If you are reading this blog, you are probably unaware that AOL Music is the #1 music site in terms of page views and unique visitors (according to Comscore). We own amazing properties such as Spinner, CD Listening Party, Sessions and Tour Tracker. AOL also recently acquired Bebo, SocialThing and Goowy. Nothing excites me more than to have these awesome apps and tools at my mashupping disposal!

The best part of joining AOL is the amazing people here that can now be tapped by Streampad. You’ll see that immediately on the new (temporary) homepage, reflected in the amazing design work that is done here.  Look for Streampad’s design to ‘grow up’ as well as for it to become faster and more stable as we integrate into AOL’s back-end. I couldn’t be more excited about what lies ahead for Streampad and AOL Music.

Where does this leave Streampad? I am still going to work on it in my off hours. There are still a lot of you out there that enjoy listening to your own music at work every day. And a lot of bloggers that use the widget to stream music to their audiences. I am not going to ditch you guys. In fact, I have been working on a huge re-design which I believe will make the experience a lot better.

This past year have been a huge lesson for me in what it takes to run a (small) company. I have learned so much. I have met so many amazing people who truly care about helping others and fostering innovation. I look forward to continuing to work with all of you in our combined goal to make life easier and more entertaining through the web.

At this point, my hope is to turn this blog more personal. It is something I have wanted to do for a while. So stay subscribed! You’ll be the first to hear about a cool AIM mashup I am working on!

Best,

Dan

Well, that’s no longer the case!

I’d like to announce the Alpha release of the new Desktop, done in Adobe Apollo. In addition to being easy to install, this Desktop does not require you to open ports on your router or disable any software firewalls. It just works.

The current release requires you to have iTunes. Future releases will scan folders for music but for now this one piggybacks off your iTunes library.

Another major feature is that it is now multi-user. Many people have requested that they be allowed to add their wives, husbands and/or kids to the Desktop so they can all access the household music remotely. You can also run a Desktop from multiple computers in your house and access them all at the same time on the site.

If you would like to get your hands on the new Desktop, email me (dan at streampad.com) and I’ll send you instructions on how to set it up.  Happy listening!

Warner Music is probably the most DRM-happy label of the bunch. But seriously, this is just plain stupid. At $15 for a CD (plus $2 shipping), I will not buy from AnywhereCD. The MP3 album was revolutionary and just the spark needed to sell music to people like me; people who will not purchase DRM music. I much rather buy a used CD for $6 and rip it myself then pay $17 for the ease of AnywhereCD. Damn! Just when I thought things were getting better…

Michael just announced his newest venture - AnywhereCD. AnywhereCD is an online store that sells MP3 Albums. You cannot buy singles. But these are albums from very well known artists - The Shins, Death Cab, Chili Peppers, etc. I guess he got some studios to agree to sell in mp3 format by only offering albums. Most of them cost $12.

I just bought 9 from Damien Rice. After my purchase, I received an email telling me my album was available inside a locker. Yes, AnywhereCD automatically put my purchased album inside my MP3Tunes locker! Incredible. I refreshed my locker inside of Streampad and it was just there! This was by far the EASIEST PURCHASE I HAVE EVER MADE. No downloading. No ripping. No tagging. A few clicks and I was listening.

2007 is definitely shaping up to be the year that DRM falls.

UPDATE - it looks like it was too good to be true.

A few days ago, I came across “Sunday Morning”. The beat immediately stuck in my head and after listening to it a bunch of times, I knew it was going on this blog. You can buy his albums from his website (linked above). He even streams a full-length version of this song. And he is also on EMI, so in a short time we can (hopefully) link to an MP3 download!

Play this song in Streampad - http://www.streampad.com/#playsong:w1099800

Subscribe to Streampad blog as a podcast - http://www.streampad.com/rss/weblists/158

I’ve started adding direct links into every section. Most of the sections are done, although there is still a lot more to do as I drill deeper into the app. Here is a direct link to my profile - http://www.streampad.com/#profile:dan

The nice thing here is that you can copy the link directly from your broswer’s address bar. In the past, you needed to grab it from some text on the page somewhere
Building an AJAX app is very different from building a traditional web app. I realize the somewhat ridiculous nature of this post. LINKS TO PAGES?? HOW ORIGINAL! But the truth is that it is not very easy to do for an AJAX app. You have to map strings (URLs) to states inside an application. But it is absolutely critical to do this. People send links to each all the time. Links are the currency of the web.

• The catalog will be available to all retailers
• Retailers can choose to sell in AAC, WMA or MP3
• Steve Jobs quote - “We expect to offer more than half of the songs on iTunes in DRM-free versions by the end of this year”.
• Songs cost 30% more (on iTunes) but are double the bit-rate (256 kbps)
• Albums still cost the same?? (still need to confirm this)

If you are reading this blog, you most likely already understand the importance of this announcement. Many people do not buy digital music because it has DRM wrapped around it. Their only choice is to download illegal DRM-free music. Up until now, the labels have tried to fight this by offering an inferior product that cost a lot more than free. Now, they can at least compete straight up from a product standpoint, although I believe they will have to offer a little more value to offset the price difference. Either way, this is a huge first step and one that I hope most labels will follow.

Ethan interviewed me about Streampad and the music tech scene and has posted it on his blog. In addition to my interview, he has interviews with Anthony from The Hype Machine and Luke from YottaMusic. I recommend subscribing to his blog if you are interested in hearing the thoughts of the creators of new innovative music services. Ethan is pretty plugged into this scene and certainly will have a ton of great stuff coming.

Anyway, a site called Save The Streams has started a petition to, well, save the streams. It already has 10,000 signers. If you care at all about Internet radio, please sign this and pass the word around. Even though this does not effect Streampad, it still effects some awesome web services out there and seeing them go away would be detrimental to the overall new music space.
Here is an excerpt from the site - On Friday March 2nd, the U.S. government (specifically, the Copyright Royalty Board, or “CRB”) announced its determination of the royalty rates Internet radio webcasters must pay the owners of sound recording copyrights to license the music they play for the years 2006-2010. The owners of these sound recording copyrights are, in the vast majority of cases, recording companies (”labels”).

While successful webcasters which have built loyal audiences can usually cover most of their costs from their revenue (and sometimes even make a little profit), these new rates will almost certainly destroy the Internet radio industry, as they amount to well over 100% of even the most-successful webcasters’ online radio revenues. In other words, these fees are grotesquely disproportionate to any other expense a webcaster would normally face, and certain to bankrupt him or her.