Written on June 29, 2008 – 9:00 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Summer in the City by Joe Cocker, Coldplay’s Clocks, and Loser by Beck are essentially all purple songs, they’re just from different decades - according to Rockola.fm. This Spanish site gives the whole “music to suit your mood”-thing a new boost by combining several factors we’ve seen separately on other sites before. It combines the color factor from Guitarati, the year factor from Yamelo, and the similar artists factor from Last.fm.
So you start by clicking somewhere in the colorful circle, or by typing in your favorite artist. Your semi-personal radio station then starts blasting away. Don’t worry about making the wrong start, as you can always correct Rockola by giving a thumbs up or down for a certain song. Along the way, Rockola will learn about your taste. I personally hate it when an algorithm claims that it can determine what my music taste is, I don’t even know what I like myself. But hey, maybe this promise does work for you.
It’s recommended to sign up, as this gives you access to a tagging feature, unlimited listening time and a share option. Well, thank you but no thanks, Rockola is a fun way to explore new songs, but I don’t see it becoming my main source for new music. For that, I stay close to an old friend, owned by CBS.
I hope you like that post!
The Next Web Blog covers start-up news from all over the world (not just the Valley), exciting new technologies and inspiring entrepreneurs. If you're new here, you may want to read our '
About' page and subscribe to our
RSS feed.
Do you have a start-up that we should write about?
Contact us! Thanks for visiting and hope you come back again!
Written on June 23, 2008 – 10:31 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
When you’ve read the interview with Media Futurist Gerd Leonhard a couple of weeks ago, you know there’s a huge shift in music going on. The early adopters don’t download music anymore, but listen to it on the web. These Last.fm lunatics and MySpace maniacs all ask the same question: why would we wait for a download to finish? They want to listen right a way. In this changed music landscape, people also prefer a different, faster, and better way of sharing. Well guys, welcome SoundCloud.
Founders Eric Wahlforss and Alexander Ljung
This Swedish/ German start-up allows you to share your own music with friends, fans, and possible fans - your could - and has made quite an effort to make this process as easy and intelligent as possible. No more cluttered emai boxes with large files, but a clean and good-looking place where your tracks are gathered. When you’ve used the - very smooth - uploading tool, you can publicize the music by using the embeddable player (there’s a Facebook button as well). Then, the fun part starts, at least, I hope it’s fun for you.
Your cloud can start fine tuning your music, literary, as it’s possible to put comments on a music time line. No more endless conversations about where that strange little sound is, just put a dot there. I think music fanatics have enough material here to have fun for at least a week.
Is it all sunshine at SoundCloud? Well, for the user, the answer is almost yes. There’s one thing though, I wonder whether your music library will be open. Can you download your tracks when you’ve accidentally lost your collection?
Apart from that, the main challenge for founders Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss seems to be the business model. How will these guys make money? The service is in private beta, and so far, I can’t discover any features that would grant these two Sweeds and their team any money. Though they probably will receive some high bills for data usage. I’m sure the angel founding they received in 2007 and 2008 will help to get them started, but I wonder how long they can cope with the - unavoidable - popularity.
However, they’ve got their corporate image, user interface, and killer app all pretty lined out, so I think I just have to trust these guys business instinct. Will you? Give it a shot and grab one of the fifty invites.
Written on June 13, 2008 – 5:24 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Would you like to know where to see your favorite artist this summer? Head over to The Last(.fm) Music Map, a - good guess - Last.fm/ Google Maps mash-up by Italian webdeveloper Michele Marcucci. The Music Map imports concert data from Last.fm and shows it on a Google map of the world. The site also showcases similar artists to the one you were searching for. And guess what, I’ve already bought a ticket via this übercool mash-up
My hero used to be Lenny Kravitz. Till my sixteenth I used to buy every album the man released. One minor detail though, I’d never seen him on stage. Well, this is gonna change as I’ve found out via Music Map that the 44-year old rocker will perform in Holland on June 28th.
Though I’m happy with my concert ticket for mr. Kravitz, I’m pretty sure this will be my last visit to Music Map. There’s nothing that stimulates me to come back. So an useful contribution the site would be a ‘keep me up to date’ option. Like a RSS feed or weekly newsletter. Otherwise I’ll just browse to the events section of Last.fm.
By the way, checking out where your music hero is playing is not the only interesting aspect of the Music Map, as you can also tell how hectic it must be to be a rock star. A map like this makes you realize that these guys are flying some miles. I guess I’ll stick to blogging…
Written on June 1, 2008 – 1:37 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
I remember when I had first installed Last.fm on my Mac. When Last.fm was done scrobbling all the songs I had played so far, hours of studying all the interesting tables and numbers that showed up followed. After years of playing music with no specified overview of what I listened and when, Last.fm answered almost all my questions. But now there’s a new kid on the block which even fascinates me more. It’s called LastGraph and offers some eye-candy in the form of Last.fm data visualizations. Here’s one:
This is a time-line poster. It took me five minutes of waiting before LastGraph had analyzed my data and another 2 minutes to crunch it into this “ocean, medium detailed” poster. So it took this web-app some time, yet I love the result. As it turns out, I’m quite predictable when it comes to listening music. Every time I go to a concert, I listen to that artist or band obsessively. See Kaiser Chiefs in November, Arctic Monkeys in December, Eels in March, and The Wombats in April. The Joy Division spike is caused by the excellent movie Control from Anton Corbijn. And can you tell when I got my iPod Touch?
If you want a closer look, it’s a matter of looking up the Artist History Graph. By crunching out the Kaiser Chiefs data, you can tell it was a one-day show. The love for this rock act didn’t last till after the concert (blue arrow):
All the data is available for exporting in Excel, CVS, and JSON formats. For 10 dollars a year, you get a premium account which comes with hotlinking to your graphs and some small dynamic signature images you can use for forums or other similar things.
So, LastGraph has shown me I’m predictable when it comes to listening music. To get an insight like this, and a bunch of more graphs and time lines, browse to LastGraph. The site is written and run by Andrew Godwin, and I think he has a great job. Now it’s just a matter of waiting for him, ’cause it wouldn’t make sense if Last.fm didn’t acquire this pure API magic.
Written on December 22, 2007 – 12:44 am
Robert Gaal, co-founder of Wakoopa
Well, you be the judge. Take a look at what CBS money can buy.
Yes, this is not a joke. Last.fm built an actual ball pit in their office, just like XKCD. I think this ranks pretty high amongst the top 10 of the coolest things I’ve- no wait, this is the best thing ever. How long do you think it will take for some reporter to see this as a sign that Web 2.0 has jumped the shark?
All we have at The Next Web office is a ping pong table… That’s it, I’m on strike!
Email
Facebook
Netlog
Linkedin
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
