MOG offered me a free trial to its subscription-based streaming music service, MOG All Access, which launched on Tuesday. The service costs five bucks a month, and gives you unlimited on-demand streams of more than six million songs from all four major labels and plenty of indies. The site is trying to differentiate itself from competitors like Rhapsody and Napster with high-quality streams--all songs are 320kbps MP3s--and some fairly sophisticated music discovery features, like playlists posted by musicians (David Byrne got the featured spot on the day of launch) and other fans with similar tastes to yours ("Moggers like me").
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I've been sampling the service for about an hour, and I do appreciate the sound quality (although better volume-leveling between songs would be nice) and recommendation services. And I'd like to thank the designers personally for the ability to add any song to the already-playing queue--a feature I love on Grooveshark and my Zune HD and that I always miss whenever I use one of my iPods. But there's one big problem: song selection.
Because MOG is licensing content directly from copyright owners, there are big gaps from artists who simply don't want to participate in online music. The usual suspects like AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, and the Beatles are mostly missing in action. There are also strange gaps elsewhere. For instance, half the songs on the Pixies' "Surfer Rosa" are unplayable. Compared with Grooveshark, which relies on user-posted content, MOG has too many holes. And of course, Grooveshark remains free (although a $3/month subscription gets you a version without advertisements).
Song selection could improve over time as MOG signs more licensing deals, but I found some other related glitches as well. For instance, '70s folk artist Roy Harper, whom I often use as a test case to see how well an online service does with relatively obscure old content, has almost no playable content, but does offer a nice list of albums with links to Amazon. The only problem: when you follow the Amazon link on unplayable songs, it takes you to the Amazon Music front door--most of his songs aren't available for download there, either.
In its demonstration video, MOG touts its online radio service as a unique feature. When you're playing a particular artist, a slider lets you control how much variety you want, from "play only songs by this artist" all the way up to "play mostly songs from similar artists." It could use some fine-tuning, however. When I started a queue with a Modest Mouse song, it used Modest Mouse as the basis for its selection. Fair enough, but when I added songs by Talking Heads and Public Image Limited, the radio algorithm didn't account for those artists. It simply switched my radio playlist completely when the new songs started playing, showing all Talking Heads songs, all PIL songs, and so on. Pandora and Slacker do a much better job of creating custom stations based on multiple artists. (Although, of course, those services don't let you play individual songs on demand.)
Finally, as I wrote last week, I still think MOG's lack of mobile support is a fatal flaw, but one that could be easily remedied: Apple's approved iPhone clients for subscription services Rhapsody and Spotify, so why not MOG?
All of these flaws can be fixed, although licensing content takes time and convincing. I'm a big fan of competition, though, and MOG takes many of the best features of a lot of other services, combines them in one place, and improves on some of them. For that, the company should be commended.
Pandora, with new Facebook, Twitter, and Gift sharing features.
(Credit: Screenshot by Harrison Hoffman/CNET)Pandora on Wednesday announced the arrival of some new sharing features for the service. In the past, you have been able to share Pandora stations, but you were forced to do it via e-mail instead of taking advantage of one of the modern social networks. Now, Pandora is enabling station and song sharing via much more efficient means: Facebook and Twitter.
These features work pretty much exactly how you would think they would. Clicking on the Facebook icon pops out a Facebook window, allowing you to share either the current song or station. The Twitter integration works in much the same way, enabling you to tweet out a link to the current song or station. When you click on the station link that someone has shared, it whisks you away to their Pandora station and lets you listen. However, the song links only go to a landing page that gives you a 30-second preview and an option to create a station based on that song. Oddly, this page does not give the user the "Buy from Amazon/iTunes" option that Pandora's main app features.
In addition, Pandora is bringing more attention to its station-gifting feature. This feature basically allows users to create an entirely new station, pair it with an eCard and send it off to someone. Pandora is essentially trying to create the modern version of the mixtape. This feature has been around for a little while, but it has gained little attention to this point. The more prominent placing in Pandora's music player may change that.
These new sharing features should boost usage of Pandora. Tapping into the previously untouched power of Facebook's social graph and Twitter can only be a good thing. Pandora is just coming off of reaching an agreement on new royalty rates for music this summer and it's working toward its goal of being profitable by the end of the year. They're also facing some stiff competition from companies like Slacker. Pandora still has a long road ahead, but opening up its service to sharing on Facebook and Twitter is definitely a step in the right direction.
Digital music site Last.fm is like Pandora on steroids. The site allows devoted music fans from around the world to compare tastes, stream music from their favorite artists, stay up to date on local shows, download free MP3s, and create their own custom radio stations.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Last.fm's open API has given rise to hundreds of user-created applications, plug-ins, web tools, mash-ups and widgets. No other music site offers more tools or more features to help users connect with each other and the music they love.
Unfortunately, the deep features that makes Last.fm so appealing to hardcore music nerds, can also make the site a little intimidating to first-timers and casual listeners. Like a freshman dance, folks will often just find one comfortable corner of Last.fm and lose sight of everything else going on around them.
If you're interested in breaking out of your Last.fm rut, I've put together a quick video guide and slideshow, illustrating some ways to take your experience further.
Disclosure: Last.fm is a property of CNET parent company CBS.
When Opera released its widget software development kit last year, there was little doubt that some cool applications would make their way to the company's browser. More than a year later, they indeed have.
I've been sifting through hundreds of Opera widgets that all work with the Opera browser for your Mac, Linux box, or PC. I've found 10 that stand out from the others. Opera users should definitely try these out.
10 Opera widgets
Brainkrieg Brainkrieg is a fun game that does its best to "exercise your brain." The tool gives you a variety of games to play that test your memory and help you think. The point of the game is to decrease your brain age. It's somewhat similar to Brain Age on the Nintendo DS, but the latter is a bit more sophisticated.
Brainkrieg helps you improve your memory.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Dotoo Dotoo is a to-do list widget in your Opera browser. You can create a host of to-do lists and access them all from within the widget. Adding tasks is as simple as pressing the "+" button under your list and inputting your task. It's not a sophisticated widget, so you won't be able to track your progress. But if you want to quickly add a few tasks, you should be happy with what you find.
Dotoo lets you create a quick to-do list.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Facebook Notifier Facebook Notifier gives you a listing of all your friends' recent status updates. You can't update your profile in the application, but you can easily access your profile with the links in the widget. It might not be the most useful app, but if you want to see what your friends are up to while you're browsing outside Facebook, it's a fine choice.
Facebook Notifier keeps you up-to-date.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)We all like to share songs with friends, and we all have songs that share meaning with loved ones. Perhaps that's why there are so many music social networks out there. These sites combine both, and make music exploration and enjoyment something that you're not doing on your own.
From the well-known to the obscure, I've been exploring a variety of music social networks that you'll definitely want to check out:
Buzznet is a great way to connect with other music lovers. You can write status updates and view an activity feed that shows what your friends are listening to. You can also tell all your friends what your "song of the moment" is and post it to a profile that can be completely redesigned and themed using built-in tools.
Buzznet has some songs from major artists, but I would have liked to see more tracks. That said, the site makes up for it with music videos from YouTube. That adds a bit more value, as long as the recording quality is good..
Buzznet has a loaded profile page.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Flotones isn't the best looking site in this roundup, but it does a nice job of connecting indie artists with fans. You can choose to sign up as either a fan or an artist. If you're an artist, you can upload music, post to a blog, give out your contact information to schedule gigs, and more. As a fan, you can find artists, follow their updates, and review their music. You can also send them private messages. Not all musicians put their music on the site, but quite a few do.
Flotones has a variety of artists on its pages.
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A friend pointed me to Sourcetone Interactive Radio, which offers a sort of New Age twist on Pandora. Sourcetone's main gimmick is a colorful mood wheel--select your mood by clicking on the wheel, and the service will begin streaming appropriate music.
There's a lot of verbiage on the site about how Sourcetone is basing its selections on scientific research, including some conducted by a team at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, but so far there's only one published research paper on the site. The scientific angle is not particularly interesting to me--any music fan knows that music can affect mood, and mood can affect health, so scientists are just catching up with human intuition.
Sourcetone's worthwhile because of the excellent music selections--mostly long instrumental tracks in genres like classical, avant-garde jazz, traditional, or ambient, including better-known artists like fusion group Shakti (which features guitarist John McLaughlin) and Yo Yo Ma, as well as more obscure independent acts like Married Couple. (I'd never heard of them and was pleasantly surprised.) They even threw in one of my favorite Otis Redding songs, "I've Been Loving You Too Long" under the Melancholy category. The sound quality was also surprisingly good for a streaming audio site.
Don't expect it to cure any diseases, but it might help you get through the day and turn you on to some interesting new music in the process.
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The new Livio Radio certainly isn't the first Wi-Fi radio to feature Pandora access--the Squeezebox Boom and the Grace GDI-IR2000 both offer the functionality--but it's certainly the first model seemingly designed around the streaming Internet music service.
With a standard tabletop radio design, the Livio gives you full access to Pandora, and also makes it easy to interact with the service by putting "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" buttons on the front panel and the remote. The Livio can connect to your home network using either the integrated Wi-Fi or the Ethernet port around back. In addition to Pandora, the Livio Radio also features the ability to tune into more than 11,000 standard Internet radio stations. We're also happy to spot an auxiliary input on the back, making it easy to plug in an iPod in a pinch. We also can't complain about the price, a reasonable $150, but we're reserve our final judgment until we actually get to listen to it.
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As someone who spends most of his day on the computer, I need to do everything I can to keep myself entertained. Sometimes, that manifests itself in games and other times I find entertainment on the Web through online music services.
For years, I used Pandora, the song-discovery service powered by the Music Genome Project, and loved every minute of it. But over the past couple months, things have changed and I've quickly started to dedicate all my music time to MySpace Music.
The reasons why are numerous, but I should first note that I've got some issue with the service. First off, it's inundated with ads, and no matter where you go, you can bet that any MySpace Music page will be flanked by blinking advertisements or other unwelcome additions that detract somewhat from an otherwise outstanding service.
I should also mention that MySpace Music doesn't allow its users to share playlists, which is a bit annoying. You also can't have it "on-the-go" nearly as easily as you can with a site like Pandora, which offers a mobile app for those who want to hear music while away from their computer.
Other than that, though, I simply love MySpace Music. It's the single reason why my love affair with Pandora is over and it's my first destination when I want to listen to music while I work. Simply put, it's outstanding.
Songs, songs, songs
As much as I enjoy the discovery engine on Pandora, I'd much rather have the option to build my own playlist of songs and listen to only those titles I want to hear. That's a luxury I really don't have on Pandora, but it's the backbone of what makes MySpace Music great.
MySpace Music currently offers millions (yes, millions) of songs from artists ranging from the popular, like Britney Spears and Bruce Springsteen, to the obscure, like Deerhunter. And unlike most services in the space... Read more
Personalized Web radio service Pandora has added 15-second audio advertisements that will occasionally play between songs.
The company's official Twitter feed first announced the inclusion of ads, saying Pandora will be "extremely respectful of your listening experience" while promising "to be prudent."
So far, the ads have been used sparingly. Pandora's founder and chief strategy officer, Tim Westergren, told PressDemocrat.com in an interview that the average user will hear an ad only once every two hours, but the company is experimenting to see what works.
Pandora has experimented with audio advertising in the past. In early 2007, the service placed a 9-second McDonald's ad between songs the first time users changed stations. Each user heard the ad just once per day.
Asking for reaction, Pandora's chief technical officer, Tom Conrad, announced in a blog post on the company's site that users were generally upset with their decision to deploy audio ads.
"The reactions ran the gamut, from muted concern to strong condemnation," Conrad wrote. "Other listeners left comments on our blog, or contributed to posts discussing the ad on other blogs. The reactions in these other forums also expressed a variety of perspectives on the issue. Generally, though, there was fear that Pandora could become overwhelmed with intrusive audio advertising."
Subsequent to that experiment, Pandora removed all audio advertising from the site.
Now that audio ads are back, Pandora said in another Twitter update that those who wish to not hear any audio advertisements can sign up for Pandora's premium membership for $36 per year.
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Yahoo announced on Thursday that it has added Wikipedia deep links and images to its search results. The company, which is using its SearchMonkey platform to add more third-party content to its results, claims that all Wikipedia results in its search will now include links to the first four sections of the article, as well as an image. The feature can be turned off through Yahoo's preferences pane.
MediaGlow, AOL's publishing unit, announced the launch of a new sports site Thursday. Dubbed FanHouse, the site sports a new design and "an expanded lineup" of national sports columnists covering major sporting events. According to the Time Warner division, the new FanHouse will expand its coverage of Nascar and other auto racing, as well as include coverage of mixed martial arts. The new site is live.
David's Bridal, the nation's largest bridal retailer, has launched a "Dress Your Wedding" campaign on its site. The contest enables brides-to-be to choose bridal gowns, bridal party dresses, accessories, and tuxedos. Once complete, brides can then share their plans for making their wedding days unique.
David's Bridal plans to judge the wedding plans, giving the winner a $5,000 gift certificate for David's Bridal, a consultation with a company style expert, and a blog on the retailer's Web site to talk about the experience. The contest ends February 24 at 11:30 a.m. PST.
eBay sellers and buyers gave a record $36 million to U.S. nonprofit organizations in 2008 through eBay Giving Works, the auction site announced Thursday. More than 15,000 organizations received funds from more than 1.5 million users. According to eBay, more than $68 is raised through its program each minute, and eight nonprofit organizations have raised more than $1 million through Giving Works.
Sharpcast, makers of the SugarSync online data backup and storage service, announced on Thursday that the company has secured $10 million in a Series AA round of financing led by Sigma Partners. SugarSync, which can be downloaded onto multiple devices and PCs, enables users to upload files online to the Sharpcast portal. Users can also "push" data to any other device that has the software installed.
