Continue reading Paul McCartney: ‘You can keep free streaming for the birds and bees, now give me money’

Paul McCartney: ‘You can keep free streaming for the birds and bees, now give me money’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Rhapsody music streaming lands on Android tablets with ‘magazine-style’ app

Rhapsody music streaming lands on Android tablets with ‘magazine-style’ app originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Earlier this week, Pandora announced that it would finally be dropping its longtime support for Flash in favor of HTML5. The move is one piece of a big redesign for the site, one which will begin rolling out to Pandora One (the / year premium version) subscribers in pieces, as part of a limited testing period before being made available to the service’s entire massive user base.

The timing could have been more ideal, of course. A day after the announcement, Spotify quickly grabbed the attention of those following the online music industry by formally launching in the US. It’s important to note right off the bat, however, that these two services are not really direct competitors, in spite of how some might spin it. Spotify is an all-you-can eat subscription service, making it more akin to the likes of a Rhapsody and Napster. Pandora, on the other hand, is built largely around passive music discovery. You log-in, you enter an artist, and you let the music come to you. This redesign takes that ease of use to a whole new level. Check out our impressions below.

Continue reading Pandora Radio’s HTML5 redesign hands-on

Pandora Radio’s HTML5 redesign hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 Jul 2011 12:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Spotify’s journey to the US has been highly anticipated almost since the on-demand music streaming service first launched in its native Europe in October 2008. And with good reason: Spotify is really cool. Now that the service is finally available here, American audiences are finally getting to see first-hand what all the hype has been about.

But with all the buzz about Spotify, let’s not forget about the great music services that were born in the USA. How do they measure up to the Sweden-bred Spotify, which has amassed more than 10 million users in Europe alone, more than 1 million of whom are paid subscribers?

Here’s a look at a few of the more popular ones:

• iLike
  Headquarters: Beverly Hills, CA
  Founded: 2002
  What it is: A service that allows users to share and play songs within social networking sites.
  How big is it? iLike says it has more than 60 million registered users. In 2009, the company was acquired by MySpace for a reported million.

• MOG
  Headquarters: Berkeley, CA
  Founded: June 2005
  What it is: An ad-free subscription on-demand music service, and an online radio service.
  How big is it? MOG does not provide user or subscription figures. What we do know is that MOG has raised million in venture capital and has 11 million songs in its library.

• Pandora
  Headquarters: Oakland, CA
  Founded: January 2000
  What it is: A personalized Internet radio service available in a free, ad-supported version and a subscription-based, ad-free version.
  How big is it? Pandora has more than 90 million registered users, according to recent regulatory filings. The company collected 7 million in revenue in its most recent fiscal year, and has a relatively limited library consisting of 800,000 songs. Pandorais publicly traded on the NYSE, and currently has a market cap of .8 billion.

• Rhapsody
  Headquarters: Seattle, Washington
  Founded: December 2001
  What it is: An on-demand subscription music service. Rhapsody started with a catalog consisting of mostly classical music, but now spans all genres.
  How big is it? Rhapsody has more than 800,000 paying subscribers and more than 12 million songs in its library, according to a recent PaidContent report. The company has not disclosed any revenue figures since it spun out of Real Networks in 2010 with an million initial investment, but it reportedly expects to become profitable this year.

• Slacker Radio
  Headquarters: San Diego, CA
  Founded: 2004; launched March 2007
  What it is: An interactive Internet radio service with social networking features; Slacker recently launched a paid on-demand music streaming feature as well.
  How big is it? Slacker has between 3 million to 5 million users, around 300,000 to 400,000 of whom are paying subscribers, according to a recent report by North County Times. The company has raised million in venture capital and has more than 8 million songs in its library.

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but rather a snapshot of a few music services that have been available in the US from day one. If you have any personal favorites, please chime in using the comments.

Image courtesy of Flickr user mrsdkrebs.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

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In case you weren’t aware, Apple’s newly launched App Store subscriptions aren’t sitting so well with everybody. While the functionality could of course be a boon to services that have struggled getting paying customers, folks who have already been doing just fine, thank you very much, are balking at the new restrictions Apple has imposed. Rhapsody has issued a statement, which says that it’s not going to play ball and even levels a bit of a threat: “We will be collaborating with our market peers in determining an appropriate legal and business response to this latest development.” The big trouble stems from the fact that Apple requires anybody offering a subscription service to offer that service for the same price or less through Apple. That means you can still sign up folks through your own methods and get all the cash, but if anybody signs up through your app, Apple gets a 30 percent cut. In addition, Apple is no longer allowing applications to include a link to an external site for purchasing, which means vendors will have trouble getting new users to pay them directly instead of using Apple’s simple but heavily-taxed option. Rhapsody claims that it can’t offer its services at existing prices with Apple grabbing that much of the revenue, and it sounds like Rhapsody will be leaving the App Store soon if an agreement isn’t struck.

Of course, this is just the shiny surface of the dirt Apple’s new policies have scuffed up, and we might even have an antitrust case on our hands, according to the Wall Street Journal. Check out the more coverage link for more on that, and follow after the break for Rhapsody’s statement in full.

Continue reading Rhapsody won’t bow to Apple’s subscription policy, issues statement

Rhapsody won’t bow to Apple’s subscription policy, issues statement originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 17:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Included in this episode: Ipod Nano, Sonos Controller, Rhapsody, Sonos S5, Lenovo Ideapad S12, Lenovo T400S, Casio EX-H10, Panasonic Lumix FZ35, Canon Ti1, Ecosol Powerstick, iGo Charge Anywhere. Watch hundreds of free full-length streaming movies and TV shows on www.crackle.com Tags The Esquire Digital Man Holiday gift guide #1 Ep: 01005 Barry Sonnenfeld technology high tech review Men in Black crackle free TV movies originals Pushing Daises The addams family Miller’s crossing When Harry met sally Big Raising Arizona geek faq cnet Ipod Nano Sonos Controller Rhapsody Sonos S5 Lenovo Ideapad S12 Lenovo T400S Casio EX-H10 Panasonic Lumix FZ35 Canon Ti1 Ecosol Powerstick iGo Charge Anywhere