The Good NET Guide

Posts Tagged ‘music’

There’s been so much push for digital, downloadable content lately that we’ve almost forgotten about our old friend, the compact disc. Even though CD sales are plummeting each time our little planet makes another obit around that bright, flaming thing in the sky, the big boys don’t seem to be willing to throw in the towel just quite yet .

Continued here:
UMG to lower U.S. CD prices

iPod docks are in everything these days, but this leather sectional from Natuzzi actually makes a bit of sense. Think about it. You and yours are chillaxing on the couch after a hard day working for the man

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Of course there’s a leather couch with an iPod dock

The good news? Microsoft has announced Windows 7 ’s first service pack, which fixes minor bugs

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Windows 7 SP1, everyone

Apparently it’s illegal in Canada to copy music from a CD you bought to an iPod (or whatever). It’s simply not allowed, even if you’re not breaking any DRM in the process.

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The $75 iPod levy that will solve all of Canada’s problems

An outstanding e-mail showed up in my inbox a few moments ago promoting the release of Donkey Kong Country 2: Serious Monkey Business . It’s a remix album from OC ReMix, the people who are famous for, you know, remixing video game soundtracks.

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You probably ought to download Donkey Kong Conutry 2: Serious Monkey Business

God of War III comes out today (YES!), and with all the hoopla surrounding it, I thought this would actually be a good time to recommend/pay tribute to the other God of War games.

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A tale of God of War

Moshi Moshi! I’m not a huge headset fan but these are some of the coolest accessories I’ve seen in a while. All of these devices, the 04i, the 03, and the 02, connect to PCs or iPhones either via Bluetooth or 3.5mm cable. The 04i acts as a stereo Bluetooth speaker as well as a speaker phone.

Original post:
Moshi Moshi: Native Union makes Skype/iPhone headsets fun again

Roland just started shipping the AC-33 Acoustic Chorus Guitar Amplifier. This cool gadget is world’s first battery powered amp built specifically for acoustic guitar. With a 30-watt amp and 5 inch speakers, you’re not going to rock Knebworth with this thing

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Get Ready to Take Over the Coffeeshop

Attention citizens! Your benevolent overlords have released three new entries in the LifeCam series. Now all of your long-distance correspondences can be in glorious 720p.

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New HD webcams from Microsoft

We’re big fans of Animoto, a website that lets you easily create photo and video slideshows matched to music. The site is constantly innovating its nifty product, most recently adding an iPhone app and the ability to incorporate video. For those not familiar with Animoto, the startup basically allows you to take your images, video and your music and mash them together to create cool videos. What makes the videos cool is the company’s technology that renders the pictures so they’re in-step with the music you’ve chosen, adding nice transition effects. This morning, Animoto is opening up its API, allowing partners to now incorporate Animoto’s compelling technologies into independent sites

The first API that being rolled out for the Animoto Partner Platform is Animoto Quickstart.  The API essentially allows any website to tap into Animoto’s video creation flow.  The aim is to make Animoto one click away from any website that has photos, videos or music.  Quickstart allows websites to connect their own content, including photos, video clips and music to Animoto as the first step in creating an Animoto video. So partners can integrate Animoto’s video slideshow creation tool into their sites. And the startup promises that Quickstart takes only hours to a partner to set up on a site.

For example, SmugMug, a photo sharing site that caters to professional photographers, uses Quickstart so users can ‘pass’ their photo albums into Animoto’s video creation flow. So is the user now has the option of making a slideshow from their hosted photos and simply needs to pick a song to complete their Animoto video. Once a user slicks to make the slideshow, he or she will be taken to Animoto’s site, where their video and photos will automatically be placed into Animoto’s site.

Another use case is a promotion Animoto is launching with iconic musician John Bon Jovi where fans of Bon Jovi can go to Bonjovi’s site to create an Animoto music video with Bon Jovi’s latest single and footage from his music video.  Pepsi also used the Quickstart API to help users create video slideshows in a contest involving its ShareTheJoy campaign.

With the launch of this API at SXSW, Animoto is partnering with music publication SPIN magazine to allow fans to promote their favorite South by Southwest bands for a chance to win prizes.
From now until March 31, 2010, fans are can create and submit Animoto videos featuring songs from top South by Southwest bands for a chance to win $1000 and a spot on Spin.com, and other prizes.
 
Currently Animoto has 1.4 million users and makes money off of its paid subscriptions. On its site its free to create 30 second videos, but you need to pay $3 per video to make an lengthier slideshow. The site sells a year long subscription to users for $30. A large part of Animoto’s subscription business are composed of professional videographers and photographers who pay $20 per year to create their own branded videos that they can download, and burn to a CD (and the slideshow doesn’t bear the “Animoto” logo). Animoto’s CEO Brad Jefferson tells me that 10 percent of users, so 140,000 people, are currently using some type of paid subscription on the site.The company is already cash-flow positive, which isn’t bad for a startup that’s less than three years old.

In terms of monetizing the API, Animoto isn’t charging any of its partners. In fact, its actually paying its partners in terms of affiliate fees. So if any partners lead new or existing users to the site who end up buying a subscription, Animot will give the partner a 40 percent cut of the first year’s fee.

The Quickstart API seems to be the first of a few sets of APIs that will extend Animoto’s technology onto the other sites. It’s a smart move. While many photo sharing sites have the ability to make slideshows, the technology is not nearly as fun and easy to use as Animoto’s. And Animoto is undoubtedly a compelling tool for an brand marketer to use for a campaign. Frankly, the possibilities are endless because Animoto is such an easy tool to use.