Of The Near Future Klaxons Standout tracks: Golden Skans, Two Receivers |
 |  | Once (Motion Picture Soundtrack) - Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova Standout tracks: Falling Slowly, Say It To Me Now |
 |  | The Good, The Bad & The Queen The Good, The Bad & The Queen Standout tracks: History Song |
 |  | Raising Sand Robert Plant & Alison Krauss Standout tracks: Killing The Blues, Please Read The Letter |
 |  | Icky Thump The White Stripes Standout tracks: You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do as You're Told) |
Related posts:
My Top 25 Albums of 2006
My Top 25 Albums of 2005
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Personalised music magazine from your attention data
Thanks to Tristan for alerting me (via the BBC's Radio Labs blog) to the ultra-cool idiomag, which creates a daily personalised digital music magazine based on your listening preferences. The homepage invites users to enter either their two favourite artists or, more excitingly, their username from one of a host of popular online music services (Last.fm, Pandora, iLike, MyStrands, MOG, MySpace and Bebo are all supported) from where it pulls in details of your musical proclivities.
I opted for Last.fm as the primary custodian of my musical attention data and I have to admit that I found the resulting magazine pretty compelling. My first 'issue' served up Billboard.com news articles on Eels and Radiohead (complete with embedded video), a Junkmedia review of a Beck gig, a Wikipedia article on Indie Pop, a Ben Folds photo gallery (sourced from Flickr) and a LOSINGTODAY review of Kaiser Chiefs' single 'Loves Not a Game (But I'm Winning)'.
Presenting the content in the style of a print magazine (complete with page turns), is a smart move on the part of idiomag as it makes the personalisation much higher impact. We have become used to personalisation in the digital space but personalised print media has a residual novelty value (example) because the cost of print runs was once so prohibitive.
Throw in some standard Web 2.0 functionality (Love it, Bin it, Archive it, Email it to a friend, Share it on Facebook etc.), a couple of revenue streams in the form of interactive advertising and links to buy (from 7digital) and the obligatory Facebook app and your looking at rather a slick package. Time will tell whether the content is consistently compelling enough to warrant a daily visit although today is unlikely to be my last. Nice job guys.
Related posts:
Next generation music discovery
New (to me) music apps
New (to me) music apps - part two
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Must-watch music/science/life documentary
Photograph: BBC
Finally found the time to sit down and watch Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives, which I downloaded via BBC iPlayer a couple of weeks back, and I just can't recommend it enough. The documentary follows Mark Oliver Everett, the creative force behind criminally underrated indie rock band, Eels, on a journey across America to discover more about the father he never really knew - taciturn quantum physicist and author of the Many-Worlds Interpretation, Hugh Everett III. The film works on a multitude of different planes (appropriately enough): as a primer on quantum mechanics; as a thumbnail sketch of post-war America; as a portrait of a distant father-son relationship; and as an insight into the minds of two geniuses, one musical, one scientific.
Unfortunately the programme is no longer available to download although thanks to the BBC Programmes BETA I can link to a permanent episode page which will automatically provide an embedded on-demand stream of the programme for a week after transmission should it be shown again (would be nice to add a broadcast alert feature to these pages come to think of it - will mention it to the brains in Audio & Music Interactive).
Until such a time, you'll have to make do with a couple of tasters from the BBC's YouTube channel:
Saturday, September 15, 2007
40 best songs from film soundtracks
Thursday's post on Listphile has got me itching to create a new list and with over three months to go until my end of year film and music rounds-ups I thought I'd tide myself over with a list of the 40 best songs from movie soundtracks. Obviously wholly subjective so don't go complaining that there's no Celine Dion or Bryan Adams...
The rules:
- No themes (hence no Star Wars, E.T, Raiders, Bond etc.)
- No musicals (although I've given The Blues Brothers a special dispensation)
- Nothing from before the Summer of Love
- Nothing from an irredeemably bad film
- Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley (The Edukators, 2004)
- Stand By Me - Ben E. King (Stand By Me, 1986)
- You Never Can Tell - Chuck Berry (Pulp Fiction, 1994)
- Mrs. Robinson - Simon & Garfunkel (The Graduate, 1967)
- Son of a Preacher Man - Dusty Springfield (Pulp Fiction, 1994)
- Wouldn't It Be Nice - The Beach Boys (The Big Chill, 1983)
- Things Have Changed - Bob Dylan (Wonder Boys, 2000)
- A Life Less Ordinary - Ash (A Life Less Ordinary, 1997)
- It Ain't Me Babe - Joaquin Phoenix & Resse Witherspoon (Walk The Line, 2005)
- Stuck In The Middle With You - Stealers Wheel (Reservoir Dogs, 1992)
- Sinnerman - Nina Simone - (The Thomas Crown Affair, 1999)
- Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In) - Kenny Rogers & The First Edition (The Big Lebowski, 1998)
- Dry The Rain - The Beta Band (High Fidelity, 2000)
- Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes (Grosse Pointe Blank, 1997)
- Where Is My Mind? - Pixies (Fight Club, 1999)
- Layla - Derek And The Dominos (Goodfellas, 1990)
- Tiny Dancer - Elton John (Almost Famous, 2000)
- Wise Up - Aimee Mann (Magnolia, 1999)
- Come What May - Nicole Kidman & Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge!, 2001)
- You Can't Always Get What You Want - The Rolling Stones (The Big Chill, 1983)
- Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You - Andy Williams (Bridget Jones's Diary, 2001)
- Brown Eyed Girl - Van Morrison (Born of the Fourth of July, 1989)
- Feeling Good - Nina Simone (The Assassin, 1993)
- The Power of Love - Huey Lewis & The News (Back to the Future, 1985)
- I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow - The Soggy Bottom Boys (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, 2000)
- Everybody Needs Somebody To Love - The Blues Brothers (The Blues Brothers, 1980)
- Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon - Urge Overkill (Pulp Fiction, 1994)
- Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head - B.J. Thomas (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969)
- Everything In Its Right Place - Radiohead (Vanilla Sky, 2001)
- Playground Love - Air (The Virgin Suicides, 1999)
- Talk Show Host - Radiohead (Romeo + Juliet, 1996)
- Porcelain - Moby (The Beach, 2000)
- Born Slippy - Underworld (Trainspotting, 1996)
- Perfect Day - Lou Reed (Trainspotting, 1996)
- Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen (Wayne's World, 1992)
- Mad World - Gary Jules and Michael Andrews (Donnie Darko, 2001)
- Lose Yourself - Eminem (8 Mile, 2002)
- I Want You To Want Me - Letters To Cleo (10 Things I Hate About You, 1999)
- Eye of the Tiger - Survivor (Rocky III, 1982)
- Live and Let Die - Wings (Live and Let Die, 1973)
Sunday, July 29, 2007
TUN3R: old skool radio discovery
Kooky interface of the week award goes to radio discovery site TUN3R which presents visitors with a giant radio 'dial' populated with thumbnail images of assorted online radio stations. Drag the 'needle' over a thumbnail and you hear a recent sample of the station's output. Beneath the dial you get details of the streaming format and location, a screengrab of the station's homepage and a sample of the recent playlist (if available).
Randomly clicking around the mosaic proves entertaining for a minute or two, although it's the search functionality which is more likely to generate a genuine musical match; typing in the name of an artist highlights every station on the dial which has recently played one of their tracks. Nice. You can also filter by genre or language or search the contents of the station's homepage. Most of the featured stations are promoted for free, although there also an option to buy space in a million dollar homepage stylee.
Whilst I suspect I may not be revisiting TUN3R on a regular basis, it's a interesting attempt to recreate the physicality of analogue radio's dial-twiddling experience (you even get a touch of static when you're roving around the dial) and much more compelling than a list of the stations could ever be.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Why Seven Ages of Rock rocks
It's rare for me to post on something work-related but I feel compelled to point you in the direction of the awesome Seven Ages of Rock site which launched this week in support of a new landmark music documentary series starting this Saturday on BBC TWO. What's particularly rocking my world about the site is the way in which it augments quality BBC video and editorial with feeds from some of the best-in-class Web 2.0 services. So, in addition to the exclusive mini-docs (with embeddable promo clips - yay!), photos, album reviews and related links for each featured artist, you get a biography from Wikipedia, photos from Flickr and a chart of the most listened to tracks from Last.fm. The content can be navigated by programme, artist, event or via an interactive timeline which maps key milestones from the seven eras. Users are also invited to have their say on any of the programmes or events. The design and build of the site were carried out by London-based agency Airlock whilst the brilliant Matt Walton produced the whole thing from the BBC side. Cracking job guys. Now over to Dave Grohl talking about learning to play the pillows...
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Spool.fm
Am liking the look of new online music player, Spool.fm. Whilst the AJAX interface is still a little rough around the edges, the drag-and-drop playlist builder and listen with a friend feature are pretty killer. It's especially welcome now Pandora has announced its intention to start blocking users from outside the US.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
My media consumption diet
With nods to Jeremiah Owyang for kick starting this meme and James Cridland for alerting me to it via his blog, below is a rough approximation of my media consumption diet.
(chart created using Zoho Sheet)
Web
The web is undoubtedly my main media channel (maybe because it encompasses all of the below in one?). Excluding work access, I reckon I stack up around 18 hours of web access a week, which probably breaks down something like this: reading blogs/news feeds (5 hours), trying out new sites (4 hours), writing this blog (4 hours), emailing (2 hours), searching for information (1 hour), Flickring (30 mins), buying stuff (30 mins), selling stuff (30 mins), website design/maintenance (30 mins).
Estimated time spent per week: 18 hours
Music
Having parted company with the bulk of my CD collection last year, the vast majority of my music listening (excluding radio) is now done either via iTunes or on my iPod. According to last.fm I've listened to 11,355 tracks since registering at the end of February 2005, which works out just over 100 tracks a week. Assuming a average track duration of 3 minutes, I'm averaging around five and a half hours of music listening a week. Factoring in the listening which last.fm fails to capture I reckon the actual figure is nearer 7 hours a week.
Estimated time spent per week: 7 hours
TV
As previously posted, I don't watch a great deal of live TV, with DVD boxsets and downloads accounting for the vast majority of my TV viewing. It also fair to say that I have something of a penchant for US drama. In the past 12 months I've plowed through assorted seasons of Lost, House, Desperate Housewives, 24, The O.C., The Sopranos, The West Wing, Six Feet Under and Entourage. For my money, the standout UK series of last year was Planet Earth which just blew me away.
Estimated time spent per week: 7 hours
Radio
It's a dilemma whether to count ambient radio listening as, like Mr. Cridland, I work in an office where the radio is always on. In terms of active radio listening then its Jonathan Ross on Radio 2 on a Saturday morning, Stephen Merchant on 6 Music (via the BBC Radio Player as I'm not normally near a radio on a Sunday afternoon) and snatches of the Today programme as I get ready for work. Excluding ambient listening I reckon it's around 5 hours a week; including, it's probably more like 35.
Estimated time spent per week: 5 hours
Books
I have something of a famine or feast mentality when it comes to books, depending on whether I'm on holiday or not. I read 18 books last year but almost none of them whilst in this country. Last year's reading list was predominantly a mix of contemporary fiction (Rupert Thomson, David Mitchell, Jonathan Safran Foer, Patrick Neate) and media geek must-reads (The Long Tail, The Tipping Point, Freakonomics, Everything Bad is Good for You). Assuming an average reading time of 6 hours per book, I spent 108 hours reading last year which works out at just over 2 hours per week.
Estimated time spent per week: 2 hours
Newspapers
I buy The Guardian on Mondays (for the Media supplement), Thursdays (for the Technology supplement) and Saturdays (for the magazine and The Guide). I occasionally get caught without something to read on the tube and pick up one of the London freesheets but invariably feel dirty afterwards.
Estimated time spent per week: 2 hours
Films
Films are an enduring passion of mine although I try to only see films I think will be worth the investment (which I guess is why 30 of the 40 films I saw last year appeared in my films of 2006 list). Of that 40, I watched 23 at the cinema and 17 on DVD. Assuming an average running time of 2 hours (the days of the 90 minute movie are all but gone), I spent 80 hours watching films last year which works out at one and a half hours per week.
Estimated time spent per week: 1 hour 30 mins
Magazines
My long-standing subscriptions to Q, Sight & Sound and PC Format all fell by the wayside some time ago and the only magazines I still subscribe to at home are Empire (still the bible for movie lovers) and Web User (can't be wrong for £1.99). I also tend to leaf through the office copies of Stuff, T3, .net and Wired, although less so now that Engadget is taking care of my gadget obsession in a more timely fashion.
Estimated time spent per week: 45 mins
Podcasts
Despite the dozens of podcast subscriptions currently eating up my hard disk/bandwidth, there's actually only one podcast which I listen to religiously and that's Mark Kermode's Film Reviews. Clipped from Friday's edition of the Simon Mayo show on BBC Radio Five Live, it's half an hour of pure radio gold. More occasional listens include the Best of Moyles enhanced and Media Talk from Guardian Unlimited.
Estimated time spent per week: 30 mins
Video games
Until the arrival of my Wii on Tuesday I would've put a big fat zero down for video games, but having had a quick go on the game-changing Wii Sports (and with WarioWare Smooth Moves and Zelda: Twilight Princess waiting to be unwrapped) I think I may have to revise that figure. Let's start with a conservative estimate of 20 minutes.
Estimated time spent per week: 20 mins
Conclusions
- I spend 44 hours a week (39% of my waking hours) consuming some sort of media (although some of those hours are concurrent)
- My media consumption habits aren't very typical
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Online video reaches TV via Wii
Getting online video content off the small screens in people's bedrooms and studies and onto the big screens in their lounges is a nut that a whole bunch of big media companies have been spending a lot of time and money trying to crack.
Microsoft was one of the first out of the blocks with Windows XP Media Center, launched way back in October 2004. More than two years on and Bill Gates' dream of a Media Center PC under every TV is still just that, a dream. Put simply, not enough people were willing to shell out for a dedicated media hub to sit in their front room. Whilst the integration of Windows Media Center into Vista (Premium and Ultimate editions) will massively increase the number of Media Center PCs in the market, most of them will be sat on a desk rather than beneath a TV screen.
Apple took a different approach, bundling Front Row with all Macs from October 2005 onwards but waiting until January 2007 to finally bridge the PC/TV gap by launching a set top box (cunningly named Apple TV) capable of wirelessly streaming video (and audio) from your computer to your television. The obvious shortcoming of Apple TV (apart from the fact that it's still not shipping) is that it only works with iTunes.
So, if Windows Media Center and Apple TV aren't yet delivering online video to people's television sets in serious numbers, what is? The answer is the latest generation of game consoles, which are increasingly looking like the trojan horse of the digital home, delivering so much more than small Italian plumbers and hyperactive blue hedgehogs.
One such trojan horse is Nintendo's Wii, which, having sold 4.5 million units in its first three months of launch, is now the fastest-selling console in history. The launch of a (free) Wii-specific beta version of the Opera web browser (a.k.a. Internet Channel) last December turned those 4.5 million Wii's into potential conduits for online video. Whilst the browser can successfully render most webpages, it wasn't long before sites specially designed for the Wii began appearing. Below is a quick compendium of some of the best Wii-specific sites for accessing online video and music.
What's noticeable about these sites is how well designed many of the interfaces are. The limitations of the Wii controller and the likely distance of the user from the screen have forced the designers to come up with bold, simple interfaces which in many cases outshine their web-based cousins (compare the FineTune Wii Player with the regular FineTune site).
Wii video sites
MiiTube
http://www.miitube.co.uk
As the name suggests, MiiTube is specially designed for watching YouTube videos on your Wii. The homepage pulls in YouTube's 'featured videos' and there are separate pages for 'recently added', 'top favourites' and a selection of 'most viewed' charts (i.e. daily, weekly, all time) plus a 'viral chart'. For a site whose USP is accessibility on the Wii, some of the text could do with being a bit larger and there's no option to increase the video size (which you can do on the regular YouTube site).
Rating: 
WiiToob
http://wiitoob.com/
Another Wii-friendly window on YouTube, with an infinitely swisher interface, WiiToob's homepage is dominated by a dynamically updating list of recently viewed videos, an alarming proportion of which are not suitable for the office. You're better off heading straight to the 'most viewed' or 'most discussed' lists. Giant font sizes and a visual style which successfully apes Nintendo make WiiToob a joy to navigate.
Rating: 
SofaTube
http://www.redkawa.com/sofatube/
RedKawa certainly thought outside the box when developing the interface for SofaTube, using search rather than lists as the main mechanism for finding videos and deciding to present the featured videos as a jumble of Polaroid-style tiles which can be dragged, dropped and bought to the front. It's a neat idea which almost works but ultimately feels a bit gimmicky.
SofaTube's key differentiator from MiiTube and WiiToob is that it indexes videos from Revver as well as YouTube (although you can't search the two together and I wasn't actually able to get the Revver videos to play). Another niggle is that the search results don't fit on the screen (horizontally or vertically) which feels frustrating when the site has just accurately detected what browser I'm using.
An innovative approach let down by poor implementation.
Rating: 
Wii music sites
FineTune Wii Player
http://www.finetune.com/wii
The FineTune Wii Player is a big-button version of the Pandora-esque online music service, FineTune (reviewed on this blog a few weeks back), offering streamed playlists/radio stations themed around artist or tag. It boasts a gorgeous interface and enables you to log on to your online profile to access your saved playlists, artists and tags.
Rating: 
WiiHear
http://www.wiihear.com
Besides a pun-tastic name, WiiHear offers genre-based streaming radio stations (85 stations across 15 different genres at the time of writing) and supports the three 'R's of Web 2.0 sites (reviews, ratings and recommendations). The interface isn't a polished as FineTune's with too much small text, although there are a few nice touches, such as the 'past tracks played' lists which accompany every station.
Rating:
The number of Wii-specific video and music sites is sure to mushroom over the coming weeks and months (keep an eye on Wiidesigned.com) and will no doubt soon be joined by an array of sites tailored specially for Sony's PS3 (which launches in the UK on March 23rd and features a built-in browser). Opera has also indicated that Wii web widgets are on the cards, which could be very interesting.
As suggested in my earlier post on key technology trends for 2007, the converged digital media hub is arriving by stealth. The next trojan horse looks likely to be the set-top box, which are getting smarter and more connected by the day.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
New (to me) music apps - part two
Following on from last year's posts on next generation music discovery and new (to me) music apps below is a round-up of some other web-enabled music services which have caught my attention in recent months, which broadly divide into six categories: Playback & Promotion, Playlists & Personalised Radio, Plug-ins, Portability, Performance and Search (damn, I was going for all Ps there...)
Playback & Promotion
radio.blog.club
http://www.radioblogclub.com
radio.blog.club aims to make it easy for Joe/Josephine Public to add commercial music to his/her site/blog/MySpace page either via an embeddable Flash player (which can stream individual tracks - see below example) or by linking to a playlist (known as a juke.blog). It works by playing out mp3 files (cunningly renamed .rbs to flummox the would-be pirates) made available by other users, which inevitably results in a fairly haphazard catalogue with some very messy metadata. On the plus side, no registration is required to embed single tracks and the playback experience is pretty smooth (check out the crossfade!) It's owned by French company Mubility which explains not only why it hasn't been taken down for breach of copyright yet but also why you are invited to update "your informations". The radio.blog.club backend has been given an iPod front-end at blogmusik.net.
Rating:
Alternatives: Sonific, SeeqPod
iJigg
http://www.ijigg.com
iJigg allows users to upload their own MP3s (music or spoken word) which subsequently appear on the site in an Odeo-style embeddable player. They are then rated (jigged) by the community (à la digg) with the idea that the best bubble up to the Most Popular page. Launched on the 15th January it's still early days for the site which, whilst refreshingly easy to use, is struggling to find content which isn't either copyright or crap. Still, it's a potential boon to unsigned artists looking for a straightforward way to upload and promote their music and it gets bonus marks for not requiring a desktop download.
Rating:
Alternatives: CC Hits, Project Opus, Jamendo
Streampad
http://www.streampad.com
Streampad is an awesome browser-based music player which combines remote access to your entire digital music library (via a downloadable Java app) with some great tools to find music on the web, including an archive of live concert performances and a web search which provides one-click access to MP3s scraped from blogs. It also offers integration with MP3tunes.com (who host online 'lockers' to store your music remotely) and last.fm (so your listening stats are safely scrobbled). Factor in 'Now Playing' info which not only pulls in album reviews, Flickr photos and related blog posts but also shows you who else is listening to the same track and you've got one kick-ass music player.
Rating:
Alternatives: Songbird
Playlists & Personalised Radio
finetune
http://www.finetune.com
finetune's core offering is a playlist creator and artist-themed radio stations. Unfortunately, a really rather slick interface (including an embedded player with CoverFlow-style visuals) is let down by the limitations imposed by finetune's rights agreements - namely that each playlist has to comprise exactly 45 songs with no more than 3 tracks from any one artist. Whilst there's an option to auto-complete your playlist using recommendations provided by finetune (the audaciously titled "I'm lazy!" button), the suggestions seem very linear (mostly other tracks from the same artists) and it doesn't offset the sense of frustration at having to create a playlist of a set number of tracks. It just all feels a bit laborious for those used to last.fm logging their listening and creating lists automatically. The artist-themed radio station element also suffer in comparison to a major competitor; Pandora enables you to give the thumbs up or thumbs down to specific tracks to educate it about your tastes which feels like a significant omission from finetune. It's a shame because it's a nice site nobbled more by rights than technology or design. Close, but no cigar.
Rating:
Alternatives: FIQL, SonicSwap
Plug-ins
Twones
http://www.twones.com
Twones is an iTunes plug-in (Mac or PC) which uploads your Top 100 Most Played tracks and then matches your musical proclivities with other users in the Twones database. Whilst it feels a little basic in comparison with the likes of MyStrands, iLike and last.fm it has the advantage of giving you useful recommendations from the off (the others take a while to build a useful knowledge of your listening habits). Incidentally, Twones was developed in the Netherlands so don't be alarmed if you get the error message 'Gebruikersnaam en/of Wachtwoord is onjuist' - a quick Dutch to English translation on Babel Fish revealed I'd simply entered an incorrect username or password...
Rating:
Alternatives: uPlayMe, Muiso, Musicmobs
Portability
phling!
http://www.phling.com
phling! aims to give users access to their digital music collection (and that of their friends) on their mobile phones. There's a decent selection of supported handsets, including my now rather aged K750i, although the desktop client is only available for PC and only supports Windows Media Player friendly file formats (so no access to tracks purchased from the iTunes Music Store). The mobile phone client is a 289Kb Java app which downloaded in a jiffy and worked straight off the bat. The interface is nicely implemented with navigation through your music collection proving fast and intuitive. The sound quality is excellent with surprisingly little buffering and the ability to rate tracks is a nice feature. phling! also enables you to access photos stored on your computer and (handset permitting) save photos taken on your mobile direct to your home PC. My only reservation is data charges which I'm guessing could easily rack up if you used phling! as your main portable music player.
Rating:
Alternatives: Mercora M, Orb, Avvenu
partyStrands
http://www.partystrands.com
partyStrands is an intriguing offshoot of MyStrands (ne. MusicStrands) which aims to get partygoers using their mobiles to influence the music at participating bars /clubs. The idea is that the partyStrands interface is displayed on the venue's TVs and punters can vote on what music they want to hear and send pictures and text messages to the screens. The messages and details of the tracks played are then aggregated and uploaded to the partyStrands site so you can log on the following morning and relive the night. It's only rolled out in France, Spain and the States at the moment and there are just three events listed on the Upcoming Parties page. Definitely one to watch though.
Rating:
Alternatives: Er, can't think of any.
Performance
eJamming
http://www.ejamming.com
eJamming is another service aiming to facilitate live music, this time by enabling musicians with MIDI-enabled instruments to jam online in real-time. I haven't had the opportunity to try it out yet but the demo video looks pretty damn impressive.
Rating:
Alternatives: NINJAM
SingShot
http://www.singshot.com
SingShot gives karaoke the Web 2.0 treatment, enabling the great unwashed to upload their warblings to be tagged, shared, rated and commented on. It's strangely compelling in a car-crash kind of a way and seems likely to succeed in these X Factor times of ours.
Rating:
Alternatives: kSolo, Internet Karaoke, bix, MyVideoKaraoke
Search
midomi
http://www.midomi.com
midomi's USP is enabling users to search for music using their voice (singing, humming or whistling) so the service pretty much stands or falls on how successfully it does that. Fortunately for parent company, Melodis, the answer is really quite well, especially when you consider that the service has only been up and running for a couple of weeks and its database of user-submitted tunes can't yet be that large. I sang it a quick ABC of karaoke staples and it successfully identified Angels, American Pie, Bohemian Rhapsody and Crazy (both the Patsy Cline classic and the Gnarls Barkley chart-topper). Assuming midomi's proprietary Multimodal Adaptive Recognition System (MARS) scales successfully, it's an interesting (and free) alternative to Shazam.
Rating:
Alternatives: Nayio, SongTapper, Musipedia
TuneFind
http://www.tunefind.com
TuneFind is all about exorcising the earworm and finding the name of the track from that TV show/movie you saw last week. The homepage features recent additions, hot songs and all-time popular artists (Snow Patrol are currently the most soundtrack-friendly band, with a whopping 38 entries). Song listings are submitted by users and then verified by the rest of the TuneFind community who can flag submissions as correct or incorrect. It's not exactly cutting edge but it's a useful resource and may stem the flow of 'what was that song...?' submissions to Yahoo! Answers.
Rating:
Alternatives: Commercial Breaks and Beats, Sounds Familiar, TV Ad music.co.uk
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Ben Folds and 'web spread'
I had the pleasure of seeing the majestic Ben Folds at the Hammersmith Apollo last night and again this morning, doing a 6 Music hub session, which prompted me to revisit his official website where I was struck by what incredible use the site makes of the wider web.
First off there's the splash page which invites you to create your own video to accompany his cover of Dr. Dre's "Bitches Ain't Shit" and upload it to a dedicated YouTube group. Then there's the opportunity to purchase the Ben Folds Live at My Space DVD filmed at Ben’s studio in Nashville on 24th October 2006 for MySpace’s first ever live-by-request webcast. Alternatively you can watch the video premiere of "Learn To Live With What You Are" on Sony's Brightcove-powered Music Box site.
If you stopped by on 19th October 2006 you would have been directed to virtual world Second Life where Ben was hanging out, chatting with fans and previewing tracks from his new album, "supersunnyspeedgraphic, the lp", (which, incidentally, was my number 2 album of last year). If none of that tickles your fancy you could always download "Ben's iTunes Originals" (nine songs recorded exclusively for Apple's iTunes Music Store) or "Rhapsody Originals" (five songs recorded for RealNetwork's rival online music service).
What's most remarkable is just how commonplace this sort of extensive off-site activity has become amongst such a reactionary industry. Not so long ago the strategy of most official artist websites was to get people to visit and then try to keep them on the site for as long as possible. Now it seems the record labels are well and truly waking up to the benefits of online promiscuity, recognising the economic sense of making use of existing services (rather than building your own) and the incredible viral marketing power of (comparatively) neutral spaces like YouTube, MySpace and Second Life.
Of course it's not just in the music sphere that this 'web spread' phenomenon is at work. The television dam broke online well before Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen became such a cause célèbre (colleague Dan Hill wrote extremely convincingly last March about Lost as an example of "genuinely new media ... which uses the entire web as its canvas and its entire audience as its creators") whilst in the film space, Snakes on a Plane recently eclipsed The Blair Witch Project as the apogee of cinematic web spread.
It will certainly be interesting to watch how this trend develops. Will the artist website of the future be little more than a collection of links - a jumping off point for content liberally distributed across multiple third-party sites and services - or will big media try and force the genie back in the bottle in a bid to retain control over their brands? My money's on the former although Universal's decision to sue MySpace suggests there are still a few folk within the music industry who aren't quite ready to embrace the distributed future...
Thursday, January 18, 2007
My Top 25 Albums of 2006
Time for a (somewhat belated) end of year list methinks. Below are the 25 albums that most rocked my world in 2006.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Virgin Radio launches VIP area
Following on from the introduction of digg-style music news in August and a full site relaunch in September, Virgin Radio this week introduced a VIP area to its site, enabling users to build an online profile detailing their favourite artists and introducing basic social networking functionality such as shout boxes and blogs.
In order to enter the VIP area you first need to sign up for a free Virgin Radio VIP account and confirm your email address. Once in, you're encouraged to add a welcome message and image and list some of your favourite artists in order to start building a picture of your musical tastes. This list then acts as a filter to the content on the rest of the Virgin Radio site, flagg