I’ve been reading a lot (and trying out) some new and exciting music applications over the past week or so, with people starting to explore hitherto uncharted territory. Everyone and their dog are launching cloud based music streaming services (Amazon have joined Sony in making theirs live, leaving Apple and Google behind), but the really interesting ideas are all stemming from the different ways that we share music and the situations in which we listen to it.

It all started last year when Spotify added in social elements to its service. We all had fun nosing at other people’s playlists and their most played tracks. We thought carefully about what we would share and who should share it with and made collaborative playlists with people we’ve never even met in real life (IRL.)

Then at the back end of 2010, Shazam followed up by announcing Spotify integration in its smart phone apps. If you never Shazam-ed, it’s a music recognition service which helps you find out what that song is you can hear when in a shop/Starbucks/pub. Last week, Shazam took another big step in increasing its social music service by adding Shazam Friends. It’s a tab on its smart phone app which is integrated with Facebook and allows you to see which songs your friends have tagged recently.

It’s the fact that Shazam Friends recognises the different ways we consume music in the 21st century that’s so interesting. It’s not just about picking a song to play, it’s being aware of the music that surrounds us all the time and taking an active interest rather than letting it wash over us. That’s where my new favourite app, Soundtracking, takes its lead. It’s a way of tracking music across your entire day and sharing it with your friends. In a similar way to foursquare, you have Soundtracking friends, but you can also automatically share your updates with Facebook/Twitter/foursquare. You have three options in the app – the song you’re playing on your iPhone/Touch, tag a song you can hear (like Shazam) or just update manually. When you use the app and stop and think about, we hear a lot of music every day, jogging our memories and playing with our emotions.

If you’re not interested in sharing your musical loves and hates with all and sundry, than maybe Moodagent is for you. Services like Last FM and Stereomood allow you to pick tunes based on your state of mind when streaming through your PC, but Moodagent goes one step further, scanning your library on your music playing device and grouping your tracks according to its index of songs. This Mashable article has the full details, but it shows the next level of music consumption, and the sophistication that listening to music on an internet-enabled device.

Does it mean the death of the classic iPod? Not just yet, but Soundtracking has made this iPod Classic devotee think long and hard about switching to an iPod Touch.

Related articles

• Shazam Interacts with Facebook Friends (musicbusinessheretic.wordpress.com)
• Amazon Cloud Player lets you play your music from anywhere (cnn.com)

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Ikea vs. Apple via Fixr

We like this visual representation of how the Swedish and US companies stack up (no flat pack puns intended.)

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It’s Christmas, so it must be time for a Beatles piece of sales and marketing activity. Yes, it seems Sir Paul and Ringo (+ Yoko and Olivia) just don’t have enough money. Last year, it was remastered albums and Beatles Rock Band. This year, the world’s most famous foursome has finally come to iTunes.

Beatles on iTunes

Far from being the beginning of a whole new era of Beatlemania, it’s all seemed a bit of a damp squib. This is going to be bad news for EMI and Guy Stevens most of all, who are undoubtedly the real instigators behind the move to take the band’s back catalogue digital during a period of massive uncertainty for the company. There is currently only one Beatles song in the iTunes top 40 (‘Hey Jude’). There was apparently a boost for ‘Yesterday’ over the weekend following Rebecca’s performance of the track on X Factor, but it seems that most people were put off by the appallingly limp and lifeless versions of an uninspired selection of tracks on Saturday night. Only One Direction (and Simon Cowell) even bothered attempting to do something a bit different with the source material.

Charles Arthur was asking on Twitter last week why people would bother buying individual tracks when the albums are so readily available, and it seems that the digital music buying public have backed him up. A look at the iTunes album chart shows the ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ albums in at 19 and 20, with ‘Sgt Pepper’s…’ at 32 and ‘Abbey Road’ at 38. If you’re young, and new to The Beatles, those four are as good a place as any to start. In the US, there are three Beatles allbums in the chart. Others have looked at this as more of a long term investment for Apple and iTunes – as the only place to buy digital Beatles online, over a period of years they will rack up enough sales to make it a worthwhile investment.

However, coming from the brand that has set the bar when it comes to highly memorable and talked about launches, The Beatles coming to iTunes got lost in the general noise of the day. What else could Apple (and EMI) have done to make a splash and fill the chart with Beatles tracks? More teaser activity? A version of a track that had never been released anywhere before? Branded Beatles iTunes giftcards for Christmas? (I would definitely have bought one of those). Beatles Rock Band has a store, maybe a co-promotion there would have been effective, especially as it might appeal to a younger demographic. Those are just some ideas off the top of my head; for now, both Apple and EMI will have to be content with the long game and keep dreaming of those ‘Beatles back at Number One’ headlines.

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Yesterday Apple launched their first social network, Ping. Less than 24 hours later this new platform has received extremely mixed reviews and users are already highlighting issues with the system. With numerous social networking sites already established, and platforms such as Facebook and Twitter dominating the arena, where does Ping fit in?

Embedded in the latest version of iTunes, Ping, as you might imagine, revolves around music. Ping is designed to aid the discovery of new music and facilitate conversations between music lovers. When you login you can see the activity of your friends, including information about music they’ve purchased and are listening to. Apple are also plugging the fact that users can follow celebrities, much as they can with Twitter and Facebook, allowing celebs another opportunity to connect with their fans and endorse artists/albums. Fans can then purchase the music their idol loves by clicking the handy link taking them to the Apple store. Genius.

It is worth mentioning that privacy restrictions on this site allow users to choose whether their updates can be seen by all users or only by users they have allowed to follow them.

So what does this mean for social media? Well, with an already established fan base there is a strong likelihood that Apple’s Ping could push similar platforms, such as Last.fm and Spotify, off the radar. This also doesn’t bode well for MySpace, the site has already been dwarfed by Facebook and is now clinging to its status as a platform for new artists to showcase work. It could be that Ping becomes the new, more convenient, networking site for music related conversations…

However, so far reviews have not been great. Users have pointed out flaws such as the fact that Ping only displays music people have purchased in the iTunes Store, not their entire collection, resulting in a skewed view of a user’s music tastes. Further, users are limited to listing only three genres of music that they are interested in, and the music suggestions that Ping generates based on these three genres are extremely generic and mainstream, not the niche, up-and-coming bands that music fans may be looking for!

So, will it or won’t it take off? Right now it’s anybody’s guess. With mixed, predominantly negative, reviews, Ping hasn’t got off to a great start. But let’s not forget this is an Apple product, they have a huge, dedicated, fan base that has to have any product Apple releases.

All that’s left now is to sit back and watch how this unfolds… Ping has arrived. For now.

To be continued…

Related articles by Zemanta

• Ping: First Look at the iTunes Social Network (nytimes.com)

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Having declared last week that it was not illegal to jailbreak iPhones the U.S. government effectively gave consumers the right to fiddle with their proprietary software, allowing them access to other providers or to use apps and music from sources other than Apple’s own iTunes Store. This all became possible thanks to the exemptions made to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA.)

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF,) a selfstyled civil liberties group defending consumers’ digital rights, more than a million iPhone owners are said to have jailbroken their handsets in the past few months. The EFF hails the DMCA exemptions as a landmark victory and a good percentage of iPhone users might agree with them.

Apple on the other hand has warned that although jailbreaking may not be frowned upon by the law of the land, it won’t take the matter so lightly. Not only will jailbreaking void the warranty, but there is a risk of bricking the handset, effectively turning it into an expensive door stop. However, according to a journalist friend of mine it can be easily restored to a non jailbroken state.

If you’re after my personal opinion,  I’m torn. On the one hand, I agree that Apple should be able to protect their IP with some legal recourse, however, emotionally I’m with the EFF (who remind me a bit of the Wolverines from mediocre 80s action flick Red Dawn) who believe a handset shouldn’t be locked down once you’ve purchased it. This battle will continue to rage. Choose your side carefully, maybe grow a mullet, wear khaki, buy an AK.

Let me know what you think about jailbreaking; a digital taboo, or your revolutionary right?

mmmmm the 80s

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I’ve always been intrigued by the use of competitions as a PR tool. How effective are they in reaching the right people for your brand, and do people take notice of much else other than the prize on offer?

With this in mind, I wanted to look at Twitter and how it’s currently being used for competitions in online PR. Search for the word ‘competition’ and you’ll immediately come across a number of different ways that they are currently being hosted and talked about. Three such examples are:

Retweeting or following to enter, often asking you to include a web link or similar

Asking a question or for an opinion – the answer being your entry into the competition

Announcing a competition initiative hosted elsewhere i.e. company website

Obviously, they all demand a varying degree of involvement and as such the ‘RT and win’ option seems to spread most effectively around the Twitterverse. The obvious problem with this is that the competition host isn’t providing much reason for potential entrants to engage or remember them, apart from the one or two people that actually end up winning!

It raises the question as to whether it’s better to build up a large number of followers using these tactics, or whether you invest in a competition idea that gets followers interacting with you (hopefully creating brand advocates in the process).

There’s bound to be many examples of those who have reaped rewards with both methods but I think it’s important to keep in mind the following when deciding on the best way to use Twitter competitions for your brand.

What is your long-term social media strategy? If you’re using a competition to boost follower numbers, have you thought about to maintain these numbers and ensure they stay engaged and interested.

Is the prize relevant? Countless competitions on Twitter lure in entrants and followers by offering iPods, mobile phones and other desirable products. Think about the message the prize you choose conveys, is it benefitting your PR image or Apple’s?

How creative or thought-provoking is your competition? If you come up with something quirky and unusual, you may find it inspires discussion outside the competition itself.

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