Tumblr Music

Music.tumblr.com is now “The official guide to all things music on tumblr.” With the new blog site, the music tag is now officially being tracked by hand picked content from editors across the music spectrum. What does this mean for you or music discovery? Probably not much actually. It means that people usually Tumblr in a casual manner will have more opportunities for exposure to new music and music related events, but aside from that, there seems to be little impact on music enthusiasts right now. With Tumblr’s growth and engagement however, them sticking a toe in the music waters can only be a good thing. Facebook is so big that whatever they do is imminently “successful,” but if Tumblr is serious about music discovery and other facets of the space, then watch out Facebook.

Tumblr Music

Sonos PlayBar

There’s a lot that could be said about Sonos, the wireless speaker...

Sitting here listening/watching Andy Zipf stream a live acoustic performance, I can’t help but see the future of concerts so clearly. I’ve known on paper, like a lot of people, that streaming live shows was in the cards, just a matter of time and technology. However, once you experience a performance that you wouldn’t have otherwise been able to and once you experience the instant interaction, you can’t help but feel like the internet’s potential is finally catching up to the last 100 years worth of music.

Using Twitter as the communication line between performer and audience may or may not be the absolute best option, but it does work beautifully. With means to be able to easily see the same replies the performer is receiving, how much of the audience is participating, and instantly bring in other followers is the next level of concert going. Twitter use isn’t absent from current...

Maybe it’s because I’m usually the one sharing music links, or because I use most of the services, I didn’t realize how big of a deal it was when people link to music on services you don’t use. But based on the response I received from ‘Actually I use Rdio, Not Spotify, Your Link Is No Good To Me’, I touched on a nerve. Here’s some follow up and tricks to dealing with a million different services.

I updated the original post with a thought that if a Twitter client had a feature that let you set your default music service, it might solve the problem people run into. In this dream, the Twitter client would auto change all music links, redirecting to your service of choice. If the link didn’t change and you saw one outside your default you could assume it was the only one available. It turns out there is an app that works similar to that. Paul Dufour (Engineer at Brit.co) got in touch and...

Is there an etiquette for sharing music? A link to any of the music services, even the most popular ones, will inevitably fall on a few deaf ears of people you’re trying to reach. Not for lack of interest in the music, but rather in having to use a specific service. Since it’s 2013, you can’t just listen to music anymore, you need to be tied into an ecosystem. So, what’s the right way to share music, and actually get the other person to click through and listen?

iTunes, Spotify, Rdio, Xbox Music, Google Music, Amazon MP3, Rhapsody, Napster, MOG/Daisy, eMusic, and more. It’s a crazy and confusing time for people buying or renting music. This list of music stores and services is the reason that Youtube is the number one place for music online. The video service snuck up on actual music destinations because it was the most universally accessible way to share a song and get the other person...

Chirpify is a company that allows you to purchase items on Twitter, and now Instagram. If the idea sounds familiar it may be because American Express just announced a similar initiative, influenced by Chirpify no doubt. Music seems to have the biggest potential, or at least that’s what the company believes with their new chirpifylovesmusic campaign. They’re forgoing their 5% cut of sales forever from anyone who signs up before the end of February. 5% is a pretty low amount to begin with so dropping that in favor of gaining mindshare seems like the right move.

I’m of two minds when it comes to commerce on Twitter. The obvious conclusion is that it seems simple enough, there’s a big audience, why not provide the ability to purchase a song or other product with a reply to a tweet. Immediately playing devil’s advocate however, I just don’t see how it could possibly catch on with mass...

What if Spotify bought SoundHound, or teamed up with Shazam to add a prominent way to identify the music that lives around you on a daily basis?

Imagine standing in line when a song came on the speaker system that intrigued you. You Open a streaming music service app that immediately listened and identified the song in question and brought it up to play the full track without leaving the app or handing you off to another site that may or may not work correctly on your phone. This could be a big deal. But could this functionality promote discovery among people not usually bothered to take the time to dig into new music?

Recently in an interview I did with Stephen Phillips, who founded music discovery service We Are Hunted, he mentions that he thinks music discovery is only a problem for those interested in it, which is still a very small niche. If you don’t know you have a problem...

Music fans will voluntarily offer up the information that they obsessively read the liner notes. At some point over a [music based] conversation they’ll gush over reading all the lyrics, even reading through all the credits and thank-yous. I’m not sure why we do it either. I know why people like myself feel the need to do everything in our power to get closer to the music. By reading and knowing who played guest keys on tracks 2, 4, and 5 or which 14 people the band chose to thank, it somehow connects us to the music more. What I don’t understand is why we feel the need to brag about it like it means anything. Laying on your bed or sitting against the wall with the CD booklet open and the music playing doesn’t actually increase your level of coolness, it decreases it somewhat.

Beyond the connection reading the liner notes creates to a particular album, it’s also a sign of growing up...

Is 2013 the year when Music Discovery breaks into the mainstream? It seems like services are finally realizing they need a good discovery aspect to
their music offering. Is that your sense or have you been seeing
something else?

I am not sure what music discovery ‘going mainstream’ would look like.
If it means people start using a dedicated app to find new music,
separate from their music player, maybe that will happen. It would
have to be a very special app!

People who care about music enough to consider discovery a real
problem, are a very small niche. Maybe 10M fans worldwide. They are a
small segment of a larger group of people, you could consider serious
music fans. People who use products like Spotify. People who attend
live shows. People who care enough about music to have particular
tastes, or demand choice in what they listen to. The truth is that the
great majority of music...

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Any of my writing may be changed at anytime to correct factual, grammatical, or any other unforeseen errors. From this point on I shall be known as “Writer” and you shall be known as “Reader.” Capitalization of both writer and reader will have no impact on the legality of the clause which it is currently describing. Misuses of “said writer” and “if in fact” also bare no change to the meaning of the occupied sentence and should be manually corrected by the reader if in fact it does happen. 

The reader’s personal thoughts about this and other future writings may remain the reader’s own if, and only if, the reader has first made every effort to avoid...

We’re like the classic moth drawn to a flame. As humans we have a hard time resisting a new album review. We have to know whether a publication liked the music or not, whether they think the band has now gone too far away from their roots. We’re fickle people though and we also loath music reviews. We despise hearing cliché phrases to describe a guitar with a distortion pedal. The word “crunchy” can only be used so many times after all. Surrounded by Twitter, Instagram, and Vine, a mouth full of words is no longer suitable for describing music, it’s time to rethink the music review, again.

There’s several problems with reviews, of any kind, in general whether it be tech products or new music. You want to be first, you have to be first, but being first is the pitfall of any good review. Contrasted time is the killer feature missing from today’s reviews. Being able to initially review an...