Music Ally

Consultant Gerd Leonhard can be a divisive figure in music industry circles – he’s been ruffling the industry’s feathers for years at MidemNet with his presentations on how media and music will develop in the future.

We know he has a number of fans as well as haters in the industry though. So, for the latter – and anyone interested in keeping up with Leonhard’s views – he’s just released his official iPhone and Android apps, which are both free.

“As promised, and in-line with my new “Mobile First” mantra, I have been busy (re)-creating and formating exclusive content that you can only get via the iPhone or Android apps, such as various new podcasts and audio-only versions of my presentations, audio/mp3 versions of select chapters of my books, previously unpublished pictures etc,” he explains.

Hats – and indeed everything else – off to developer Webtechies for releasing an app so marvellously titled, it may get this blog blocked by firewalls around the world.

The $1.99 app is called ‘Top 100 Sensual Love Making Sex Songs’, offering “naughty and sexy songs to set the mood for those special moments”. Although our vigorous research (i.e. looking at the sample screenshots on the App Store) tells us that the app may not be quite as sensual as it promises.

Well, unless ‘Sex On The Beach’ by the Vengaboys and ‘(I Wanna Be) Your Underwear’ by Bryan Adams gets you in a sensual mood, of course. Yikes.

US streaming music service Grooveshark has been controversial for its lack of licensing agreements, and now it’s on the wrong side of Apple too.

The company says it’s given up trying to release its iPhone app on the official App Store, due to Apple “ritually rejecting” the app for “primary selfish reasons”.

Months after submitting the app for approval, Grooveshark has now launched it instead through unofficial app store Cydia, which can only be accessed by people who’ve ‘jailbroken’ their iPhones.

TechCrunch reports that the app itself is slick, letting users stream music and save playlists offline. There’s a big base of jailbroken iPhones out there, but even so, the vast majority of the 75 million iPhones and iPod touches remain locked to the App Store – meaning it’s a big opportunity lost for Grooveshark.

we7 will launch its Premium Plus music subscription service on 1st March, after Apple approved its iPhone app. The company will charge £9.99 a month for the service – matching Spotify – which will give unlimited streaming on PC and iPhone, with an offline mode for the iPhone app allowing playlists to be stored on the device.

“It’s a brilliant app and a game-changing way of consuming music,” CEO Steve Purdham tells Music Ally. “It’s outstanding to be able to create a playlist on your PC and instantly refresh your iPhone display to see it appear, then press the Off-line button to take all your favourite songs with you on the train, plane, car or just your mate’s house.”

iPhone won’t be the only smartphone supported by the service though. Purdham adds that apps for Android and BlackBerry handsets are on their way.

iPhone music games developer Tapulous is looking beyond iPhone for its hugely popular Tap Tap Revenge series, according to its VP of business development Tim O’Brien.

“To date we haven’t been motivated to move to another platform, but in 2010 we’re definitely looking to port,” he said, while appearing at the MidemNet Mobile Apps and Music panel session.

The Tap Tap Revenge games have now generated more than 25 million downloads on the App Store, and it was recently reported that Tapulous is making $1 million a month from them, through a mixture of game sales and in-app payments.

(more…)

UK music industry mag Music Week has launched its official iPhone app, with an interesting business model. The app offers the latest issue as soon as it’s published, as well as access to its archives.

It presents the print mag in a swipable, zoomable interface, with the ability to download it for offline reading on the tube or plane. The app costs £9.99, which includes a 30-day subscription – but after that, users have to pay to keep getting the content via in-app subscription.

Music Week has worked with Exact Editions on the project. It’s the latest magazine to get the app treatment, following in the footsteps of consumer publications like GQ.

Tapulous made its iPhone music game Tap Tap Revenge free just before Christmas, with the aim of making money from ads and in-app song purchases rather than an initial download price.

In the first 24 hours after going free, the game was downloaded 300,000 times. A week later, and it had racked up two million new downloads. On Christmas Day alone, 700,000 people downloaded it.

The question now is how many of those people will buy songs, and whether Tapulous can capitalise on its 20-million-strong userbase with ads – it signed an exclusive deal with mobile advertising firm AdMob earlier last year.

2009 has seen the rise of streaming services Spotify and Pandora (and the fall of several of their rivals); governments grappling with anti-piracy legislation; The Pirate Bay trial – and then its tragicomic sale saga; and hundreds of bright-eyed music start-ups and thousands of iPhone apps. And STILL no Yellow Submarine iPod.

We rounded up the key trends from the year for our final Music Ally Report of 2009, and the article is republished below in full. If you’re interested in our service in 2010, with its daily bulletin and fortnightly analytical report, click here for a free trial.

(more…)

2009 was the year of the App Store, as Apple passed the two-billion downloads milestone for its store, which now has more than 100,000 apps available. The year also saw labels and artists jumping onto the bandwagon with their own branded iPhone apps.

The most successful, like Smule’s I Am T-Pain (pictured right) sold tens of thousands of copies a day. It’s only fair to point out that the vast majority sank down the app charts fairly quickly though – proving that iPhone apps provide a return on investment for the music industry wasn’t a huge priority this year.

Even so, there was plenty of creativity being put to work. To highlight it, we’ve chosen a selection of 40 branded music apps that we thought were innovative this year – which were all covered in the Music Ally Daily Bulletin.

They’re all based on artists, labels and other music brands – the list doesn’t include apps for music services like Spotify or Pandora, nor does it include pure music games like Rock Band or Tap Tap Revenge (although one of the latter’s artist-branded spin-offs is included).

Read on for a snapshot of what was released this year, and let us know your thoughts on the best and worst of what the App Store had to offer. Oh, and yes, we’ve put them in a rough order reflecting how much we liked them, starting with the best.

(more…)

Going to MIDEM next month? There’s an app for that! Mobile Roadie has released an official app for the music industry conference, providing news, music and, er, a ‘fan wall’.

The same company is behind Swedish label Hybris’ official iPhone app, which is interesting because it offers the label’s entire catalogue for free on a streaming basis.

Finally, UK artist Belle & Sebastian have launched an app called twentyten, described as a calendar. It offers a news feed and “all the dates that matter to Belle & Sebastian in 2010′, while also bundling in music for fans to listen to.