It only took 30 years or whatever for MTV to get back to actually presenting music videos. It’s been about a month since MTV fully acquired Flux / Social Project. MTV’s involvement with Flux has been quiet and inneffective over the past year or so. Perhaps owning the full package will lead to some nice social channels? Or perhaps I just want to embed one of the worst videos of all time (by one of my all-time favorite bands) below. Via MTVmusic.com.
Socializing the Music Industry: Online Tools
In 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.html – Former 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
Why I Use the New Odeo
Several months ago I realized that the iTunes on my MBP was no longer updating the podcasts to which I subscribe and, well, I could no longer connect to the iTunes Music store. As a lifelong skeptic of the iTunes product (and a devoutly stubborn consumer of only non-Apple mp3 and portable media players and phones) I immediately looked elsewhere instead of seeking some ass-backward solution that likely would have required me to download one of the hundreds of iTunes “upgrades” released each year.
This took my back to an old friend, Odeo, which I remembered to have an easily navigable and fully-loaded index of audio and video netcasts. I noticed a new beta version was being offered and I immediately signed up to find an attractive UI and easy-to-use embedded players and download tabs, as well as new subscription tabs. Now, I still keep my Zune — yes, that’s what I use — updated with podcasts via my PC at work, but when I’m not at work — or when I’m WATCHING on my work PC — I use Odeo. Hey, I also through a bit of extra faith into the product because it was originally launched by Blogger founder (and later Twitter co-founder) Ev Williams.
There are a few things I WOULD like to see on Odeo — I have a login and limited profile. I’d like to have the option to make my profile public and — similar to Last.fm — network with my friends to share recommendations and fave listens and keep tabs on what those in my network watch/listen to so that I can discover new netcasts of interest without having to look too hard. Also, I’ve noticed that Odeo can be a bit slow — quite often i wait around for the Olbermann netcast, only to find it arrive late at night tagged “4 hours ago.”
Do you use Odeo? Have you tried it since the relaunch? What else have you tried as a netcast portal?
In an iReport World, Who Can We Trust?
In the mid-2008 media world, every network, blog, and news website wants to break the big impact story in times of developing news. For hours after a 5.3 magnitude earthquake centered near Chino Hills, ~30 miles from LA, rocked Southern California, all of the major networks and their websites continued carrying the news with a red BREAKING NEWS flag attached. But other than shaking up millions of people and scattering items off of shelves, there was no “news” to break (at least as of 4pm, more than 4 hours after the initial temblor).
The photo above first aired on CNN and was sent in by someone who was supposedly in the supermarket at the time — what CNN terms as an iReporter. Sure, it is very possible that many of the paper goods were shaken to the ground during the 15-20 seconds in which the ground, building, and everything else shook. But how are we to know when to believe whether a photo or video is faked, fabricated, or Photoshopped? CNN’s iReport Terms of Use addresses nothing about photo manipulation or regulations. And, to be fair, it’s not just citizen reporters that purposely fake photos for effect or attention, there are the memorable lessons in photojournalism fakery brought to us by the likes of Reuters, the LA Times and most recently, the Iranian government (and here are more.
Considering the small size and low resolution of the above photo, I won’t venture to investigate the possibility that it was digitally manipulated or whether it’s an honest to goodness eyewitness photo. But below, you’ll see a few surveillance camera or eyewitness camera viewpoint of what is clearly either real footage of the earthquake and it’s after affects, or simply fakes.
REAL: