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BY PAUL MALONEY
Chicago-based FullAudio's MusicNow
is the latest player in the field of legal, online music-subscription
services. But setting
it apart from the rest are several "radio-like" features
designed to make it easier for consumers to discover (and presumably
for the industry to promote) new music.
The service officially launched yesterday. (A preview of
the service appeared in RAIN here,
and an excerpt from a New York Times review is here.)
FullAudio's "hook" to the service is apparently "the
personal touch" of an experienced
radio programmer in its presentation of music.
FullAudio says the MusicNow service will present music across
37 "lifestyle channels," featuring "exclusive music
programming"
by Ron Smith (pictured left),
a 30-year veteran of radio and WJMK-FM/Chicago music director for
more than eight years, and formerly of now-defunct Internet radio
RadioWave.
According to a company press release, each channel includes
premium radio, familiar hit
songs, and entire albums and collections from top artists. Also
included are hosted audio programs
called 'TrackTalks' that explore the history of the musical formats,
and programmed song collections
called "TrackPaks." For example, "God Bless the USA" on the "Dixie
Hits" channel celebrates patriotism, and "Protest!" on the "Good
Vibrations" channel traces the history of the war protest song,
according to the press release.
The idea is that an expertly-programmed radio-like delivery
provides a better "music discovery" experience with less
effort for the consumer than a simple file-sharing service. While
services like Rhapsody also offer professionally-programmed stations,
FullAudio executives hope these features set MusicNow apart from
popular "renegade" services like KaZaA and Limewire.
"MusicNow is on the forefront of a dramatic market paradigm
shift beyond the 'search and browse' database model developed
by Napster and toward an easy-to-use, entertaining experience,"
said Scott Kauffman, FullAudio
president/CEO in a statement. "We're pleased to offer...the
easiest-to-use and most entertaining digital music service on the
market."
For the new service, FullAudio
has secured rights from all five major record labels, and has partnered
with EarthLink
and Clear
Channel for distribution. Other players in the field include
Pressplay,
MusicNet
and Listen.com
Rhapsody. All have rights to
distribute most of the catalogs from the big five labels.
FullAudio first teamed with Clear Channel last April (in
RAIN here)
and with EarthLink in July (here).
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We spent some time listening to the various stations.
MusicNow seems to hit every major musical genre (rock/pop, classical,
country, jazz, urban, techno, etc.), but the service doesn't
seem to offer a truly focused, niche formats.
The presentation was very nice (with professionally produced
"sweepers" intro-ing the stations and in between some
songs), and the streaming quality was topnotch. Unfortunately,
the program dragged my Pentium III 128 MB system to a crawl.
-- PM
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If
you're planning to attend NAB 2003 in Las Vegas (April 5-10;
details here),
we hope you'll join us for our RAIN reader get-togther.
We've reserved the patio of the Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant
(about a $4 cab ride from the Convention Center) on Tuesday,
April 8th.
This year, we've also reserved a private room for the U.S.
debut of Kurt's "The Future of
Radio" speech for those who'd like an advance
look at it. (Presentation at 5:15pm, cocktails at 5:45pm.)
See you there! |
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From the Chicago Tribune: "The wartime songbook
of 2003 continues to expand. R.E.M. [pictured right], Lenny Kravitz,
Clint Black [pictured left],
Zack de la Rocha and Meshell Ndegeocello have released new songs
via the Internet that address the war in Iraq.
"'This is the strongest voice I could think of to send
out there,' R.E.M. lead singer
Michael Stipe wrote on the band's Web site, www.remhq.com,
about 'The Final Straw,' the new anti-war song available for streaming
at the site.
"The Kravitz song, 'We Want Peace,' is a duet with Kadim
Al Sahir, an Iraqi pop singer, and is posted for free download on
www.rockthevote.org.
The Ndegeocello track, 'Love & Forgiveness,' is available as a free
download at www.maverick.com...
 "Country
singer Black, meanwhile, performed his pro-war song 'I Raq &
I Roll' at the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday and has posted the song
as a free download on his Web site, www.clintblack.com."
Read this entire article in today's Chicago Tribune,
or online here.
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 BY
PAUL MALONEY
I'm giving "fantasy" baseball my first shot
this year. So last night my fellow neophyte buddy Randy (far left
in the photo — that's me second-from right — at a Cubs /
White Sox interleague game at Comiskey Park last year) and I fired
up the PCs, poured the "coffee" (wink!), and got bustin'
on our pre-draft homework.
For those not familiar, fantasy or "rotisserie"
baseball is a game devised by and for geeks for whom a 162-game baseball
season and a month of post-season play aren't quite enough.
There are several variations of the game, but generally, players
act as "general managers" and staff an imaginary squad
with real-life major-leaguers (limited by a certain budget). Then,
fantasy players track the major leaguers on their teams, adding real-life
stats to accumulate points.
Anyhow, technology has fueled the growth and popularity of
the game by making statistical organization and analysis easier, and
by bringing players and leagues together via the Internet (many sports
and entertainment sites offer visitors leagues as features to attract
them to the site, see below).
Could Internet radio be far behind?
Ben Brown founded RotoRadio
and co-hosts "Talking Baseball," his weekly rotisserie / fantasy baseball
show, streamed online
since 1998 (and for two years prior to that on local TV in the Seattle
area). Mike Elliott has co-hosted the show since 1999. The show is
the centerpiece of the RotoRadio site, where it's available on demand
(in Real format).
Visitors can listen to the current or archived versions of
the show (going back to last year's pre-draft special). Brown and
Elliott display their obvious expertise not only during their half-hour
shows, but give visitors the competitive edge with free stat projections
(most other sites charge for these) in Microsoft XL spreadsheet format.
And if you want to do more homework, Brown has penned a number of
articles on tips for drafting the right players for your type of league,
how to build a successful pitching staff, and more.
In my few days as a fantasy baseball player, I've discovered
that "info overload" can be a real danger. But at least
some preparation is necessary, and with the "Talking Baseball"
show and all the other data RotoRadio offers, the site is a great
place to start (and even finish!).
If you're interested, you can read about the different types
of fantasy baseball games here.
You can sign up for fantasy leagues at any number of places. Try MLB.com,
Yahoo! Sports,
or ESPN.com
— but keep in mind time is short (most leagues "lock"
at midnight Saturday night/Sunday morning, as Major League's opening
game is Sunday!). |
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