Sonific's music widget is starting to show up on Facebook, see an example here: Facebook | Jeremy Oxman.
Very soon, we will have a much better way of doing this... check the Sonific SongSpotting blog for more details!
This is a major announcement for us - you saw it here first ;)
August 21 2007, San Francisco, California
Sonific’s MusicAPI connects Record Labels with Social Networks
Sonific LLC, a leading provider of music applications and widgets for online communities and social media platforms, today announced that it will open the first release of its Music Application Program Interface -the Sonific MusicAPI– to both record labels and music companies as well as to social media platforms and services, later this year.
Sonific’s MusicAPI will, at zero cost and simultaneously across all partner networks, allow any interested record label, music publisher or artist to ‘talk to’ and connect with 100s of social networks and online communities, and opt-in their music catalogs for the streaming use on social network sites. Ecommerce functionalities will be provided by Sonific affiliates such as iTunes, eMusic, Amazon, Wippit and many others.
Content providers (such as record labels) will share in advertising revenues, and will be able to take full advantage of using a single channel to achieve viral exposure on all key online communities and social media platforms around the world, such as Facebook, Wordpress, Myspace, Friendster, Hi5, Xanga, Orkut, Typepad, Vox.com, Livejournal, iGoogle, Google Gadgets, Netvibes, Blogger, AIM Pages and Live.com. With a single mouse click, music companies will soon be able to connect to 100s of platforms and present their music on what has become the next iteration of Radio: Social Networks.
With astounding growth rates of 50% to over 400% per year, social networks are quickly becoming crucial attention generators for music companies, soon to be rivaling online portals and search engines. Social media is not only exploding in the U.S. but also reaching a truly global audience, with a high percentage of users in Europe, China and South-East Asia, South America and India. According to a recent Comscore report, Myspace’s UA (unique audience) rose to 61 Million people in July 2007, while Facebook’s was 19 Million. Blogger.com scored a unique audience of 30 Million users, Typepad.com almost 10 Million, and Wordpress.com 8.2 Million (Sonific offers widgets for all 3 platforms already).
Sonific’s research indicates that the total unique audience on all social and self-publishing networks already exceeds 220 Million people – and music is the most often requested feature, across the board. According to a recent Olswang UK study, 2 of 5 social network users (and 65% of teenagers) have embedded music into their profiles, approximately 70% do so to show off their taste and half do so to reflect their personality. Social networks also have significant impact on music buying habits: 53% of people confirmed that they actively surf social network sites to discover new music and artists.
Sonific therefore believes that a standardized and constantly maintained interface between record labels and social networks represents a major business opportunity that goes way beyond the current music widgets craze. “The recent developments in the digital music space and the tidal changes that are finally happening among the major record labels means that we will without a doubt see every single record label (small or large) sell music in non-DRM formats by the end of this year. As predicted for some time now, the music business is getting ready to switch to an open-access policy, and this will lead to an explosion of tremendous new opportunities, with the most lucrative turf being Music on Social Networks. Any site, portal or community can now become a music retailer, without having to add costly and ubiquitously hated copy protection measures, and therefore online communities stand to become even more important, very soon. In fact, I would predict that Social Media will become as important as Radio was back in the old days of Vinyl and CDs, which is why Sonific is gearing up to become something akin to the Music Operating System for this new turf”, comments Gerd Leonhard, Co-Founder and CEO of Sonific LLC.
Gerd continues: “If music companies want to be successful in this new ecosystem they urgently need a flexible yet fast and very low cost way to funnel any or all of their music into social media networks, while receiving a solid share of the advertising revenues, in return. In addition, music-related ecommerce opportunities will explode and very powerful market-feedback data can be provided by the platforms that use the music. Sonific’s MusicAPI will soon provide a one-stop solution for all involved parties: platforms and services will be able to plug in Sonific’s MusicAPI and instantly avail themselves of licensed music catalogs as well as make use of Sonific’s technology solutions; and record labels and other music rights holders will be able to opt-in any musical work, and make it available to the entire social media landscape - all in one go. Real-time usage information and other data will be made available, and advertising revenues will be shared – Music2.0 is finally becoming a reality.”
Sonific estimates that, based on the current growth rates and the continued global trends that see cheap broad-band access proliferate everywhere, the number of social network users will triple within the next 18 months, to almost 750 Million users, creating the biggest new audience opportunity that the music industry has seen since the introduction of the CD, back in 1983.
A crucial component of Sonific’s MusicAPI will be the integration of advertising into the widgets and the API, itself, allowing the content owners to instantly participate in new revenue streams without having to individually re-invent the wheel and spend precious resources on building those tools themselves. In addition, Sonific will also make its MusicAPI available to outside developers, allowing the music widget ecosystem to unfold even faster.
Link: MyMusic.dk Interview: Er Sonific fremtidens radio
Interview: Er Sonific fremtidens radio... Sonific SongSpot er et nyt gratis ...j til implementering af musik ... personlige profiler. Ideen er oplagt men hvad siger Koda og de andre rettighedsorganisationer.
This is big news for us... and you saw it here first. Playlists tools are now live at Sonific.com - no more one-track SongSpots! Here is the press release that is going out tomorrow.
San Francisco, CA, August 7, 2007
Sonific LLC, a leading provider of music widgets for social media sites, today announced the availability of playlists for its SongSpots™ music widgets. Following today’s release, a www.Sonific.com user can build and share fully customizable playlists with up to 25 full-length tracks containing any of the over 200.000 songs provided by Sonific, on-demand and in any order, without any restrictions, free of charge.
Sonific's SongSpots™ music widgets can simply be copied and pasted into personal web spaces on over 40 platforms and many Web2.0 applications, including iGoogle, Myspace, eBay, Facebook, Friendster, Yahoo360, Blogger, Xanga, Vox, Wordpress, Typepad, Netvibes, LiveJournal, AIM Pages, Smugmug, FreeWebs, Multiply, Slideroll, Windows Live, and Ning, instantly adding a fully personalized music experience to web-sites, user profiles and online communities.
Unlike most online radio services that are operating based on compulsory web-casting licensing schemes that govern the blanket use of master recordings, Sonific licenses all recordings directly from each participating artist or record label. Therefore, Sonific's service is not hampered by the often quite stringent licensing restrictions that prohibit some of the most user-appreciated features such as fully interactive playlists and the on-demand play of individual songs.
Comments Gerd Leonhard, Co-Founder and CEO of Sonific: "Many people enjoy listening to user-influenced or socially-programmed web radio services such as Pandora and Last.fm. On the other end of the spectrum, we have found that most people that are active social media participants or UGC creators and that seek to customize or 'widgetize' their own web-sites and online spaces by adding music, definitely want to select every single song they present to their visitors. The selected songs directly and immediately reflect who they are, as individuals, and are therefore a crucial part of their self-presentation. Since we launched 10 months ago, 1000s of users have asked us for this feature, and we are delighted to be able to offer it starting today. With this launch, and together with the recent launch of the Sonific Music Network at www.sonific.net, the possibilities for using SongSpots™ music widgets have become even more powerful: bands, artists and record labels can upload their own music at www.Sonific.net, create a complete radio-like music program using their tracks, and spread it virally across the web as a SongSpot™. Or, any user can now become a virtual DJ and share his individual playlists with his friends, on any platform he chooses. For the music industry, free, viral music syndication tools are now clearly becoming the driving force behind what I like to call Music2.0 - the next generation of how music is being marketed and sold. And Sonific intends to lead the way."
Sonific's catalog features a huge catalog of 'Longtail' music in just about any genre, provided by over 45.000 record labels and artists, as well as songs by well-known artists such as Frank Sinatra, Muddy Waters, The Barenaked Ladies, Coldcut, Billy Bragg, Echo & the Bunnymen, Scratch Lee Perry, Daddy Yankee and Amon Tobin.
And here is one of my first playlists:The San Francisco-based label Real Music has been publishing entire podcast streams on Sonific - see their July edition below. Any label can now sign up at Sonific.net, upload their podcasts, and make them available just like this.
And many more to come soon!
Link: Welcome to Sonific : Sound Effects.
Yeah - try this one
Some good comments on Sonific: Link: Lisa Tolliver On Air and Online: MUSIC: Sonific SongSpots and Sonific Mail are cool man, cool (for the most part).
Another nice endorsement for Sonific... it's spreading quickly ;)
Link: Edublogs - education blogs � If music be the food of love then ….
Link: GoodBooks Sonific Music Widget. A great band. A great widget. A smart label ;) a clued-in dude
Andrew Dubber writes about Sonific; includes a short interview with me. Thanks for your support Andrew! Link: Sonific at New Music Strategies. And after that, listen to this:
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