From: owner-seven-seas@smoe.org (seven-seas-digest) To: seven-seas-digest@smoe.org Subject: seven-seas-digest V3 #453 Reply-To: seven-seas@smoe.org Sender: owner-seven-seas@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-seven-seas@smoe.org Precedence: bulk seven-seas-digest Saturday, November 13 2004 Volume 03 : Number 453 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 23:54:17 -0000 From: "KPJ" Subject: seven-seas I'm just passing this on from a friend might you do the same :-) I know it's no where near the same but it's perhaps a glimmer of hope (?????) Web users scrobble for Peel's legacy Internet music service uses your profile to guess what you want to hear next Bobbie Johnson Friday November 12, 2004 The Guardian John Peel's inimitable style might be irreplaceable, but an innovative online service is hoping it can offer some solace to the small record labels he championed. With the music market dominated by saccharine pop acts, music-matching sites such as Audioscrobbler say they aim to promote new music and broaden listeners' audio horizons - and benefit independent record companies who find themselves unable to compete with the majors. "This is absolutely one of the beauties of music online," said Sam Shentob, of the Association of Independent Music (AIM), the trade body that represents the UK's small labels. "Services like Audioscrobbler are a boon for independent music, which traditionally has to fight in areas that are saturated by big marketing budgets." The site, which started as a university project, is celebrating its second birthday with the launch of a new and improved engine. It has 30,000 active users and is registering more than 750,000 tracks every day. The concept is simple: the program notes what you are listening to whenever you play a track on your computer. By following your behaviour, it builds up a profile of your listening habits and compares you with other users. By examining the playlists of like-minded fans, it can suggest that you listen to artists which your "musical neighbours" recommend. "Word of mouth is one of the greatest 'tastemakers' you can have. It's extremely democratic," said Steve Johnston, the head of licensing at AIM. "Sometimes people are stumped by the sheer amount of tracks available. These services try to offer them things they might enjoy." "The original train of thought was to have a lazy way of finding the best new music," says Richard Johnson, 22, who built the Audioscrobbler software as part of his final year university dissertation. "I didn't want to have to read all the magazines, trawl record shops and listen to the radio all the time." What started as a pet project quickly became a profession. When the site opened, thousands of people tried it, and it caught the attention of a new company called Last.fm, which provides personalised online radio. Mr Johnson joined the team, and Audioscrobbler now forms the backbone of their service. "When we started, I moved to London to work on the project. Two of us slept in tents on the terrace," says Mr Johnson. "Now there are four of us working full-time on the project, and there are 150 record labels that are sending us stuff to promote their new artists." Ease of promotion is one of the reasons the music industry is finally starting to take notice of such web services, and they particularly appeal to independent labels that have little money to spend on promoting or developing new acts. "If somebody was listening to our artists before, nobody knew," says Akin Fernandez, the founder of the independent label irdial. "Now we've had more people listening to our music than ever before. It's a very accurate picture of what's happening in people's ears right now." While the mainstream record industry fights illegal downloading, smaller labels are using Audioscrobbler and its cousins - the acceptable face of peer-to-peer music sharing - as a viral marketing tool. Success lies in being able to capture wider information and increase the depth of musical recommendations. There are already add-ons, which register the tracks being played on Apple's iPod music player. The ultimate aim is to be able to track what people listen to on their hi-fi systems as well. Even if most music fans claim to have eclectic tastes, music-matching sites can find common strands in the most esoteric record collections. The service also reflects what is happening at music's grassroots at any given moment. "When it was announced that John Peel had died, the number of people playing The Undertones' Teenage Kicks began to shoot up," says Mr Johnson. "It carried on until it was right at the top of our charts." Pick of the sites Last.fm A personalised online radio station, powered by Audioscrobbler, which works out which music you like and plays it to you. Free, but funded by onsite revenues and special subscriptions. www.last.fm Musicmobs Very similar to Audioscrobbler but built specifically for users of Apple's iTunes music-playing software. www.musicmobs.com Weed Legalised file sharing. Listen to a track, buy it if you like it - and then take a share of the profit if you sell it on to your friends. www.weedshare.com Yahoo! Launch The corporate version of Last.fm: users have to rate tracks they listen to. Free to listen to, but listeners must endure on-air advertising. ===================================================================== Bunnymen Online Presence: http://www.bunnymenlist.com * http://www.bunnymen.info * http://www.bunnymen.com * http://www.fotolog.net/sgtfuzz/ * http://bunnymen.nexuswebs.net/ * http://www.angelfire.com/wy2/discog/ * ====================================================================== ------------------------------ End of seven-seas-digest V3 #453 ********************************