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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

Continue reading ‘THUMBPLAY MUSIC SERIVCE: MOVE YOUR PLAYLISTS TO THE CLOUD’

Getting ready for mobile blogging at sxsw interactive. Testing the wordpress iPhone app. So far It’s simple, intuitive and free.

Devo inc scores one here – first new song from DEVO In awhile, as performed on the Olympics 2-22. Its beyond good. It’s FRESH!!!
http://www.clubdevo.com – Get the song here!

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.

Watch the message, and contribute to the Devo inc color study now!

I love reading the New Tee Vee blog every day and video is an increasingly important aspect of the music business. Think about it – the majority of music is listened to on a device with a screen! I think I was the only music exec at New Tee Vee Live, but it was worth the trip – although the question “is the tv business going the way of the record business?” and the “we wont make the same mistakes as the music biz” quotes were slightly annoying.

So what are the broader trends and how do they apply to music? Here are a few quotes from some of the speakers, and some of the interesting things I heard during the panels.

Erik Flannigan
EVP of Digital Media,
MTVN Entertainment Group  

Hits are Hits. Eric explained that hit tv shows have big video numbers online, and shows with lower ratings have lower views. It’s a one to one relationship, and he said there seems to be no erosion in the ratings of popular shows by having them streaming online.

“Don’t underestimate the mass of passive”

Great point and a classic quote. People don’t want to spend tons of time looking around to watch what they want on you tube, torrents and other on demands sites. It’s more that programming for the mass doesn’t meet their needs anymore. If possible, most consumers would rather lean back and just get great programming that was relevant to them, instead of having to seek it out.

Now think of the long tail, radio, and music. Applying Eric’s comment to the much hyped long tail I agree its probably not the “solution”. It’s really about better music, engaging artists, and better programming.

Laura Goldberg
General Manager of NFL Online,
National Football League  

The internet turned the niche activity of fantasy football into a main stream pastime, and as a result, grew the audience for the NFL. Laura explained how fantasy football drives demand – now you need to watch all the games! Very clever. The advantage is football is a closed network – to watch all the games in real time you have to pay!

Chuck Seiber
VP Marketing,
Roku  

The Roku video player is an on demand video box with over 50,000 titles. Now they are opening their platform to anyone who wants to make a “channel” on their box. Their install base seems low, but is this a chance for someone to make a new type of music service? Seems like the infrastructure and hardware is in place.

Jason Seiken
SVP, Interactive,
PBS  

Nothing music related here, but I had no idea pbs launched the coolest video sites of all the networks!

http://video.pbs.org/

Gary Cohen
SVP of Marketing and Customer Experience,
Redbox  

Redbox offers kiosks in retails stores that rent dvd’s for a dollar. The talk was that some of the studios were upset about the impact of “substitutionally” of redbox rentals on dvd sales.

Substitution for purchase is something we talk about a lot in the music biz, with you tube, piracy, and streaming services such as myspace. Gary denied those claims, and said redbox did research to show there was less that 1% substitution for purchase (of course they did!)

However I loved his quote – “People who buy, buy, people who rent, rent”

Or as we sometimes say “people who buy buy, people who steal steal”

Great day – see you next year!

VIDEO
Great content, and nice technique for success:
How IKEA’s ‘Easy to Assemble’ Broke 1.9M Views (Without Cheating)

MOBILE
New product idea from the people:
World’s First Multimedia SF Novel on a QR Code T-shirt.
Buy it via ebay!

MUSIC
Devo is Back – I was there!
These guys are still unbeliveable!

“one of the few truly original rock acts of the last 40 years.”

San Jose Mercury news

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2009/11/07/devo-fans-find-satisfaction/?

I was deeply inspired by the movie “it might get loud”, a “guitar” documentary centered around Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White.

You don’t need to be a guitar head to love this movie – if you love music you will love this film! In my work with new media and music, I spend so much time thinking about how the changing ratios of communication change the way music is marketed, promoted and consumed, it’s refreshing to see these “masters” talk about nothing but sounds.

In fact – this movie was a needed reset for my brain. Take away twitter, facebook, and everything else – its irrelevant to these guys. The guitar and technology around making the guitar convey music is all that’s needed. Everything else will just happen.

The unbending dedication and focus around a single instrument was inspiring. Do musician’s lose this today while twitter facebooking, etc? Is the nature of technology infecting the creative process?

Or perhaps these legends have explored all of the sound frontiers and possibilities of the guitar, and now the current generation will explore how to connect people to these sounds? After watching this film, something about how easy it is to create and record music feels like we’ve forgotten a step. You will find yourself asking these questions of yourself throughout the movie.

JIMMY PAGE – incredibly elegant and well spoken. I’ve never heard him speak so much before When you see him, and the emotion still behind those eyes – you can have nothing but respect for his legacy.

JACK WHITE – “technology makes things too easy” – Jack talks a lot about how technology takes away from the artistic process. Everyone in new media needs to hear his thoughts as a balance to our hectic info mania. You need to struggle to create. He makes it harder for himself to create. Take a guitar that is broken down and out of tune and fight with it to make music…

THE EDGE – a stark contrast to Jack – the “sonic architect” uses technology and effects to change his sound and bring new soundscapes from the guitar. Interesting to see how he uses technology to create sound, while still respecting the instrument itself.

Reset your brain and love for music! See this Movie!

IT MIGHT GET LOUD MOVIE SITE

Hearing the silversun pickups made me realize what the pumpkins lost over time – the feeling of a band, and most of their melody. The new silversun pickups is as good as the pumpkins at their best!

Hear for yourself:

aman

Multiple press outlets picked up a piece about the campaign for Ashley Tisdale’s new album “Guilty Pleasure”. I’ve been working on the music side of Ashley’s campaign since her first album in 2006. She is hard working, and cares about her fans! One of the highlights of this campaign has been her use of Twitter. Ashley took to it right away and she understands how important it is to communicate direct.

The key is it’s all her. And that’s why her Twittering is generating lots of buzz and traffic to her site and store! Even a star as big as Ashley needs to understand the first key principle for successful twittering – authenticity.

This article from Reuters poked a little fun at her Tweets, and it somewhat diluted my point about the importance of Ashley’s’ communication with her fans:

“Tisdale is an especially avid Twitterer, with more than 750,000 followers.

“She’s very protective of it in terms of it sounding authentic,” according to Warner Bros. senior VP of new media Jeremy Welt. “There have been a couple of times where we’ve said to her, ‘Hey, why don’t you mention so-and-so?’ and she’s told us, ‘I wouldn’t say that.’” (What would she say? One recent Tweet read, “Happy fathers day!!! Goin to dinner with my family and the most amazing dad ever! I love you daddy!”)”

You may not see the connection in Ashley Tisdale twittering “happy fathers day”, but her 940,000 followers do. The series of seemingly simple tweets provide basic insights into her life (She’s subtly letting her fans know family is important to her), and it all adds up to a lot for her fans. They peak into the everyday activity. You don’t see overloaded shameless promo, or re-purposed press releases. It is exactly this type of communication that makes it Authentic, and why Twitter itself has grown so fast.

Check out the full interview here:

The Nokia 5800 is more powerful than the Iphone, but it’s trapped by it’s software:

1.) NOKIA’S SYMBIAN TOUCH SCREEN OS DOESNT COME CLOSE TO THE IPHONE

It’s way to complicated and looks and feels as is if it wasn’t designed for a touch screen phone.

2.) TOUCH SCREEN RESPONSE IS “JERKY” NOT “SMOOTH”

You’ll miss the elegance and responsiveness of the Iphone. I quickly learned the “feel” of a touch screen counts as much as the hardware itself.

3.) MUSIC PLAYER ACTS LIKE A PHONE NOT A MUSIC DEVICE

The Iphone can legitimately be your music device. Nokia has some work to do with the music part of the 5800 before you can ditch your ipod and make this your main portable music device.

4.) NOKIA WEB BROWSER IS TO HARD TO USE

With the 5800, you’ll feel like the web and the phone weren’t meant to work together. I am still mystified at parts of the browser interface. Several steps are required to do basic browsing.

Main take away – It’s the software that matters! When you see the potential of powerful hardware and an open ecosystem, you wonder how Apple gets away with providing a closed ecosystem – a great mobile OS. Working outside the iphone/itunes ecosystem was a promise that excited me, but didn’t deliver. After two months of use, the basic software problems overshadow the 5800‘s potential.

Software trumps hardware, closed can trump open if the experience is amazing! The Nokia 5800 is much a more powerful phone, with open standards, yet not as desirable as the iphone because it is locked in by its os.