Music + Tech Round-Up June 20 2014
MUSIC AND TECH ROUND-UP
It’s been a long week in the 7d office and we can’t wait to go home and put our feet up. Sadly, there’s still a while to go before the clock strikes 5pm, so we’ve put together the latest music + tech news to help you pass the time. Enjoy!
7digital.com Website Of The Day
In case you missed it, we’re happy to report that yesterday 7digital.com was website of the day on Pocket Lint. We are still blushing from their kind words:
“But you’ve heard of 7digital.com right? Oh yes you have –we’ve been banging on about them for years. Here you can download or stream over 25 million tracks, which compares quite favourably with some other, perhaps bigger names we could mention. But here they believe in the artists getting their fair share and you getting access to your music whenever you want and through whatever device you choose.
That’s why we like them. And we think you will too.”
YouTube To Remove Videos From Indie Labels
In other news, YouTube will be removing videos from the likes of Adele, Radiohead and Arctic Monkeys from its subscription streaming service as indie labels refuse to agree to contract terms. While the majors have put pen to paper and signed their names, the independent labels feel they are being offered a “highly unfavourable deal” and are standing ground for something better. With YouTube clearly undervaluing the importance of the indies, will their music service fail? Will the indies just have to fire all the interns they hired to monitor their youtube channels? All considerations for what will now fuel both sides of the negotiations.
A2IM Indie Week
Speaking of the independents, A2IM indie week just finished up in New York this week and it was another fabulous week of connecting with great people talking about important things. We are excited by all the contacts we made this year and congratulate all the winners of this year’s Libera Awards.
Twitter Adds Gif Support
Twitter finally supports animated gifs, however they will not play automatically. To play the animation users must press play, much like with Twitter’s vine videos. While Twitter has been slower than other social media sites, such as Tumblr, to add gif support it’s not the slowest. Facebook feels gifs would uglify users’ news feeds and therefore still refuses to support the popular file format.
Unicode Adds More EmojisThe use of emojis on social media sites and in instant messaging apps is forever increasing. However, users have grown used to the current set and have been longing for new faces and symbols for quite some time. In response, Unicode has added around 250 new emojis in their Unicode 7 update earlier this week. The update even includes a “reversed hand with middle finger extended” which has been the topic of a lot of the discussion around this update… we wonder what other emojis we’ll see appearing soon.