WD TV Live Media Streamer Skips Internal Storage For Spotify

Chris Velazco is a mobile enthusiast and writer who studied English and Marketing at Rutgers University. Once upon a time, he was the news intern for MobileCrunch, and in between posts, he worked in wireless sales at Best Buy. After graduating, he returned to the new TechCrunch to as a full-time mobile writer. He counts advertising, running, musical theater,... ? Learn More

Western Digital is getting a lot of mileage out of their WD TV media players, and that trend continues today with the announcement of their new WD TV Live box. Unlike its big brother, the WD TV Live is strictly a streamer, but it has a reason to boast: it’s the first WD product to ship with Spotify support

The WD TV Live doesn’t have any internal storage to speak of, but it does sport 2 USB ports for all of you who carry thumb drives full of illicit TV shows.

Once it’s set up on a wireless network or an ethernet connection, the WD TV Live can access media from computers on your home network, or from content partners like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Pandora. It’s got enough horsepower to playback video content at 1080p, and supports a boatload of media formats from the mundane (like AVIs) to the more obscure (hello MKV!).

Ardent Spotify fans need not worry about missing out here. The WD TV Live supports a majority of Spotify features, like managing playlists, sharing songs, and subscribing to friends and fellow music lovers with good taste.

With companies like Microsoft looking to own the living room with their new media initiatives, it makes it harder and harder for boxes like the WD TV Live to pick up any steam. Still, its price point is sure to help: at $99, the WD TV Live is an inexpensive way to start streaming with minimal headaches. It’s set to appear in Western Digital’s online store shortly, and it shouldn’t be long before it hits your electronics retailer of choice.

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Spotify Will No Longer Be Invite Only In The US, And Users Get Their First Six Months Of Service Free

Alexia Tsotsis currently works for TechCrunch as a writer. She is also a blogger who attended the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA. She majored in Writing and Art, moving to New York City shortly after graduation to work in the Entertainment/Media industry. After four years of living in New York City and attending courses at New York... ? Learn More

I’m sitting here at Facebook’s F8 conference with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and he’s just told me that Spotify will no longer be invite-only in the US, and that the service will have no limitations (essentially be free) for an unpaid user’s first six months using the service — the clock will start ticking, and be retroactive, after a user signs up.

This six months leeway will be available both internationally and in the US.

The service is slowly rolling out the new features, so it might take a little time for invites to drop completely says Spotify community manager Andres Sehr. Users will need Facebook to bypass the invite system.

“For music to be inherently social it needs to be an open model, and that’s why we decided to do it today,” says Spotify representative Angela Watts. After the allotted six months have passed, music you encounter on Facebook will count towards your monthly Spotify limit, as you have to go through the Spotify app to listen to it.

Spotify’s tiered plans include a free version, which allows you to listen to up to ten hours free monthly, a $4.99 unlimited version which drops ads and $9.99 premium version which gives you unlimited mobile access in offline mode. “Paid users will continue to enjoy the service they have,” says Sehr.

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek On How The New Facebook Music Integration Will Work

Alexia Tsotsis currently works for TechCrunch as a writer. She is also a blogger who attended the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA. She majored in Writing and Art, moving to New York City shortly after graduation to work in the Entertainment/Media industry. After four years of living in New York City and attending courses at New York... ? Learn More

Before I lost my voice earlier today (yes, that’s me up there asking all those questions, NOT Marge Simpson), I sat down with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek at F8. Ek and I spoke about today’s “launch” of Facebook Music, which wasn’t a music console built on top of Facebook like some had conceived, but rather a partnership built around a dozen music apps — like Rdio, Mog and Iheartradio — through Facebook’s now extended Open Graph.

In addition to sharing their own and seeing their friends’ music listening activity in the new Facebook News Ticker, users will eventually see and share all music-related activity in a Music Dashboard in the left hand corner of their Facebook profiles, if they or their friends are using a partner app like Spotify. Users can access the “Listen with a friend” feature we reported on yesterday through either feed by hitting the Play button on their friend’s update.

Responding graciously to my pressing about the rumor I heard that Spotify was to power Facebook’s universal music player, an idea which eventually got scrapped, Ek went on to reveal that, because of the new Facebook integration, Spotify will be removing its invite-only barrier — In addition to giving non-paying users six months of unlimited music listening.

Okay great, but what if you don’t want your embarrassing musical taste to be broadcast to all your friends via Facebook? Hit up Applications > Spotify (or Rdio or whatever) > App Privacy >  Only Me.

Because only you need to know that you’ve been listened to that one Kid Cudi song basically on repeat since March.

Spotify has created a lightweight software application that allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums with virtually no buffering delay. It was launched in the fall of 2008 and had approximately 10 million users by September 2010. Spotify offers streaming music from major and independent record labels including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal. Users download Spotify and then log onto their service enabling the on-demand streaming of music. Music can be browsed by artist, album, record...

Learn more

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Facebook Announces f8 Speakers, Including Spotify And Turntable.fm CEOs

Jason Kincaid currently works as a writer at TechCrunch. He grew up in Danville, California and later relocated to UCLA in Los Angeles, California, where he studied biology with a minor in ‘Society and Genetics’. You can reach him at jkincaidtc@gmail.com (he has other addresses too, so don’t worry if you have a different one). ? Learn More

Facebook’s f8 developer conference is two days away and the company has been trickling out additional information related to the event, including the roster of speakers that will be appearing on its ‘Transforming Industries’ track. It includes plenty of familiar names — namely, some top executives and investors in the valley — which isn’t all that surprising.

But reading between the lines a bit, it may well give some insight as to who Facebook’s launch partners will be for the features that will debut at f8.

Among the speakers: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek will be speaking on a panel called ‘The Future of Digital Music’, which makes the much-anticipated launch of a Facebook Music platform seem all the more likely. Appearing on the same panel will be Clear Channel Chairman Bob Pittman (who, by the way, also founded MTV) and Troy Carter, CEO of Atom Factory.

Also notable is Turntable.fm CEO Billy Chasen, who is appearing on a Mobile+Social panel — perhaps we’ll see the hot social music service take part in the launch as well.

And, of course, there are plenty of well-known executives and VCs who have long been part of the Facebook ecosystem. Unsurprisingly, Zynga is the best represented, with execs speaking on two of the panels. Here’s the full list:

The Future of Digital Music:
The music landscape is evolving with new channels and innovative social experiences. Leaders in the industry will describe where things are headed.
Bob Pittman – Chairman, Clear Channel Media and Entertainment
Daniel Ek – CEO, Spotify
Troy Carter – Founder, Chairman and CEO, Atom Factory

Mobile + Social:
As mobile apps become ever more social, new opportunities are emerging. Listen to mobile developers discuss social and the future of mobile.
Paul Bettner – Vice President and General Manger, Zynga
Kristian Segerstrale – General Manager and Co-founder, Playfish
Alexa Andrzejewski – Co-Founder and CEO, Foodspotting
Billy Chasen – Co-Founder and CEO, Turntable.fm

The Rise of Social Gaming:
Social gaming is disrupting the traditional video game business. Top game executives will provide their views on the next big trends.
Barry Cottle – Executive Vice President, EA interactive, Electronic Arts
Kevin Chou – CEO, Kabam
John Pleasants – Co-President, Disney Interactive Media Group
Owen Van Natta – Chief Business Officer, Zynga

Investing in Social:
Hear leading venture capitalists discuss their views on the future of the social web.
David Sze – Partner, Greylock Partners
Matt Cohler – General Partner, Benchmark Capital
Kevin Efrusy – Partner, Accel Partners
Bing Gordon – Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 500 million users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskowitz and Chris Hughes to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original idea for the term...

Learn more

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

musiXmatch, The IMDB For Song Lyrics, Comes To iTunes & Spotify; Passes 1M Mobile Downloads

Rip Empson is a writer at TechCrunch. He’s not here to make friends, he’s here to WIN, and don’t you forget it. You can reach him at rip[at]techcrunch[dot]com ? Learn More

I don’t know about you, but I’m awful at remembering the lyrics to songs, and I often find myself turning to Google search to answer my lyrical questions — and frequently, to lose arguments. Apparently, I’m not alone, as “lyrics” is one of the most searched-for terms on Google. While a quick search is often all one needs to flick on the light switch, overall, lyric search remains a pretty disappointing (and frustrating) experience. There are tons of lyrics sites out there, but most of them are unofficial, don’t have rights to broadcasting free lyrics, or they’re hiding malware.

Founded in 2010, musiXmatch is a startup trying to solve this very problem by building a database of legal song lyrics on the web in the hopes of becoming the IMDB for legal song lyrics. So far, the site has collected over 5.5 million songs (in 18 languages) and is not only building a database that meets with international rights management standards, but it is also developing an API to distribute its lyrics to music publishers, services, app developers, and hackers. Phew.

Today, musiXmatch is announcing the official launch of its “musiXmatch Lyrics App” for Mac OSX, which is available for $5 on the App Store. The plug-in enables users to automatically view full screen lyrics for the music they’re currently playing and includes support for iTunes and Spotify.

The widget is still in its early stages, and the team said that it will soon be giving music fans the ability to search for lyrics by artist, song name, or keywords, and browse discography info on albums and artists — and share that info with friends through social networks. (Another cool update coming down the pipeline: Enabling listeners to automatically embed the lyrics into the id3 tag of your songs.)

For iTunes and Spotify users like myself, musiXmatch’s widget is a pretty cool little add-on to the existing listening experience, as it automatically matches your iTunes and Spotify libraries (and automatically opens both), works with both platforms’ “radio” features, allows you to share lyrics to Facebook and Twitter, and receive Growl notifications. (And it works with Lion.)

In addition to today’s launch of its iTunes and Spotify compatible iOS plug-in, musiXmatch also shared with us that their mobile applications, which are available on iOS, Android, Symbian, and Windows Mobile, have been downloaded more than 1 million times. Over 50 percent of those users are active on a daily basis.

musiXmatch’s mobile solution allows users to easily find and match lyrics for their entire mobile music library, and with desktop availability, a sweet API that lets developers easily distribute kosher lyrics, the startup is becoming a very appealing service for everything from radio streaming platforms and video services to tablet apps and OEM manufacturers. With partnerships that include BMG, Kobalt, Universal Music Publishing Group, and Sony ATV Music, among others, musiXmatch is becoming a very interesting business and platform.

But, what about competition, you say? Well my friends, look no further than TuneWiki. While musiXmatch is an up-and-comer, the well-funded TuneWiki has been going mobile with its lyric-centric social music player for quite some time now. MusiXmatch is, now, essentially the European equivalent. It will be interesting to see how the two vie for marketshare going forward.

Which would you choose, or both? Check ‘em out.

musiXmatch is a new challenging start up offering “Lyrics in The Cloud” via a scalable Lyrics API. musiXmatch is the first fully licensed provider of global lyrics solutions, enabling developers and music fans around the world to quickly and easily harness the power of online lyrics. Featuring the largest lyrics database in the world, musiXmatch is the first and only comprehensive solution for international lyric rights management. musiXmatch’s comprehensive lyrics API allows anyone to easily plugin and distribute authorized lyrics....

Learn more

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Music Search Startup SoundHound Partners With Spotify For Instant Streaming

Robin Wauters currently works as a staff writer for TechCrunch and lead editor of Virtualization.com. Aside from his professional blogging activities, he’s an entrepreneur, event organizer, occasional board adviser and angel investor but most importantly an all-round startup champion. Wauters lives and works in Belgium, a tiny country in Europe. He can often be found working from his home or... ? Learn More

Music search and discovery company SoundHound has inked a deal with digital music service provider Spotify to enable SoundHound users in Europe to instantly access the latter’s catalogue (of over 15 million tracks). From the sound of it, the partnership doesn’t enable users outside of Europe to cross that particular bridge just yet.

Starting today, SoundHound users on iOS and Android devices who also subscribe to Spotify Premium will be given the option to ‘Play Now in Spotify’ after identifying a song through the music discovery and recognition service. That goes for users of both the free and the paid SoundHound apps.

SoundHound users in Europe who don’t subscribe to Spotify Premium will be redirected to a page inviting them to become Spotify users before proceeding to listen to the track.

A direct Shazam (Encore) competitor, SoundHound’s ‘Sound2Sound’ technology searches sound against sound, thus bypassing traditional sound-to-text conversion techniques.

Headquartered in San Jose, California, SoundHound is backed by Global Catalyst Partners, TransLink Capital, Walden Venture Capital, and other Silicon Valley investors.

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.