Posts Tagged ‘Mobile Music’

FlyCast 2.0 For BlackBerry Released…

July 21st, 2009 BBerryNews

FlyCast 2.0

FlyCast, an internet radio service with over 1500 channels of music, news, sports, and weather, has released v2.0 of its software for the BlackBerry.

FlyCast 2.0 for BlackBerry features include:

  • 3 Plays/30Days –Cached content is maintained in the context of the station and can be kept for a maximum of 30 days or three plays, whichever occurs first;
  • In-Application Purchasing – Users can purchase tracks with the click of a button from within the application, even after the song has been broadcast;
  • Twitter integration — Users can Tweet or “recommend” songs they like from FlyCast. Links are then posted to their Twitter account and followers can click on the link from any Twitter reader and be immediately taken to that station and hear the entire song.

You can download FlyCast 2.0 for BlackBerry here.

Read the press release after the jump…

FlyCast 2.0 Allows BlackBerry Users To Cache Radio Wirelessly To Their Mobile Devices

Users can now take enhanced versions of their favorite stations with them, with or without a connection

Lancaster, Penn., – July 21, 2009 – FlyCast, the popular mobile broadcasting service, today debuted “wireless station caching,” the ability to enjoy favorite radio stations on a mobile device anywhere, even without a wireless connection. With FlyCast 2.0, users can quickly store their favorite stations to their mobile devices when connected to a cellular or Wi-Fi network, then disconnect from the network and listen to the stations at their leisure.

Version 2.0 of the company’s popular BlackBerry application, available today, offers an enhanced listening experience by presenting music stations in a track-based cover flow, enabling in-application music purchases and providing time shifting skip-ahead and skip-back functionality. FlyCast 2.0 solves many common mobile music challenges – significantly reducing battery drain and cellular data usage charges, improving the listening experience, and making it easy to buy songs, even after they are broadcast.

FlyCast 2.0’s caching technology allows users to enjoy the following features:

  • 3 Plays/30Days –Cached content is maintained in the context of the station and can be kept for a maximum of 30 days or three plays, whichever occurs first;
  • In-Application Purchasing – Users can purchase tracks with the click of a button from within the application, even after the song has been broadcast;
  • Twitter integration — Users can Tweet or “recommend” songs they like from FlyCast. Links are then posted to their Twitter account and followers can click on the link from any Twitter reader and be immediately taken to that station and hear the entire song.

Unlike other services, FlyCast 2.0 offers over-the-air (OTA) caching of stations and does not require a USB connection. Additionally, stations can be “burst-cached” much faster than realtime, requiring only minutes of connectivity to cache hours of web and terrestrial broadcasts. Listening to cached stations can dramatically reduce battery drain and cellular data usage charges.

“With FlyCast 2.0, we’ve introduced a new type of broadcast experience that benefits listeners, broadcasters, and content providers alike,” said David Kennedy, FlyCast CEO. “We’ve focused on addressing common problems encountered by those who enjoy the mobile media experience, and in doing so we’ve also dramatically enhanced the quality of that experience. Now, listeners can see what they are hearing, audition it prior to purchase, recommend it and buy it.”

Pricing and Availability
FlyCast 2.0 is available as a free download by browsing to http://www.flycast.fm from a supported BlackBerry device and has been submitted to the BlackBerry AppWorld store and will be available there shortly. The free version allows unlimited streaming. Users can also choose from two, one-time only premium upgrade fees that offer station caching — $9.95 for five hours and $19.95 for 20 hour versions, good for the life of the device. This one-time pricing model is unique in the industry. Individual tracks from the cached stations can be purchased at any time from within the FlyCast application.

FlyCast 2.0 supports the BlackBerry Storm, Bold and Curve and will be available for the iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices later this year.

Extensive Channel Line-up
FlyCast now has over 1500 channels of content in the network, including local radio stations, news, talk, sports, weather, traffic and all genres of music. Partners include FOX News, Entercom, AccuRadio, Bonneville International, Bryan Broadcasting, Crawford Broadcasting, the Cromwell Radio Group, the Genesis Communication Network, KGOW Communications, KFMB, Midwest Television, Sandusky Radio Seattle, .977 Music, 1.FM, 1Club, Sky.FM, Digitally Imported, RadioIO, LA Talk, Radio Paradise, Martini in the Morning, FuzeBox Media, Jelly, Radio, Liberty News Radio, Blog Talk Radio, SmoothJazz.com, The Score and Comedy104. The company also offers “White Label” and DirectLink products for any content owner seeking to stream media over mobile, including bands, sports franchises, universities and athletes.

About FlyCast
FlyCast delivers radio and video content – music, sports, news, traffic, weather and talk – to portable cellular and WiFi devices. The company has more than 1500 content partners providing regional, national and specialty content to subscribers every day. Founded in 2006 by a group of seasoned media industry veterans, FlyCast puts the content consumers crave in the palms of their hands. FlyCast also works with CDNs and ISPs to improve quality of service for stream delivery.

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FlyCast is a registered trademark of FlyCast Inc. The BlackBerry and RIM families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Research In Motion Limited. The iPhone and iPod Touch of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Apple Computer Corp. Wi-Fi is a registered trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance. All other trademarks and trade names are the property of their respective owners.

[Via BlackBerry Rocks]


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State of the Mobile Music Industry

June 29th, 2009 BBerryNews

Bonnie and Clyde Freestyle picture copyright of Tricia Gosingtian and Dae Lee

Bonnie and Clyde Freestyle picture copyright of Tricia Gosingtian and Dae Lee

It’s no secret that a slow response to the digital age has caused serious problems for the music industry in recent years. Sales have been in decline and most experts see no reason for that trend to slow. However, GigaOM recently covered a Juniper Research report in which mobile music had, “a larger piece of a shrinking pie.” Juniper identified mobile music as the bright spot in an otherwise dismal forecast for the music industry as a whole. Already a multi-billion dollar industry, mobile music is likely to grow at a substantial rate in the coming years as the technology that supports streaming and mobile downloads becomes more affordable and available.

Those of us who can’t live without our BlackBerry can’t help but notice that we are part of a growing community. BlackBerry manufacturer RIM reports that they shipped 7.8 million BlackBerry handsets between December 2008 and February 2009, bypassing Apples as the leading supplier of smartphones. As carrier deals, falling prices, and aggressive marketing have placed smartphone technology at virtually everyone’s fingertips, the expansion of 3G networks insures the reliability of the investment. Over the past year, carriers such as AT&T, Alltel, and T-Mobile greatly expanded their 3G networks and set the stage for the expansion of mobile music. Smartphone users accustomed to Internet music options have found themselves unshackled from their PC and application developers are seeking to meet their mobile needs.

Slacker.com’s radio app for BlackBerry allows users to listen to over 100 expert programmed radio stations or create a personalized station of their own. In addition to free streaming music, the application provides artist bios and album reviews as well. Best of all, Slacker’s app allows you to cache stations to your SD card for listening even when network reception intermittent. In March, the popular internet radio application Pandora released a BlackBerry version of the popular service. Just like Pandora for your computer, the Pandora for BlackBerry application allows you to create personal radio stations based on music preferences and uses its music genome data to feed you songs you might like as well. In addition to free streaming radio, the increased speed and storage capacity of smartphones has increased the number of mobile full-song downloads. Such downloads have undoubtedly contributed to the transfer of music sales profits to the mobile arena.

Perhaps the music industry’s best chance for an increase in overall revenue through the growth of mobile music can be found in ringtone and ringback sales. Unlike full-song mobile downloads, ringtones and ringback might complement traditional sales instead of replacing them.

Companies like SendMe Mobile and Mobicious have been getting an increasing amount of funding over the past two years. SendMe launched SoLow, an online sweepstakes site in July 2007 and acquired the online mobile community mbuzzy in October 2007. In 2008 SendMe Mobile expanding their ringtones catalog through licensing deals with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. Both deals provided SendMe members with ringtone access to songs owned by both companies. Investors like the looks of the ringtone/ringback market and in March of this year SendMe announced the acquisition of an additional $12 million in growth capital financing.

The Massachusetts based startup Mobicious is also tapping into the ringtone and ringback market but has ambitions to become something larger. Mobicious allows users to create a ringtone by uploading an mp3 from their desktop and download a 20 second clip as a ringtone to their smartphone. Mobicious also caught the attention of venture capitalists to the tune of $5 million in funding and in 2008 was honored as one of the most innovative companies in the Northeast. Mobicious has set out to become the go-to portal for mobile content, and in addition to ringtones they provide over 400,000 items of free and premium content.

The music industry will undoubtedly continue the attempt to adjust to the digital and increasingly mobile world, and smartphone users can expect innovative applications designed to deliver the music they want, when and anywhere they want it.

© Caitlin Douglass for BlackBerry Cool, 2009


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