Today the news is that Spotify has partnered with with Tom Group a major Chinese media conglomerate to launch the company’s popular digital music streaming service in China. The tie-up will create a localized version of the software to introduce to provide music over computers and mobile phones, Tom said in a statement to Reuters. Spotify’s current services are only available over computers.
“Tom will work toward unveiling a localized version of Spotify in Greater China in the near future,” the statement said.
Vuze is a handy piece of kit that lets you stream or download videos from the internet. Similar to services already available such as MegaVideo, only now you have the added functionality of a media player, library and subscription services for podcasts and specific genres.
You download Vuze here (less than 10Mb) and install it in under five minutes. No need to restart your PC or do any complicated set up, so already it was in my good books. Upon opening the program for the first time I was greeted by a fairly simple interface that the average computer user could navigate. Search Bar, Library, Current Downloads and even a helpful ‘Getting Started’ section to guide you through the stages (although you really shouldn’t need it).
One thing that caught my eye was HD. Lucky for me, my new laptop was indeed HD compatible so I decided to search for a HD clip. I typed in ‘Public Enemies’ into the search bar and up popped a load of results. I could either watch the whole movie or simply a trailer. The HD quality was outstanding which surprised me as the download took less than a minute. Sound and playback quality was also top notch. No jumpy movies like you get with browser players.
Another section is ‘Devices’. Now, Vuze is fully compatible with a host of portable devices such as your iPod, iPhone, laptop, and other portables. It also works a treat on the PS3 and XBOX 360.
If you’re a videographer you can also publish your content on the Vuze network. This is great for publicizing your stuff to a large audience and also for Podcasts looking to branch out. It’s really easy to upload etc.. There are also special packages available for those uploading load of content to give them priority and good exposure on the Vuze Network.
One area I think that Vuze could improve is with the extra content. There should be a minimal browser built in to allow you to view the community pages without having to kick-start Firefox. This would give it a seamless affect and just be handy in general.
All things considered however, this is a spectacular piece of software and one I’ll be using a lot from now on. I think web based video torrents are having their final farewells. 9/10
Here at Crenk we have talked about music streaming service Seeqpod a huge amount. Seeqpod was a music streaming search engine in which users could search for tracks in the same way at searching on Google. Once finding the track they wanted to play they could add it to a playlist.
Seeqpod indexed music files from all over the internet. However last month the filed for bankruptcy and since Friday of last week they have been offline. “SeeqPod is in the process of moving a few servers… We’ll be back up shortly”, said SeeqPod CEO Kasian Franks on Sunday.
Seeqpod is in acquistion talks with “a large media company that was a competitor to Apple” according to MP3 Newswire. Any suitor would have to be willing to get involved with several pending rights holder lawsuits against the company.
Boxee has just sent out an email to bloggers alerting them that as of this Friday, they will be removing Hulu from their channel lineup. This comes at the request of Hulu. Apparently Boxee has been working to try to keep Hulu in their lineup for two weeks.
we love Hulu. they have built a great product and brand (including one the best Superbowl ads this year)… the response has been amazing. people love watching many of their favorite shows on Hulu via boxee. last week we generated more than 100,000 streams for them…
two weeks ago Hulu called and told us their content partners were asking them to remove Hulu from boxee. we tried (many times) to plead the case for keeping Hulu on boxee, but on Friday of this week, in good faith, we will be removing it.
Our content providers requested that we turn off access to our content via the Boxee product, and we are respecting their wishes…Without their content, none of what Hulu does would be possible, including providing you content via Hulu.com and our many distribution partner websites…For those Boxee users reading this post, we understand and appreciate that you’re likely to tell us that we’re nuts. Please know that we do share the same interests and won’t stop innovating in support of the bigger mission.
Boxee only just release onto Mac and Ubuntu on the 8th of January and now they have lost one of their major sources of content. The Boxee service is a very simple one, they provide movies, tv shows and music all in one simple location.
In the last week or so we have been really taking a keen focus on music streaming service and even posted a specific review about MixTurtle. Today we have come across yet another music streaming service that might be worth a look. This new streaming service is called Just Hear It. Just Hear It has been created by two college students Nicolae Ivanescu and Cosmin Panait.
Just Hear It is very similar to MixTurtle, Seeqpod and Songza. It lets the user search for tracks that are online and add them to a playlist. Just Hear It claims to be completely legal, following DMCA guidelines, and paying royalties to all of the major performing-rights organizations, like ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. In the future, Just Hear It aims to negotiate licenses to share revenue with labels.
After playing around with the site it still seems to have the same issues as Seeqpod and Songza, every now and then you will find the track that you want to listen to, but it simply wont play or the file is corrupted or incomplete. Im not really too sure if there is anything more annoying than setting up your playlist and half the songs playing.
However, because Just Hear It claims to be completely legal, I’m very curious to see how this business develops. They need to have a very strong business model and I’m guessing that will be based on advertising revenues.
A couple of days ago we put together a great list of the Worlds top 10 free music streaming service. We received a comment that post that lead us to another music streaming service that I thought was worth a review, MixTurtle. MixTurtle is a great music streaming search engine very similar to Seeqpod.
MixTurtle lets users search for a song and then it provides instant results. Then users can play the single track or add it to a playlist. I couldn’t work out for a while how to view the playlist correctly, but all you need to do is right click anywhere on the page and it brings up the playlist you have created. I would suggest that MixTurtle work a bit more on this feature and really make it more predominant.
In terms of the overall design and layout of the site, I think it has great potential. I think it will be easy for them to add sponsored search results into the engine which will be a lot better to look at than display advertising. However, if they are going to go down the display route, it would be advisable to add the display add to the top of the site and have it rotate every couple of minutes.
Overall this is a great site with a lot of potential. It would be adviseable to add a business model sooner rather than later, because im sure their server costs are quite high. In terms of the user point of view, this is a great site! Simple, easy to use and give you with the results in seconds, brilliant!
Im spending a lot of time in the office recently and I’m one of those people who cant work without music playing really loud in the background. I’m sure its not just me who thinks better when music is playing loud, so I thought I would put together a quick list of the top 10 free music streaming service that are currently available. Some of these services can only be used in specific countries, but I’m sure this will change in 2009.
Pandora – Pandora is now just a USA based service. However, Pandora is a great service for those in the USA and im surprised if most people in the USA don’t already use it. Pandora is basically a music radio service which lets you listen to customised radio stations.
Last.fm – I have never really understood Last.fm myself, but they have a great service in which will let you stream music from certain artists. Some have full tracks for free to stream, but others have videos or some nothing at all.
Seeqpod – Seeqpod is basically Google for music. Seepqod is a search engine that allows users to find whatever music they want to listen too. Seeqpod can only find music that can easily be downloaded on the net, so it can be limited with some artists, plus sometimes the tracks might be corrupted and not completely work. However, it is great for making playlists.
Spotify – Spotify is a new music service that has launched out of Sweden. I have been using Spotify for several months now, even though it is in private beta testing. Though the music is streamed, it is played instantly and is partly supported by the famous P2P technology. Currently the service is only available in Finland, France, Norway, Spain, Sweden and UK. Spotify has to be the best music streaming service I have used in 2008.
Myspace Music – Myspace is of course the worlds largest social network and Myspace Music is just an add-on of this social network. With Myspace Music users can search for pretty much any artist in the world and stream the music they have on their profiles. Remember it is limited to only the music the artist wants you to hear.
Rhapsody – Rhapsody has a nice “listen FREE” search option at the top of its homepage, an excellent way to entice people to sign up for its premium service. Once you find the artist you are looking for then you can play any of the songs in their catalogue for free. However, then I realised streaming is only for the USA.
Imeem – Imeem is a mixture between music streaming service and social network. On Imeem to stream music all you need to do is to search for the artist you want to listen to and then the majority of the time they will already have an Imeem account.
Deezer - Deezer is a mixture between Seeqpod and Imeem. Deezer has some social networking aspects but mainly it is just a great music streaming service that is very easy to find the music you are looking for. All music on there is legal and free and artists actually get royalties from your streams.
Skreemr - Skreemr is very similar to Seepqod and it is just basically a search engine for music online. Skreemr is a free service that picks up free music from across the internet and allows you to play it easily. However, unlike Seeqpod they don’t allow users to make playlists.
Lala – Lala is one of the new music streaming services on the block. Lala provides free streaming to only USA users. There is a limit on how many times you can listen to a track for free, but you also have the option of purchasing that stream for $0.10 so then you have can unlimited plays. Additionally, if you want to take the tracks off the site then there is an option of $0.79 for the download.
Today, Amsterdam based Twones launches in private beta. Twones is a new Music service that tracks the music you’re playing on your computer (iTunes, WMP, Winamp) AND on 18 web services (Youtube, Last.fm, Myspace, Muxtape etc.).
Twones is funded by concert giant Live Nation (source: hypebot ), with TheNextWeb having a minor stake in the company as well. Additionally, Twones shares office space with TheNextWeb.
Twones’ goal is to make playing music on the web more organized and enjoyable. “Let real people, relevant to you, collectively filter and recommend music and music services”, says Tim Heineke who with Diederik Martens and Johannes La Poutre founded Twones. “Our goal is letting users find great music and sites and services through relevant people on cool music sites. We work together with the other services, we don’t compete.”
The only thing that Twones is missing is the music. Other than embedded YouTube videos, to actually play a song you have to click through to the original music service where it was streamed from in the first place. Twones is more about trying to capture the musical meta-data of the Web, socializing around music, and organizing it.
The service itself really needs to have the ability to play songs from within the site and create playlists. Until this happens I cant really see the service having a real reason to use it.
After spending months in public beta and lots of changes to the ad supports music service, We7 is about to launch out of beta with a bang.
We7 have launched with a “Big Listen” campaign. This new service has some great new features including Free on-demand, unlimited access to full tracks and albums, “Search, Click & Play”, A ‘Celestial Jukebox’ with several million track, ‘Play Anywhere’ – a link and play system for blogs and websites, Users can create playlists, share with friends and buy mp3’s, Payments to rights owners and artists.
The first thing you will notice with the new site is that they have a completely new design. Other new additions include a Magazine, Blog and a much improved list of advertisers. Im sure we will be hearing a lot more from We7 in 2009!
Imeem is a music social network like no other. Currently, Imeem is the most popular music community in the world and its growth has really been amazing in the last year. Imeem allows artists and users to both have their own profiles and communicated in a social enviroment.
Artists on Imeem can have their own profiles while at the same time make money from their streams on the site. Thus, each time someone listens to an artists tracks the artist receives some royalties, these royalties are based on a percentage of advertising revenues.
Users are able to check out songs from their favourite artists while fill out the basics of a social networking profile. Additional features include mail, creating playlists and more.
Imeem is a great platform that is definitely on the rise, especially in the USA. Look out for more and more changes that im sure they will be bringing to the service in the coming month. The only downside is the quality of advertising on their site! Due to Imeem paying royalties, they must try to each as much advertising revenue as possible for their artists, and in doing so their quality seems to be very poor and lack creativity.
We7 is one of the new kids on the block in the music industry. On We7 you can find artists from all over the world, signed and unsigned. With the majority of artists you are able to listen to the tracks on their albums, as well as add them to a play list. Additionally, tracks can be purchased via iTunes.
We7 is mainly an ad supported streaming platform, in which artists receive their royalties from a percentage of the advertising revenues and then hopefully more from purchases via iTunes. We7 keeps the other cut of the advertising revenues for providing the platform, as well as getting a percentage from iTunes affiliate sales.
We7 has a catalog that is growing rapidly and they seem to have a few majors already on board. I would like to see a better design that takes up the majority of the page on a fluid layout, instead of just the current fixed layout. This will also allow them to strategically place their advertising banners, which is their key business model. We7 however is definitely worth checking out if you are look to stream some of the best albums from the biggest artists, from anyone in the world.
In the last week or so we have been really taking a keen focus on music streaming service and even posted a specific review about 
