April 3rd, 2012 Posted in Internet, Music, Online, Technology
Dropbox, a web service that allows users to store files in the cloud, has announced two new individual investors – none other than Bono and The Edge.
The U2 bandmates are jumping on the web technology wagon after making $1 billion through a recent investment in Facebook.
Dropbox announced the news by tweeting a picture of the boys with company founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi.
As co-founder of Elevation Partners, Bono has also made tech investments in Palm and Yelp. He then got to know Dropbox through their development of the iLike app on Facebook.
It’s a very smart move by the U2 frontman – revenue for the company is expected to hit $240 million this year, despite the fact that 96% of users only use the free part of the service.
Source: Media Guardian
February 21st, 2012 Posted in Games, Music
Blindboy Boat Club and Mr.Chrome, otherwise known as Limerick hip-hop act Rubberbandits, are to star in their own video game. The Revenge of Steven Forward will demo at the upcoming Games Fleadh in March and will be available on the Apple App Store and Android Market by the summer.
The boys have apparently written dialogue for the game and their music will be featured on some levels, which include scenes from Limerick streets and estates. It’s an Open Emotion creation – the people behind Mad Blocker Alpha (and guess what, they’re based in Limerick).
Source: Silicon Republic
December 14th, 2011 Posted in Music, Online
Music streaming s
ervice Deezer has now officially launched in Ireland. The music company live streams music and concerts alongside content like blogs and album reviews. It also has a database of 13 million tracks so you can access your favourite tunes anywhere in the world.
Ireland and the Netherlands already have access and the rest of Europe will follow on 31 January (with the exception of France, Belgium and the UK, who already have access too). It will be available worldwide by June next year.
Earlier this year Deezer struck a deal with mobile network Orange to embed its music service onto their smartphones. The announcement was made on 8 December at Paris’ Le Web with a performance by the Ting Tings.
Source: Silicon Republic
November 16th, 2011 Posted in Apple, Google, Music
Interesting signals coming from a Venezuelan blog, where it states that the gossips around Google’s music service are pretty much getting alive. What could this mean for the quite successful services like iTunes or Spotify?
Without speculating too much on these rumors, the blog also uploaded some very interesting screens from the interface. Which make these more plausible as well.
The authors of the story, found on TechnoDroidVe, claimed that while using a HTC Inspire during their visit at the Android Market, they were able to get access to this unreleased version. With realizing that these images where probably not mend to be seen, they made screens of it and spread it on the web.
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September 13th, 2011 Posted in Apps, Facebook, Music, Online, Social Tools
Rumours are flying around cyber
space that Facebook will launch their own music streaming service very soon. They are reportedly partnering with Spotify, MOG, and Rdio, which will allow users to play tracks through an in-built player while navigating through the social network. It will also be seamless through page loads.
Facebook may automatically post updates to users’ streams as they listen to tracks, but it is not yet known where on the page the player will be positioned.
Another feature will be the ability to ’scribble’ tracks, i.e. When a user listens to a song, information about it is stored in a single database and published to their music profile so that other users can see what artists they most listen to and suggest music, etc.
The service is expected to be unveiled at the annual developers’ conference, f8, which takes place on September 22nd. It’s also rumoured that their iPad app will be launched then too.
Source: Viral Blog
August 16th, 2011 Posted in Great Ideas, Music
OK GO – the band who gained fame from their music video of themselves on treadmills – have just released their latest song, ‘All is Not Lost’ complete with another cool video to go with it.
The video involves blue body suits, glass panels, and really defies explanation. However, that’s not the cool part – they’ve teamed up with Google to create an interactive HTML 5 experience.
By going to allisnotlo.st using Google Chrome, the video becomes more of a show as you play it, with various windows showing separate parts of the video all moving around the screen. Users are also able to add a phrase into the music video that is then acted out by lots of people in body suits.
If you don’t fancy downloading Google Chrome you can view a video of how the experiment plays out here. Or, just watch the ‘normal’ version of the video here.
Source: Digital Buzz
June 13th, 2011 Posted in Advertising, Apps, Campaign, Music
Wieden & Kennedy London and Specialmoves have put together a truly innovative campaign for Kaiser Chiefs new album, ‘The Future is Medieval’.
They’ve launched an interactive application that allows fans to create their own custom albums of the band’s new music.
From a choice of 20, users pick the 10 songs they like the most, then create their own album art by choosing images representing their previously chosen songs and mixing them.
The next step is payment (£7.50) and distribution. After paying, users can then put their personalised album up for sale and will earn £1 for every copy sold.
So, every fan could potentially make money from promoting their favourite band’s music.
It’s a great way of rewarding loyalty and the personalisation factor is sure to make the campaign a success – so far the most popular album created has been sold over 100 times. Create your own here.
Source: Viral Blog
June 13th, 2011 Posted in Google, Internet, Music
The most popular Google Doodle to
date, the playable Les Paul guitar, was so successful that not only did the search engine giant keep it online for an extra day, but they’ve now given it a permanent home on the net.
The doodle was made to commemorate the 96th birthday of the late Lester William Polsfuss, aka Les Paul, the American guitarist and pioneer / inventor of the solid-body electric guitar. It first appeared for the 9th June but was so popular that they left it in place of their usual logo for an extra 24 hours on the 10th.
Users can record their own songs on the logo / guitar and play them back. There’s already several very creative melodies and cover versions: check them out here.
Source: Silicon Republic
March 29th, 2011 Posted in Client Wins, Music, Public Relations
BespokeWithDirection have been awarded the PR account for BIMM Dublin, Ireland’s brand new school of rock, after a three-way pitch. BIMM (Brighton & Bristol Institute of Modern Music), the successful UK rock college run by musicians for musicians will establish a Dublin college in September offering a vocational rock and roll course for full time students in partnership with DIT.
BIMM Dublin will offer a 4 year BA (Hons) degree course which will be run by musicians for up to 500 students who will have the opportunity to study guitar, bass, drums, vocals, song writing and music business studies from a new state of the art purpose built facility in Dublin City Centre.
BespokeWithDirection are managing all PR communications for BIMM Dublin. For more on BIMM Dublin, visit www.bimm.ie .
