UPDATE 3.8.2010: Thumbplay contacted me less than 24 hrs after this post, and got me up and running on my blackbery 9760!
Thumbplay launched its music service this week, joining Mog, Rhapsody, Lala, Spotify, Last FM, and Myspace in the already crowded battle between streaming music services. The monthly subscription is $9.99. This is twice the rate of new entrant “MOG” (and $9.99 more than the free myspace!), but you get mobile access for the extra charge. Factoring in mobile makes Thumplay’s offer cheaper than Rhapaody’s similar desktop and mobile plan.
The selling point of Thumbplay Music is the ability to move your music to the cloud in one click by importing your playlists directly from itunes. It took just a few minutes to import 20 playlists, with 500 songs. The “import” was fast and accurate because it was only checking the data with the “cloud”, not actually moving files. You can “import” songs to the cloud regardless of where they came from.
The second differentiator is Thumplay’s mobile access. With a full subscription, you can access your music and playlists from a “smartphone”.
Unfortunately the device list is small:
BlackBerry
Bold 9000
Curve 8900
Storm 9530
Tour 9630
Myspace music is a fun, easy and free way to create playlists. Yes, there are the familiar flaws in the overall myspace interface, but the music features are getting better, and the fact that myspace has most of the content from major, indie and unsigned Artists, makes it worth exploring as a serious playlist destination. Listening does not require log in (yet) but you must be a member to make a playlist. So dig out that old account and log back in to get started.
ARTIST PROFILES – SURF AND ADD!
The best way to start playlisting is surfing Myspace the way you always have: Profiles. All profiles can now tap into the myspace music player and the player has a “+”button next to most of the songs throughout the site.
Plenty of posts and blogs talk about “transparency” in the music business. How Artist’s need to be in direct connection with their fans. Part of the “Conversation”. It’s all buzzwords until it’s real: My continuing adventure with Devo and Devo Inc.
I Originally made this on last year on Imeem and wanted to post it again. But as you know Imeem’s gone away. However it did make its way into myspace via the import! Nice work guys – and every song was there! Hear it in full (log in required)
But I cant share it on my blog with myspace music, so I re-created it in Lala. Thats where the problem was. For some reason Lala doesn’t have the two killer songs (but myspace music does? so i can get it for free, but not via a paid streaming service??)
First one missing on Lala was “Dustland Fairytale” (so i choose the karyoke version!) and next was “This is Your life” (so I choose a different switchfoot song with the same name because that came up first in Lala’s search!) So thanks to rights issues, here it is on Lala with a few adjustments!
My Amazon preferences don’t talk to my itunes ratings or my genius playlist. Neither of them factor in my recommended videos on you tube or vevo. My “ilike’s” don’t tie into my mog preferences…
With all this music and information I still have trouble finding quality stuff I want. And I still miss bands I should know about, or live dates from bands I love!
I’d like a way to set up a highly customizable preference/recommendation engine that followed all my music, video, movies, purchases, streams, and could form “meta recommendations” from them all. Then combine ubiquity of preferences with context (location) and the future connected recommendation experience emerges. Moving seamlessly across sites and services, I could listen to music and media on several different devices and still capture a true picture of my media and commerce behavior. Of course I’d want strong privacy setting that allowed me to benefit from this targeted experience, not just advertisers and merchants!
Anyone working on anything like this? Anyone else want it?
Im excited to be working with DEVO! I am starting on a new project with the band, who is back with Warner Bros Records after many years! Its a brand new model for the business, the band, and WBR.
Watch DEVO inc. CEO Greg Scholl’s first communique now!
FIND MIX WATCH. That’s the tagline for You Tubes “Music Discovery Project and Playlist Creation Tool”. It’s a new tool coming out of you tubes lab that allows you to create artist based playlists of music videos. While it’s a visual playlist, it alos holds its own as an audio experience.
Just type in the name of an Artist, and an instant video playlist is created. “Mix Tape” and “Similar artist” options give you several ways to epxplore new music and shuffle the experience. You can save also various playlists. but there is no ability to individually move tracks, or share playlists. I just minimized the video and had a pandora like experience.
You tube’s size, combined with this simple tool, and suddenly you tube is a much bigger player in the online music space. This tool also deepens role in music discovery, and connecting artists and fans.
Curious to see usage numbers, and the new features I am sure will come soon.
