Google Makes Awesome Happen – Web Fonts API

google open font apiGoogle is awesome. The company has been redefining the word — a popular exclamatory for things far less breathtaking during my adolescence — as often as it customizes its logo over the past dozen years.

This week’s Google I/O keynote fiesta brought plenty of big, exciting, game-changing announcements, but nothing more immediately exciting to me than the launch of the Google Font API (Read Google’s blogpost). Suddenly adding sleek, new fonts to any web page is as easy as visiting the Google Font Directory, copying, pasting, and voila.

There are a few key reasons why I’m so excited about this and I’ll elaborate a bit below:

  1. The fonts are all open source-licensed
  2. It works on all current browsers (cross-platform)
  3. The fonts are cool and the possibilities are endless

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Facebook Goes Live with Eventbrite Integration

Facebook Eventbrite Partnership Goes Live on Event Pages

I Just noticed this for the first time moments ago — the first fruits of the Facebook / Eventbrite partnership that was sealed last month. I believe this is somewhat of a first for Facebook — actually marrying an exclusive partner into enabling event payments. It sure seems to be part of an ongoing trend — Facebook began taking PayPal payments in mid-February. Why not just incorporate PayPal into Facebook events? It probably wouldn’t be as messy as the Eventbrite link-up is, at least at launch. For months Eventbrite has leveraged Facebook Connect and users’ propensity for cross-posting about events they had RSVP’d for — one of the more effective uses of Connect, to bolster paid registration by maintaining a presence on users’ Facebook News Feeds. If nothing else this proves Eventbrite to be a winner in the who-will-be-the-next eVite.com sweepstakes.

Upcoming Facebook changes will remove this box. Save your music!

Music No More?

But is this just a test? Is it just a partnership or a precursor to acquisition? Will we see gold coins? Remember, Facebook once co-opted iLike and renamed the iLike app THE “Music” app. iLike was later acquired by MySpace (last August) and now the iLike-powered music app is about to vanish from everyone’s Facebook wall.

Music no more?

It is also now impossible to feature photos and videos in an event post — another sign that Facebook is looking to focus on paid event implementation. Any photos I post as an admin show up on the wall but they will not appear by default as new comments take precedence. Let’s walk through the Eventbrite + Facebook process. It’s not at all intuitive from either the event host or user point of view and in fact, it isn’t truly implemented into Facebook — it’s little more than a link to Eventbrite.

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Socializing the Music Industry: Online Tools

social media clubIn brainstorming for tomorrow’s panel on Social Media and Music tomorrow tonight (Sept. 11) at Kleiner Perkins in LA (I’m co-moderating with Jackie Peters), I came up with the below list of concepts, products, and applications that peer into the future of music and the Web. More info on the panel is here. Please feel free to add more context / suggestions in the comment section below:

DIY LICENSING & DISTRIBUTION PLATFORMS

— SNOCAP — http://snocap.com
— RouteNote — http://www.routenote.com/
— ArtistShare – http://artistshare.com/home/default.aspx
http://cashmusic.org/
http://youlicense.com
http://licensequote.com
http://severedfifth.com
http://www.fina-music.com/

SOCIAL PLATFORMS for FANS and ARTISTS:

— Buzznet — http://buzznet.com
— ArtistDIRECT — http://artistdirect.com
— TunesBag — http://www.tunesbag.com/
— HobNox — http://hobnox.com
— Eventful — http://eventful.com
— Gruvr — http://www.gruvr.com
— Jambase — http://jambase.com
— AnywhereFM — http://www.anywhere.fm/player/
— MySpace Music (whenever it *really* launches)
— Seeqpod, MusicBrainz, iLike, iMeem, etc.
even more tools (the Mashable list)

DISCOVERY:

The New Zune firmware / Marketplace (FM click to purchase and recommends) — http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/default.mspx
http://www.archannel.tv/
http://www.deezer.com/
http://amalgamdigital.com/
http://alterhit.com/
http://www.soundflavor.com/
http://www.jogli.com/
http://www.songza.com/

http://www.signalpatterns.com/

WIDGETS & APIs

Y! Media Player — http://mediaplayer.yahoo.com/
MusIcon — http://www.muzicons.com/
FineTune — http://finetune.com
MixWit — http://www.mixwit.com/
Music-related APIs — http://www.programmableweb.com/music
Y! Audio Search API — http://developer.yahoo.com/search/audio/
Music DNS API — http://www.musicip.com/dns/
MusicBrainz API — http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/XMLWebService
Seeqpod API — http://www.seeqpod.com/api.php?music_discovery#Disco_Rex
Gruvr API — http://gruvr.com/developers/

FILESHARING & MP3 DIRECTORIES

— Dropbox — http://getdropbox.com
— Media Master — http://mediamaster.com/
— HypeMachine — http://hypem.com

FINANCING / LICENSING MUSIC w/ SOCIAL Media:

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/9/could-payola-save-online-radio
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/09/major-label-see.htmlFormer Label Exec Sees Future Outside Music Distribution
— Monetizing / Licensing music via Creative Commons: http://ccmixter.org/, http://freesound.com, http://www.podsafeaudio.com/, http://opsound.org/
— Free vs. ad-supported vs. Subscription models. Subscription tied to Hardware (Nokia, Lenovo, GM, etc) or to Operating system / software (Zune, iTunes)
— Pairing bands with advertisers based on social demographics