Music + Tech Round-Up Feb 21 2014
MUSIC AND TECH ROUND-UP
With the weekend just around the corner, Friday afternoons are hopefully a little more relaxed in most offices. Why not take a cheeky break to catch up on this week’s Music + Tech news?:
UK Top 40 To Include Streaming Plays
George Ergatoudis, head of music at BBC Radio 1, has announced that play counts from streaming services such as Spotify and YouTube will soon be factored into the UK Top 40 chart. The move, which could take place as early as the summer, will bring the UK inline with the US, whose Billboard Hot 100 has been using streaming data since 2007. With music fans moving away from physical and increasingly turning to streaming services in some form or another, the hope is that this would bring some interesting new artists or trends into the limelight.
Shazam Teams Up With WMG
It was just announced that Shazam have teamed up with Warner Music Group. This collaboration will allow WMG to find unsigned talent and sign them to a Shazam-branded label as well as using Shazam’s data to target marketing efforts. Despite this partnership, WMG has acknowledge that digital data is no substitute for good old-fashioned A&R. President of 7digital North America was asked for her opinion for this great Inc. article on the partnership.
Facebook Buys Whatsapp
In news that is shocking folks all over the tech world Facebook bought mobile messaging service, Whatsapp, for $19bn. This is Facebook’s biggest acquisition to date and will allow Facebook access to Whatsapp’s younger audience as well as the messaging app’s dominance in other territories such as Latin America. However the social media giant states that Whatsapp will still function independently and ad-free.
Smartgun Only Allows Owner To Shoot
A Californian gun shop has added a smart gun to their product catalogue. The gun comes with a black waterproof watch, which not only tells time, but also sends signals to the gun to authorise shooting. Gun safety is a good thing, and whatever technology can do to support it is the way forward. Will people buy this? Are there that many gun enthusiasts that have regularly scheduled shooting sessions? Will be interesting to see.
Flappy Bird Clone Based On Miley Cyrus Appears In Mobile App Stores
The removal of the popular mobile app, Flappy Bird, from iOS and Android app stores has invited several clones to take its place, including Flying Cyrus– an adaptation based on ‘Wrecking Ball’ singer, Miley Cyrus. Unlike other version of the game, which tend to feature animals like the original, Flying Cyrus seems to be focussing on the artist’s recent behaviour by giving her an extra long tongue and replacing Flappy Bird’s pipes with wrecking balls and sledgehammers.
Interesting take on the game, don’t you think?
That’s all for this week.
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