Serve Well and Be Well Served

Music and Tech Recap - October 2010 Edition

As the year winds down, there is, as always a lot of industry news you want to stay on top of. New mobile music apps and music services, updates to existing ones and more music industry debates, opinions, rumours and speculation to keep the mind fuelled. On the investment side, music+tech investments has slowed down, and according to recent reports, overall VC activity in general is down. And so, here we go with the October 2010 music+tech recap…

Investments and Mergers/Acquisitions:

Total 2010 Investments (US$) as of October 31st, 2010

Q1/10: $99.6m

Q2/10: $104.25m

Q3/10: $15.17m

Q4/10 (to-date): $7m

2010 total to-date: $226.02m

Latest news…



As I mention each month, this isn’t a comprehensive list and the numbers (where disclosed) have been pulled from public sources but it still gives us a sense of general investment activity in the music tech space. If I missed any deals, please don’t hesitate to comment below.

Music Services and Apps:

DemoGod - new iPhone/iPad App provides database of 700+ dance music A&R contacts.

Fireplayer - Digital music iPhone app that lets users download and remix tracks from content providers which can be pushed onto social networks.

Noteflight - Online music writing app that lets you create, view, print and hear music notation inside your web browser.

Playbutton - An interesting concept… a wearable button that plays music. Content is pre-recorded and cannot be changed or downloaded. A bit gimmicky and something that I’m sure some bands/marketers will jump all over. If it’s priced right, it could make for great corporate gifts. As a side note, the web site design is kind of cool!

Thounds YUIO - Sequencer and sampler Facebook app that lets users create and share short sound bites.

Bandapp - Not yet relaunched iPhone app that the developers say is your “mini record deal” that allows artists to promote themselves, sell music and make money.

Slacker App Combines Pandora, Spotify Approaches - Slacker’s strategy in trying to become your next favourite music service is simple: It will attempt to combine two successful music services that music fans have already proven we like: Pandora and Spotify.

Music apps popular on the iPad - Screen size makes it much easier to interact and create music. And integration with AirPlay and your home entertainment system opens up a whole world of user engagement.

ListandPlay.com - ‘Enter 1 song, get 150 similar songs back’, a smart Youtube + Last.fm mashup. However, the massive response to the site and it’s various implications has led the developer to take the site offline. These are the kind of people the music industry needs to help innovate and grow! The talent pool is too smart and creative not to tap into.

Digital Access launching a unique-for-Russia online music video service iviMusic - The Big Four Music Majors: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Group have agreed to license content to this Russian music video startup.

Songkick Concert Listings Coming to Yahoo Search - This partnership follows integration with YouTube, the BBC and Vevo.

Univision Launches Music Site, Música - Univision, a Spanish-Language music company has just launched this music service targeting the Hispanic community. The service is loaded with 145,000 songs, artist pages and photos, along with 40-plus Univision radio stations.

Music Hack Day Boston - The Boston edition of Music Hack Day featured the largest number of music hacks to date (41) and by all accounts it was an awesome weekend of music hacking. This worldwide weekend hack-event grows and keeps getting better. Full coverage here, here, and here. A few of my faves: Jennie’s Ultimate Road Trip, FeedTunes, Scrobbyl and Likebook.fm.

TuneCore and SoundCloud Team Up - Options for distributing music continues to grow as TuneCore is now providing distribution for SoundCloud artists.

Choruss Music Project Shelved; Audiogalaxy Relaunched - Unable to obtain the necessary licensing, Choruss, a legal file-sharing network has closed. Returning is AudioGalaxy, a cloud-based service that lets users upload and stream their DRM-free music.

Rdio now offering embeddable music player - I’ve been a subscriber of this service for the past few months and am rooting for these guys. Similar to other services, the Rdio embeddable player is nicely done and is a great social music outreach tool.

U.K. Radioplayer To Launch In December - A collaboration between the publicly funded BBC and the commercial sector will offer listeners single destination access to over 50 UK radio stations.

Filtatron - Moog Music has just released a real-time audio effects suite and studio tool for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

BPI Innovation Panel - Interesting announcement coming out of the UK where BPI, a trade group for the recording industry, has announced a new panel that they hope will boost UK digital music services. Innovation requires collaboration, so hopefully these are positive steps.

The future music platform & music startups’ imminent success - Very well thought-out piece by the co-founder/CTO of The Echo Nest where he describes how the future of the music business is the app.

he Art & Science of Music Recommendation Engines - The most recent OpenMusicMedia meet-up in London (and upcoming NYC meet-up - November 9th) covered the debate about music discovery and recommendations: Humans vs. Hackers. There is room for both but nothing replaces a personal recommendation from your best music buddies!

Opinions, Insights and Analysis:

How Labels Prevent Digital Music Start-ups from Succeeding - “The economics of music start-ups are at a stalemate …not to mention the long-standing infrastructure problems between publishers, rights societies and record labels.” A sad and unfortunate reality…

Imeem co-founder explains why music startups are a bad idea - High licensing costs right out of the gate before revenues start coming through the door, selling a low margin music service that needs high volume to break-even. Is there any other industry where a business is immediately handcuffed and set-up to fail? There is a lot of talent, creativity and innovation that will be put to use in other industries which is a shameful loss on the music business side. On the other side of the discussion, David Hyman of MOG says music startups can work.

Why can’t labels agree on a music streaming service? - Labels and ISPs have been trying to devise an alternative to Spotify for over a year, but the four majors continue to argue over the issue of unlimited downloads.

Pandora Plans To Become The New Radio – Available In Every New Car - This seems to be the next logical step in Pandora’s history. People still love radio but on their terms, so this move fits in our culture of personalization.

Lessons Learned by Streaming Startups - “It’s way to early to say if there’s no room for little guys – we’re still waiting for the next online streaming service to mount a serious challenge to Pandora.”

A Look at New Artist Revenue Model: The Social Radio – By the Numbers - Soon to launch Facebook social radio app that will pay artists ad revenue based on popularity. Artists set the price for their ad space and the more popular they are, they more money they can make. Founder Dante Cullari feels that 20000 plays/day is achievable and running ads at $6/1000 plays could translate into a yearly artist revenue stream of $43,000US.

10 Truths About the Modern Music Business - An interesting set of modern music business observations by Jason Feinberg, vice president, direct to consumer marketing for Concord Music Group.

Rdio is in my future - Here is someone’s personal experience using Rdio. I have been using this service for a couple of months now that it is available in Canada and putting aside a few minor gripes, it does work well and I’m listening to more music than ever. The “sync-to-mobile” feature is a great way to augment music you may already be buying.

If Apple and Spotify are headed for war, I know which side I’m on - “Without fundamental reform in global music licensing, which will not happen for another decade, there simply isn’t enough money in the pot to make Spotify profitable without massive, massive scale.” Is Spotify really that much closer to a US launch? Seems possible if they throw a big advance at the labels.

Music streaming partnerships a €1.1 billion opportunity for European operators in 2011 - In a study carried out by Informa Telecoms & Media and Spotify, they estimate that a mobile operator in Western Europe with 20 million customers could generate revenues of €77.7 million in 2011 alone from partnering with a streaming service. Who really knows how it will play out in the wild but I will say: consider the source!

Radio is about to Make a Very Bad Bet - “…the best way to sustain relevance in a digital media age is to create content and digital solutions which are, in fact, relevant to that age?” Do consumers really want to have radio chips on board their smart-phones? Doesn’t seem like many are asking for it.

The Digital Music Impasse: What next for digital music? - Is music product innovation stuck in first gear?

If Streaming is the Future of Music, Let’s Get on With It! - “It’s clear that we’re transitioning out of a dominant “ownership” model to a dominant “service” model for recorded music. The desire to own and collect recorded music won’t go away any time soon, but it won’t make sense to “own” digital files once all music is accessible via high quality streams – even if “ownership” means the “cloud” model where a collection is stored online.”

Ted Cohen: 2011, The Year of the Music Service - Ted is willing to “bet his career” on the access model winning. I would probably short his bet because the average, passive music consumer is not yet ready or even aware of such services. It might take another generation for consumption patterns and consumer behaviour to change, assuming the plans and service are right.

SXSW Accelerator - Are you a music+tech startup that launched after March 14th, 2010 and want a chance to present at SXSW’s new music technology showcase? The deadline to submit your company/project is December 10th, 2010.

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Gabriel Nijmeh is a business analyst, passionate music lover and guitar player. Currently building Mediazoic, a real-time personal broadcasting platform and co-organizer of OpenMusicMedia Toronto, which brings people together to openly discuss the intersection of digital music, culture and technology.

  1. shawnyeager reblogged this from gcn and added:
    Another excellent synopsis
  2. gcn posted this