Written by Honcho | Jun 9, 2010 11:31:35 AM
At iThinkMedia we all like our music, but our tastes vary a great deal and that’s never a good thing when we want to watch music video’s on TV! But we have found that the more we all listen to each others favourite types of music, the more we enjoy and discover – we are becoming a very eclectic bunch!
So we have listed below some of our favourite music sites for either sharing or discovering music – some of which even let you earn money!
The ‘new kid on the block’, London based mFlow is causing a bit of a stir within the music communities. Some are saying a mix of Spotify and Twitter, mFlow has created alliances with big brands such as Universal, Sony and Ministry of Sound to name just a few. With the ability to share tracks and add 140 character descriptions to your recommendations, mFlow is offering music in the social media style that is definitely creating the right ‘buzz’. But not only can you recommend your favourites to friends, listen in full for free or buy the tracks that are recommended – you can earn 20% of any tracks you recommend that are purchased. Fast emerging a favourite for the office!
Create a playlist from over 8 million tracks, ‘Spotify is a new way to listen to music. Any track you like, any time you like. Any artist, any album, any genre – all available instantly.’ This is the originator in the onslaught of social media music sites, leading on from where Napster left off, but there are some issues being made apparent by users. Increasingly adverts are cropping up in your listening selection, to get round this you can subscribe for £9.99 a month, but this is exactly is what is putting off some users. Also, there are some regional restrictions to the library of tracks, but still boasts some major labels such as Universal, Sony BMG, EMI and Warner Music, as well as independent labels and distribution networks like The Orchard, Merlin, CD Baby, INgrooves as well as the classical music label Naxos.
A completely different take on promoting music, whereby the listeners act as the PR for undiscovered artists and bands. You can rate clips of songs out of ten and earn every time your comment is viewed, starting out at 3p per view up to 20p. Slicethepie is a ‘financing platform’ whereby you finance the winner of the monthly competition, where you are then entitled to an album download and can even purchase shares in the winner, so if they make it big, you have access to any potential earnings of the band or artist, (all relevant to the level of investment!).
Create a profile and enjoy customisable radio stations according to your preferences. Lastfm offers new music based on your current tastes and will try to suggest new music, as well as users and groups with similar tastes. However, Lastfm is not really the dominating site in the social media stakes, but does work really well with the basics – listening to new music. Another nice feature is it offers a Wikipedia like profile on all artists and bands contained in the library, allowing you to discover facts and details on your favourites. A great site for leaving on all day or concluding disputes on any music based trivia!
Cloud computing is ever developing and Maestro FM is utilising this platform by allowing users not only to benefit from the social music environment you can find at other sites but you can build and store your collection online, so that it is accessable anywhere via internet. By creating numerous playlists and sharing them with friends, discovering music is easy and you can share these lists to Facebook and MySpace. The only real negative is the site is not as user friendly as it could be. We would love to hear from you with your experiences with these sites as well as any others you feel we are missing out on. Keep us posted!
