As its name would suggest, the service works over Blackberry's proprietary messaging platform, which can be used to share songs and playlists amongst other BBM Music subscribers. A subscription will cost $5 per month and include access to 50 songs at any given time. Twenty-five of those songs can be swapped out per month and users can gain access to more music via friends who opt to share it with them. Thus, the more socially connected you are via BBM Music, the more music you can listen to.

Like Spotify and Rdio, BBM Music lets users sync songs locally for offline listening. If they want to actually own the tracks, they have the option to purchase them as MP3's through Amazon.

As far as streaming music apps go, Blackberry users already have a handful to choose from, including Pandora, Last.fm and Rdio. Spotify, which just launched in the U.S. last month, is said to be working on their own app for the platform.

BBM Music is available as a closed beta to BBM 6 users in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom.

• Music Services - places like iTunes and Rhapsody where you can purchase or subscribe to music
• Music Discovery - places that help you find music - these fall generally into 3 subcategories:
  • Social - wisdom of the crowds sites like last.fm, iLike. Goombah and Qloud
  • Content-based - recommendations based on the music content - Pandora, SoundFlavor, MusicIP
  • Expert based - Music recommendations from people - music blogs, irateradio.com
• Music Experience Augmentation - sites to make your music listening experience more enjoyable - music dashboards like sleevenotez or Snapp Radio
• Playlist Sharing - this includes playlisting sites like MusicMobs, fiql and Webjay
• Music Metadata - add to the data surrounding the music - MusicBrainz, All Music Guide, Gracenote

The content hasn't been fleshed out on a lot of those pages, but still it's a good start and one to watch.

Via Lucas Gonze

The iPhone app is surely not as full-featured or integrated as something we'd expect to see from Google or Apple, but for two bucks and a bit of ingenuity, it'll certainly do.

Google users automatically get 1GB of storage and can buy 20GB more for $5 per year.

The app will play music files in MP3, MP4 and WAV formats and, according to the app's description in the App Store, if you upload the album as a folder with the cover image, it will even show the cover while the album is played. An even more exciting feature, however, is that you can "also play music shared to you by your friends".

This sharing feature could be the real selling point. If we have to take the time to upload all of my music to Google Docs and keep it synched up, we're not so sure it's worth it. Add in the ability for us and all of our friends to share our collections, however, and you have a deal. For just $2 and then whatever meager amount you might spend on Google storage, it surely seems like a deal.

You can also now purchase music from the Android Market. It's available in high-quality, 320kbps MP3 format, and you get a 90-second preview before you buy in the store. But to drive more sharing and purchases, the service is integrated with Google+. Music that's shared to Google+ can be played back in its entirety by anyone in your circles.

Facebook is a social network bigger than most countries, so Spotify's streaming-only music business has a scale advantage. But Google Music offers something no other social music service does: full-length, high-quality playback for all your friends on Google+. Google Music is a compelling offering, giving users a 20,000-song streaming locker for free, and the Android Market music store has lots of discovery features. Would a great music service like this drive you to use Google+ more?

The content in YouTube's music top 10 is somewhat similar to that of Ultimate Chart - and Billboard for that matter. 4 of the top 5 on YouTube are also in the Ultimate Chart's top 10. That's almost certainly due to the mainstream popularity of those 4 artists: Jennifer Lopez, Katy Perry, Chris Brown and Bruno Mars. In other words, that music would be at or near the top of any pop music chart.

I like the breakdown of the YouTube 100 homepage into different genres, including ones not traditionally seen in music charts: New Age, Stage & Screen, Comedy/Spoken (that one is not actually music, but whatever). Also the events listing, powered by Songkick, is a nice touch.

YouTube is planning to archive the charts "for future exploration of original recordings, music memes, and pop hits."

While any top 10 music list featuring Rebecca Black (who is currently #8) is of questionable legitimacy, at least in terms of hipness, YouTube 100 is nevertheless a handy addition to the online music ecosystem.

Echo Nest is a music developers' platform that analyzes music in various ways, including BPM, mood, similar and dissimilar artist permutations and 29 others. The company offers a gallery of apps built on its system. The Rdio API was unveiled early this Spring and includes an affiliate program for subscription sales. Will developers want to build music apps that require subscription to a 3rd party service? That remains to be seen, but adding Echo Nest capabilities to the total offering certainly makes it stronger.

The new service lands in a somewhat crowded space, but focuses on social sharing among Blackberry users specifically, something that may set it apart from other music services in the minds of RIM customers.

Is This Service Necessary?

The service has an interesting model, to say the least. Its success appears to depend on virility, yet it's only available to Blackberry users and costs money to sign up. Those are two sizable barriers to something going viral if we ever saw them. Cross-platform music streaming services Spotify and MOG have been slow to launch apps for Blackberry, but Rdio is available on the platform. That service offers unlimited streaming of millions of songs and has social features of its own, but costs twice as much as RIM's new offering.

In theory, making a bunch of friends on BBM Music can unlock a ton of new songs. But even if you had 20 friends on the service, and each of them had 50 tracks in their library, that's 1,050 songs for you (including your own). Compared to the 12 million songs available on Rdio.

Does BBM Music have enough to draw users in? At first blush, it doesn't seem like it. That said, Blackberry users have more limited music streaming options than those on iOS and Android devices. A limited offering at a smaller price tag may turn out to be a sweet spot for some.

Just Burn a CD

As we reported last week, Yahoo was already advising its customers to circumvent its own DRM system by just burning copies of their songs onto audio CDs and then ripping them back onto their computers as DRM-free MP3s. Apparently, though, not all customers were satisfied with this solution, though given the new solution, enterprising customers could also, of course, now burn their songs to CDs and still ask for their money back from Yahoo.

Costly Precedent

Yahoo is setting a (costly) precedent here for other music services than run into similar problems.  When MSN Music shut down, it was originally going to take its licensing servers offline within a year, but because of customer complaints, it is keeping them online until the end of 2011. MSN Music is not planning on returning any money to its customers, though.

"Of course, with webjay, there is a more black-and-white issue. Is the material obviously illegal or not?"

This touches on what I wrote the other day about not being able to link to Lucid 3 and other New Zealand music using WebJay. Following on from Jim's query, I'm wondering how much of popular music is available free online? For example, if I wanted to create a playlist of my favorite songs in the Billboard Top 100 this week, how many of those songs would be available to me as free links? Anyone know an estimate?

How about more 'niche' music - like for example New Zealand music? It would be really interesting to find out what is the ratio of free linkable songs (which I hereby christen with the acronym FLS) to songs you have to pay to listen to, for each genre of music. Does bluegrass for example have a higher FLS ratio than blues? The higher the FLS (Free Linkable Songs) ratio, the better.

Today, YouTube is getting into the music recommendation and discovery game with an update to its music page.

This latest offering has a similar feel and, in some ways, feels like getting a bit of MTV back from the 90s, when it actually played music. Unlike sites like Pandora or HypeMachine, the big advantage here is visual - welcome back to watching a streaming feed of music videos, not just listening to songs. The new page "showcases the most viewed music videos, special promotions, curated playlists, unsigned talent and gives you the ability to create on-the-fly mixes." It also lets you simply chose a genre and go, letting the site pick the music from there. According to the blog, we can also look forward to local music listings in the near future.

To visit YouTube's redesigned music page, go to www.youtube.com/music.

The iPad's native Music app (essentially, a stripped down version of iTunes for the iPad) got a visual overhaul as part of iOS 5, complete with a new home screen icon. In terms of feature set, the app remains pretty basic. You can play back albums and podcasts, manage playlists and of course, jump over to the iTunes Store to download more music.

The new native music app certainly has an improved look and feel. For our money, third party streaming services like Rdio and Spotify (whose iPhone app works on iPad as well) offer a more compelling music-listening experience on the device. For users who have large local music libraries, however, the iPad's built-in option may be the way to go.

• Facebook is the largest social network in the world with well over 100 million monthly active users
• Rival MySpace has recently launched MySpace Music, and is currently more profitable than Facebook
• Facebook is rumored to be partnering with either iLike, imeem, LaLa, or Rhapsody

]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/rww_predictions_facebook_music_coming_soon.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/rww_predictions_facebook_music_coming_soon.php Predictions Sun, 26 Oct 2008 19:14:22 -0800 Corvida By now - the beginning of a new decade and well into the 21st century - it's a story we've long come accustomed to: the music industry is dying a slow, painful, sputtering death at the hands of the Internet.

According to analyst firm Forrester's latest report, 2009 was "a lousy end to an even lousier decade" for the music industry and we shouldn't expect much different until at least 2013. Last year, as a matter of fact, was one of the worst years yet, with a 13% decline from the year before.

]]> For much of the report, the numbers only confirm what we've already come to expect over the past decade. Music industry revenues in 2009 were $6.3 billion, less than half what they were in 1999, and people spent 32% less in 2009 on music than they spent in 2008.

Of course the economy can't be helping these numbers, but Forrester sees this as a trend that is going to continue until it gradually starts to even out in 2013. By 2014, the company predicts music industry revenue to level off at around $5.5 billion with digital sales taking up most, but not all, of the slack.

The report also has one interesting event to note for 2012 and, no, it isn't the destruction of the world at the hands of a Mayan death clock - digital music sales will finally surpass sales of physical media like CDs and vinyl.

While it goes on to say that 2010 will be a better year than 2009 for the growth rate of spending on digital music, the overall numbers will likely trend downwards after that, as shown in the graph above.

]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/report_digital_music_sales_will_surpass_cds_in_201.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/report_digital_music_sales_will_surpass_cds_in_201.php News Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:20:00 -0800 Mike Melanson We just pointed out Audiolizer as one of the three music services you should try next year, and thanks to a slew of new features the developers implemented this week, we think it has become an even more compelling service. At its core, Audiolizer is similar to a lot of other online music services that let you stream music for free, but now, you can also import your iTunes library to Audiolizer and take your own music with you anywhere you go.

]]> iTunes to Go - Based on YouTube

After signing up for Audiolizer, you only have to export your iTunes library and upload it to the service. We tried this out with a relatively small, 1000 song library, and Audiolizer was able to import almost all of them. Unlike Lala, however, which offers a similar service, Audiolizer does not upload and store any of your songs that are missing from its database.

This, however, is typically not a major problem, as Audiolizer is able to draw upon a very large database of songs. While Audiolizer bills itself as a streaming music service, it actually gets its music (and accompanying videos) from YouTube. For some reason, however, Audiolizer downplays this reliance on Google's popular video sharing site and the videos are not even linked to their original YouTube pages and only appear in a very small window.

One feature we would still like to see is the ability to share your playlists with friends. Audiolizer is also still working on a music suggestion feature, which should be available shortly. Even without these, however, Audiolizer is definitely a music service worth trying.

]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/audiolizer_take_your_itunes_library_with_you.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/audiolizer_take_your_itunes_library_with_you.php Product Reviews Tue, 30 Dec 2008 09:02:42 -0800 Frederic Lardinois According to an AP news story that ran yesterday afternoon, the upcoming MySpace Music service is definitely happening. Based on reports from music executives, who spoke only under the condition of anonymity, News Corp. has approached the four major record labels to discuss the launch of a music service that would operate via the MySpace social networking site. The executives also confirmed earlier rumors about the nature of the services that would be offered - according to them, the service will offer free streaming music, mp3 downloads, and a subscription plan. Can we say iTunes killer?

]]> The four major record companies approached, sometimes referred to as "the big four," are Universal Music, Sony BMG, Warner Music, and EMI. These four companies would receive an equity stake in the new company, according to one of the anonymous executives cited in the news item.

According to initial plans being discussed, the new company, which will likely go by the name "MySpace Music," will offer MySpace's 68.6 million U.S. visitors an ad-supported music player, which could be embedded on other web sites or blogs. It's possible that this player could be from Snocap, since they are already powering the MySpace Music services that currently exist. There is also talk of a partnership with Amazon, in which Amazon would build a white-label version of their mp3 music store for MySpace, offering DRM-free downloads of tunes.

Although the initial reaction to hearing this news prompts most people to immediately think iTunes killer (which very well may be true), a secondary victim would be streaming music services and web radio services, like the currently popular Last.FM. Similar to the way that a Walmart comes into a town and mom-and-pops go out of business, I can see a possible impact on the smaller, niche streaming radio services...how will they compete when MySpace will offer it all - the big names artists and the independent artists?

]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/anonymous_music_execs_confirm_details_of_myspaces_upcoming_music_service.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/anonymous_music_execs_confirm_details_of_myspaces_upcoming_music_service.php Digital Lifestyle Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:44:56 -0800 Sarah Perez