Today’s Superior App Mobile Music Award goes to Pandora, the online radio station that could. Famous for their “Music Genome” project, Pandora can be accessed for free via their free mobile apps. As any Pandora user already knows, Pandora is aptly named because you open up a “Pandora’s Box” of music discovery with one click.
Available for: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android, BlackBerry, HP webOS (used on the Palm Pre, Palm Pixi, Palm Pre 2, and HP Veer), and Windows Mobile.
Strengths: Installs easily, elegant user interface and exceedingly fun to use. For newbies: you just pick an artist, enter their name, and Pandora starts streaming you a channel of music related to and from that particular Artist. It’s not something you can truly comprehend without trying it, and once you do, if you’re a music lover, you’ll be instantly hooked. On my Android right now is Pandora’s Frank Zappa channel, which is giving me Hendrix’s “If 6 Was 9,” Pink Floyd’s “Any Colour You Like,” and Zappa’s “Drowning Witch” for starters. It’s an endlessly surprising and entertaining user experience.
Limitations: You can only skip a certain number of songs per hour, due to their licensing agreements. And there’s advertisements occasionally, like any commercial radio station (oh boohoo, what do you want, it’s free!). You can upgrade to Pandora One to remove all ads, and get some additional features as well.
Send this app to your cell phone the easy way: GET.IT
Open Source Music has established the Superior Application Mobile Music Award, to introduce quality new music applications to the public.
The digital music revolution has reached your smartphone. It’s the latest way to enjoy music.
Open Source wants to acknowledge creative companies that are developing innovative applications to make
music accessible on your smart phone. |
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Each application we select helps make music fun for you via your cell phone. Each winner is a FREE application and can be found in your mobile carrier’s app. store. |
We are using Get.it to make it easier for you to find these apps for your individual phone.
It’s World Series time. At least one listen to Ed Meeker’s version of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame,” to truly get in the baseball mood, is a must. This classic recording of a hundred year old song extolling the virtues of America’s pastime is a must listen. Ed Meeker was an Engineer at Edison Records when he was asked to record this version. Who would have ever thought that this early 1900′s recording would end up as the definitive version. I found this along with many other 78 recordings ripped to Mp3 in a treasure trove of music @ Publicdomain4u.com.
A big decision in digital music happened quietly last week in Manhattan.
Mp3tunes.com, who was sued by E.M.I., claimed a huge victory for the developing “music locker movement.”
In New York, U.S. District Judge William Pauley ruled that “MP3tunes was not responsible for conducting its own infringement investigations. The only responsibility is to respond to complaints and remove material in a timely manner.” Judge Pauley also indicated that ‘de-duping’ was not a violation of copyright law, but merely a way to better manage digital storage and bandwidth.
Both of these rulings seem to help the music locker and the growing cloud music concept. Please note while these rulings make sense, they are probably going to be appealed. But this seems like a big loss for the major labels.
Another interesting aspect of the decision in this Federal court, was found in a footnote on page 12 of the decision. See the story in Digital Music News about how this footnote has helped Grooveshark in their suit with Universal Music Group. The convoluted argument made by the major labels that DMCA law was only applicable to post-1972 recordings, and state copyright law was applicable to these pre-1972 recordings, was rejected by Judge Pauley:
“This Court agrees with Defendants that the plain meaning of the statutory language makes the DMCA safe harbors applicable to both state and federal copyright claims. Thus, the DMCA applies to sound recordings fixed prior to February 15, 1972.”
What an amazing story. It seems one savvy user has synched; 3 desktops, one iPad, and a file server in his office: with a Macbook, PC notebook, 2 iPods, a desktop, 3 USB shared hard drives at home: with an iPhone, Android Phone, iPad, and Macbook on the road: thru one Unlimited Backup account. Check it out. This is just the start of personal cloud possibilities that are evolving.
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