The Next Big Thing In Music

There's something new going on in the music business on the web, it involves users at a very fundamental way, it allows you to have much greater choice and its based on streaming in a way we've yet to seen.

I have always been interested in the way people listen to music in the digital age. At the beginning nearly a decade ago we've seen how people discovered downloading music and sharing it when services like Napster began to emerge. Then we witnessed a long turmoil in court against the software companies who distributed the software and later on against individual users who have been prosecuted by the RIAA. Meanwhile Apple has been redefining the business with its market leader iPod and iTunes music store and jukebox.

But I think we will soon whiteness a new way for users to listen to music on the Internet. It doesn't really even has a name yet. Its basically a new form of sharing and streaming your tunes all over the web and share it in a form of streaming not downloading, and it looks great.

So far I've tried 2 websites who does it pretty similar, but with a different approach.

The first one: Simplify Media, which works only with iTunes (at the time of writing this post), and it actually lets you stream songs from remote networks all across the Internet. Music is streamed directly between computers over the web within small groups that you can control.

What's cool about it is that you can set your groups anyway you want to and make it lets say just for your own computers: Home, Office, Basement, etc.. and stream music not just all over your local network but across the live Internet.

Sounds neat? isn't it?

Oh and Streaming is invitation based so you can't just enter a group and start listen to other people's tunes.

The second one is called: The Hype Machine and I actually heard about it on a Twit podcast.

H.machine is a web based service which allows music bloggers to listen to each others songs while putting a focus on the social aspect with blogging features and even chats with live music that users chat about,and chose, I think its a really nice service, give it a try.

According to the H.machine they store some of the songs on there servers to reduce the pressure on users bandwidth.

Their mission as they call it is to to create a medium that favors discovery of new music through public discussion while encouraging legitimate distribution of audio.

You can't download stuff (not legally and officially anyway) but its great for listening to others peoples music and to discover music.
I like the fact that they let you chose from a variety of players to stream music, unlike Simplify Media

One downside so far is that the quality of most tracks ain't that great, but its definitely good for streaming and getting the impression for the particular song, and it beats the hack out of most music stores 30 Sec streaming preview.

Are these services legal?

Well of course they claim they perfectly legitimate but I doubt if Apple would love to hear that their iTunes users are streaming iTunes purchased songs all over the web. As for the Hype Machine, I think the RIAA, could claim that those songs are being misused by users and exploited and so on..., as they usually do, with just zero understanding of how business models on the internet work. Anyway I really like both I hope they ll' stick around and get better.

I think those services emphasis users taste and social aspects as well as offering a much more diverse and wide choice as the music business widens and develops.