Music

Yesterday, a new application called WatZatSong launched. WatZatSong is a website where people that don’t know what a specific song is can either post a recording or hum the tune that they can’t find the name for. Music savvy community members then respond to each user’s posting with the correct song name. The Facebook application picks random sets of 10 songs samples and you need to guess each one. Some of the samples include people humming out the tunes. So is this an iLike competitor? Definitely not. The application seems to be missing the viral component. I have to admit though that I was thoroughly entertained by a French girl screwing up the lyrics to the song “Cotton Eye Joe.” In comparison, the iLike application was smart in that you could compare your song naming skills with your friends. This application fails to leverage the social component of Facebook. I think this is a good start but definitely an unfinished product. If you want to go guess the songs that random people hum to you, check out the WatZatSong application.

ReverbNation just hit the nail on the head with their new application. They have made a simple and sleek application that enables band members to place all of their band’s music, shows, members and more directly on their profile. This is honestly the best band implementation I have seen so far. It is also genius how they have implemented it. The biggest challenge in launching a bands application is getting enough bands to fill a directory. This way, no directory needs to be filled. All of the bands are promoted on their own profiles. The next most challenging component of launching will be informing bands of the application. Artists are allowed to upload unlimited songs to their profile so that should make everything much easier. I spoke with the ReverbNation people a few weeks back and they told me that they were dedicating their entire development team to Facebook application development. It has definitely paid off. It looks like there is going to be a battle of the band applications soon. Numair Faraz’s Audio application (which is soon adding band features as mentioned in my previous interview with him) and ReverbNation’s application. If you have a band and want to promote it on Facebook, go grab the My Band application.

Last night I noticed a new bands application in the Facbook application directory created by Patrick Keenum. This is the first one to launch that is not a branded application for bands. Any band can have their own band page that includes their music, bio, pictures, gigs, lyrics and video. Additionally there is space for fands, band members and a wall. Ultimately, these are the basic features of any successful band social network site (e.g. Pure Volume). My only criticism of this application is that it doesn’t inherit existing Facebook styles effectively. If a basic version of this was created that included simple looking Facebook styles, I think this application could become insanely popular. While Numair Faraz has already stated that he is looking to launch a bands application in the coming weeks, I have a feeling that timing is critical. Maybe I am naive but I think there is a huge opportunity here. The next step though is getting good bands. If you know of any good bands that enjoy using Facebook tell them to check out this application. Currently there are only a few songs (none of which are phenomenal) but I have a feeling that this will soon change. If you want to see the competition among Facebook band applications in real-time, go grab the fBand application.

ReverbNation, a popular website that brings together artists, fans, venues, and record labels has just launched the first comprehensive bands application on Facebook. ReverbNation has spent the past 3 weeks developing this application, dedicating all of their company resources to its development. This definitely shows in the application. The application has a huge feature set that will be difficult to compete against. The only downfall with the application is that users have to sign up for the ReverbNation site in order to create a band page. I have to be honest, this application has a pretty massive feature set. It includes the ability to put your own custom playlist of ReverbNation artists on your profile, find shows, view charts, and create an artist page. Ultimately these are the features that any band application will need. As of last night, over 1,000 users had added the application and it seemed to be growing fairly steadily. I personally know of a few other band applications that are about to launch so it will be interesting to see how this pans out. While this is the first bands application to launch there will be at least 2 or 3 others that launch in the coming week. Ultimately, this will be a battle of feature sets, buzz worthiness, and talent. If you want to check out the first incarnation of a bands application for Facebook, go grab the ReverbNation application.

I love, love, love, love, love Elbo.ws; possibly the worlds best music blog aggregator. I noticed today that ‘itmay.be media’ wrote an app that cross references your music preferences (as defined by your profile) with the Elbo.ws blog network for mp3′s by those bands, and then links the mp3 to your profile. Having discovered 1000′s of amazing mp3 over the past two years (I wouldn’t dream of downloading copyrighted works of course) using the Elbo.ws service, I can only hope that this implementation will further augment the music discovery process that facebook users like me tend to get caught up in for hours and hours at a time. As a matter of fact, I just checked my profile and the Elbo.ws facebook app has identified “Death Cab For Cutie – Friday I’m In Love (Cure Cover)” as an mp3 I would like. Hot. You can get your Elbo.ws Facebook app here.

This is one of the coolest applications I’ve seen yet. One Bix Mix enables users to stream music to and from their Facebook friends. When you download the One Big Mix application you can specify your music folder and it will be displayed on your profile. When your friends download the application and add it to their computer you will be able to browse through their songs as well. Unfortunately I didn’t have the opportunity to get a thorough test of the application since there are bugs that are being worked out. The one thing I am wondering about this application is how much it slows down your computer and what sort of impact it has on your overall bandwidth while browsing the web. My guess is this is not quite as streamlined as Joost who has proprietary technology that makes streaming more efficient. If this application takes advantage of BitTorrent type technology then this could be insanely viral. Even if it doesn’t take advantage of BitTorrent technology it is still pretty cool. While the application still has bugs that are being worked out, you can go grab the OneMix application so that you’ll have it when it is ready for the big time.

It looks like the music industry is quick to adopt new technologies. The White Stripes’ new album that was released today is streaming live on Facebook with the White Stripes application. From what I have read in other places, today is the only day that you can stream the album. If you want to take a full access sneak peak, I suggest checking out this application. I personally enjoy the album so far, hopefully you do as well! As of now, just under 3,500 people have added the application to their profile. If you are into alternative rock or are a serious White Stripes fan, go grab the White Stripes application.

Apparently people on Facebook are pretty emotional. One of the most popular applications on Facebook currently is a Moods application by Kun Gao, Vu Nguyen and Jeff Marshall. Even Aryeh Goldsmith, one of the Facebook developers that I’ve previously featured, is getting in on the mood swing with his Moodster application. The coolest one that I have found so far though is Moodsic. Moodsic places your emotion on your profile for the world to see and also plays music to match your mood. Moodsic seems to be powered by Finetune which according to Mashable also added a Google widget today. When I added the application, I said that I’m “Very Excited” and it played a track by Green Day called “Ha Ha You’re Dead”. Maybe it wasn’t the best selection of a track, but hey we’re not all perfect. It also may have had something to do with my selection of emotion. There are hundreds of emotions to pick from so this made it somewhat challenging. Either way, this is a pretty cool application to play around with so go add the application, select your emotion, and listen to your Moodsic.

Highly popular Last.fm launched their official Facebook application yesterday. Last.fm, who was just purchased by CBS for $280 million provides users with an effective way of tracking all of their listening (and now viewing) habits on their computer. These listening habits are used to create an custom radio station that you and your friends can now listen to from the comfort of your Facebook profile. If you don’t already have a Last.fm account, the application will select songs from your favorite music in your Facebook profile and automatically generate a custom radio station. Many were wondering where why a Last.fm application had failed to launch yet. According to the Last.fm blog:

Since the launch of Facebook Platform last Thursday, certain parties have been wondering where our application was. The truth is that we were perplexingly left out of Facebook’s early development program, so while some of our competitors had six weeks to work on their stuff, we had to wait until Thursday like everyone else. The past six days have included 11-hour flights between London and San Francisco, a bank holiday weekend, and some very late nights pulled by our creative/webteam uber hax0rs… but less than a week later we have something for you to play with.

Additionally, new application features will be coming shortly. So head on over to the Last.fm application page and add Last.fm to your profile.

The hidden Audio application that launched on Facebook this past weekend has become extremely popular. Every minute there are around 100 songs being uploaded. I’m not sure who is footing the bill for this one but it has to be fairly pricey. Aside from the fact that there is huge bandwidth cost in maintaining the application, Facebook audio is technically illegal. The funny thing is that everyone that uploads a song can be tracked to their name. While there will be legal issues surrounding the privacy of people that are uploading music to the site, I can guarantee you that the RIAA is going to be documenting everyone that uploads music. Numair Faraz has this to say about the legality of the application:

Unlike previous developers working on audio file sharing software, I’m not some digital anarchist trying to “take down the system” or whatever. I’m a good friend of the music industry, and someone trying to help come up with ways for it to grow. I truly believe that the sort of socially-integrated audio experience that Facebook and Audio can offer will lead to the future of the music industry – both in terms of relevance and revenue.

As many people have noted, the digital music industry is only worth a couple of hundred million dollars. A lot of you guys who are reading this might think “well that’s a lot of money,” but it’s really not when you realize that CDs and such are a multi-billion-dollar business that is rapidly contracting. The music industry needs to find a new answer to its woes – and I think Audio can really help them in doing this.

The music industry that took down Napster is much different from the one we see today. They’re open to ideas, and I highly doubt they will feel threatened by the rise of Facebook Audio. I’m sure we’re all going to find a way to make each other happy.

I’ve always had a lot of friends in the music industry – partly as a kid who lives in Malibu, and partly because I’ve always been interested in really hard business questions – and there isn’t a question more difficult than “what’s the future of the record industry?” Audio will benefit from close relationships to the heads of all the major record labels provided by my longtime friend/mentor/collaborator Ralph Simon, who co-founded Zomba Records (you can very indirectly blame him for Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys). As I collaborate / go to dinner with managements of acts like Beyonce and D-12, I’ll also get great input and collaborations on that side. So yeah, don’t worry – the record industry isn’t going to come bust down this great thing we’re building here.

While Numair highly doubts the RIAA will feel threatened by the rise of Facebook Audio, he has never tried uploading millions of pirated songs before. In contrast to Facebook in which artists are uploading their songs for promotional purposes, Facebook Audio allows users to upload their own songs and anyone can listen to them without paying royalties. If Pandora wasn’t worried about paying royalties they wouldn’t be up in arms over the new legislation being passed to raise the royalties on music streamed over the net.

While Facebook Audio is a cool application (I’ve added it to my profile), I don’t see it lasting for long. Even Facebook has removed the application from their apps directory. I’ll use it for now, but the controversy hasn’t even begun.