Tag Archives: Music

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Google Music opened slightly its beta in the U.S.

During the spring, almost no day that had not speculate on the arrival of the U.S. Spotify and the launch of Google Music . The first came earlier this month , the second was presented in May during the Google I / O 2011 . Music Beta by Google , which was the name given to the music service in the cloud of boys Mountain View, was released in a beta, which was closed on users and limited to the territory of the United States, and, after a few days left to generate comments. Now it seems that Google wants to revive a little something service and expand the beta, so it will allow users of the platform to send two invitations at its discretion.

After launch, the first criticism pointed that the service really does not add much since, in the absence of agreements with record labels, the user had to upload songs to the cloud then you can use them from any computer or their Android phone. This limitation coupled with the service is limited to the United States made a little Music Beta falling into oblivion.

With this in mind, Google has decided that the lucky few who participate in the beta can invite a couple of users to see if that wakes a little service and begin to recover lost interest by users and by technological means. The truth is that extending the beta it makes sense, we have only to look at the example of Google + to realize that a beta well run (opening and closing the invitations, a good release and offering features innovative) can generate a buzz and, practically, we stop for a month to talk about Google’s social network.

The cocktail of music and cumputing cloud seems to be the future of the music industry, I think it’s something that no doubt at this point, however, we are seeing different ways of implementing it. The views of Amazon and Apple are closely related to the acquisition of content (although Amazon also lets you upload files, but Apple also own a subscription), however, Music Beta is not proposing anything new, besides his own music and keep it up available on the smartphone.

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5 Alternatives to Google Music for labels and artists

Yesterday we saw how Google revolutionized the Music Internet scene with some very interesting proposals. Although the features of the platform are varied and surely we will see in depth in other posts, this time we will highlight one of them: the chance they will have independent labels and musicians to offer their songs for download and also sell a gain of 70 percent, something that gives prominence to Google Music for any other service available.

However, those not wanting to interact with Google have alternatives to pursue, which also can be profitable and interesting. There are many ways to promote our music over the Internet, even before the existence of Google Music, and not have to be through a label or platforms like iTunes, but can be through smaller sites or not intended to promote independent musicians, but they do it accidentally.

We have compiled a list of five services that are similar to Google Music in some of its features, but feel free to add your own choices in the comments.

Bandcamp : This service is one of my favorites, because as an artist allows you to upload music and offer it as a free download, but as a lover of music also lets you discover new bands. We need to make some investment to build an account on this site, but Bandcamp is, in my opinion, one of the strongest competitors MySpace as far as music is concerned. Why? Because we offer a customizable site, let us put the price we want to offer music online, and allows us to build a database of people who have downloaded our album.

SoundCloud : SoundCloud but is less than Bandcamp service as giving users the audio quality is one of the best found on the Internet, and although in recent times have been a little strict on the issue of copyright, dropping many songs and canceling user accounts (this will not do so without prior notice on several occasions, which is a detail worth noting), can be an interesting alternative. SoundCloud allows us to create players that can be inserted into any blog or personal page, fully customizable with colors and sizes. In fact, several independent labels in the United States use it as an innovative way to share their work.

SoundOwl : SoundCloud’s younger brother, SoundOwl have less aesthetic appeal but is just as useful as the latter site shares some of its basic functionality. Audio quality is also very good, and even if we can customize our players, they can be inserted as iFrame code in blogs and other sites. For us who are the ones who hear, also has an interesting search engine and categorized by genre we can discover new artists.

Grooveshark : the shark is already a well-considered online streaming service used by millions of people daily. Although it has some limitations that stem from the separation between a free account and a payment, paying nothing we can access thousands of songs from some of the most popular bands in the world. However, we can find many independent artists upload their songs to Grooveshark to impart. Although it has a search engine, Grooveshark nothing indicates that these songs are present, what remains in the hands of potential listeners artist go to their songs. This is one of those services that they talked, accidental partners in the dissemination of independent music.

YouTube : some may disbelieve the potential of YouTube to broadcast independent music, but the truth is that it is quite large. Simply just uploading a video, share it with the right people and let it all happen. Something that also helps is to upload videos with covers of famous artists to appear well positioned in the search results. To see better how it works, let’s look at two recent success stories. One of them is the Brazilian band A Banda Da Cidade Nice Mais, who published a few months ago the video for their song “Ora?ao” . The video was completely viral in Brazil, and in one weekend the band was on everyone’s lips. It did not take too much for the song, lovely by the way, got the rest of Latin America. It currently has nearly 9 million views on the site. Moreover, Americans Pomplamoose , that feeling that makes video covers classics, is transforming its task of “fun” in YouTube into something quite profitable.

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All you have to know the new music service in iTunes

As our friend told us Nehuen, Apple just released iTunes version 10.5.1 main innovation that brings the official launch of iTunes Match, the company servicing the block that perfectly complements iTunes in the cloud, the system music storage that was released a few weeks ago. Taking into account that Cupertino had assured Match iTunes would be available in the U.S. during the month of October, the new product comes with two weeks late, but not without some tracks that made ??you think of an impending arrival, as the general reset that occurred this weekend in the accounts of the developers.

What users will find the iTunes Match ? A system for analyzing our personal music library stored on our computers we then match on the apple servers. In the case of occurrence of this change matches our copy Match iTunes by Apple and makes it available through iTunes in the cloud for all our devices. This is a client as being grateful that the copy will be given to matching quality 256 kbps AAC DRM-free and generally well above the ratios that we usually use to play music from a CD to iTunes.

In the event that the coincidence does not occur because it is a song that Apple does not offer its music catalog for sale, then simply add our song to the apple servers that we can also use it after download, on our iPhone, iPad or Mac This latter circumstance is not common, considering that Apple has an extensive catalog of 20 million songs. As you can see in the picture below , the initial setup of iTunes Match is divided into three steps: first we analyze our library following a process similar to the Genius recommendations, after being matched Apple’s servers and finish up those titles have not found its equivalent.

As if anyone can see in iTunes Match a double-edged sword, especially getting on the side of the record, how can they have let a product like this that goes directly against their interests? Not so much … if you know all the details. Imagine that an American user has a collection of pirated music, how much the record of those songs? 0, no. But now comes Apple and, in exchange for the user to use this music at any time on any device wirelessly from the cloud, offers to pay $ 25 a year. The part that corresponds to the record of this is unknown but it sure was enough to convince them to receive money that never would have received from pirated music.

But this does not create a bad precedent? That is, if I live in the United States and I know that my music can be “legalized” in this way, does not encourage me to download even more music from external sources and free instead of buying from the iTunes Store? This is something that Apple must prove itself and I guess I will have done very well their numbers. Anyway, remember that there is a limit of 25,000 songs that were not purchased from the iTunes Store, so that all illicit prática end at some point.

Simple right? Comes time to answer some other questions that may arise on the service we are analyzing:

How many devices I can use to access my collection uploaded Match with iTunes? A maximum of ten, and at most five computers, five and two IOS devices Apple TV.

How to make the system work analysis matches the best way? Library is important that our personality is neat and well labeled.

When you are ready outside the United States? Still not known with certainty because it depends on the negotiations to be carried out with each distributor Apple label. It is hoped that in places like Spain will take considerable time to reach the optical archaic knowing they still possess in these parts. Germany, France, UK and Canada are among the countries best positioned to gain access to Match iTunes

What happens if I delete a song or an album and I do not want it available on iTunes Match? Just go to Update iTunes Store Match from the top menu option in iTunes.

What happens if I pay? In that case, Apple will no longer offer personal collection rise, remaining only iTunes Store purchases. But that does not mean that we eliminate the collection of disk storage, will be for local use.

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Google Music comes to IOS as a web application

It has been many months since the May Google announced its music service in the cloud. A platform at that time was released as a beta only for the U.S. territory. Well, since then users have been waiting IOS application that can test the system, application has come today but somewhat different than expected.

What Google has done is to announce via Twitter the launch of a web application from Google Music for IOS. The reasons for him not to leave your own application for Apple devices do not know, maybe not yet been approved in the App Store or Google searches may promote web services.

In any case, users must enter the Web application music.google.com . From there, the company offers users to play music, search, shuffle … no need to open the browser, since we can use the controls for music playback IOS running in the background.

The web application will ask permission to use 25MB of memory on your device IOS, that will help the system space to store the songs you are playing. After consuming these 25MB go, the application will be deleting the first songs I listened.

Little more to add to this release. The application in this first beta perhaps suffers a little slow, probably for not being a native app. We must wait for future updates to see if Google eventually be encouraged to develop a system specifically for each platform.