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You CAN advertise any part of your catalog very specifically to people who like similar products.

Especially with things like music. Look at some internet radio like http://www.pandora.com/ or http://www.launch.com/ there are some great ways to market that 90% that doesn't usually get big advertizing.

Both of those sites let you start off your own internet radio stations, and then they try to match your preferences and bring in similar music, and once in a while they throw in a curveball that you may or may not like.

So I start off a station with my favorite Indie Band A that gets marketing, and then I hear favorite bands B, and C. But whats this? Some new Band D that I've never heard because it is never advertized? Cool, I like this!

It's a lot like Amazon's preferences, and products that can be marketed in this manner support the idea of the Long Tail. But it definately is not for every market.

http://www.launch.com/ is one!

Like LAUNCHCast before the RIAA leaned on them, and then Yahoo! acquired it and ripped out everything that made it innovative and cool?

You'd rate songs on a scale from 'never play this again' to 10, and the system would select new songs based on what you'd already rated and insert them into your personal "station" rotation.

But the real killer feature was that you could search for other users whose tastes were statistically similar to your own, subscribe to their stations, and learn about new and different music and artists as some of their favorites were added to your rotation. Want to buy a song? Click on it.

Absolutely cool collaborative software. Unfortunately, if you wanted to expend the effort, you could abuse the system to constuct a station that could (gasp!) play a specific song at a specific time for free, and the RIAA wouldn't allow that.

So the only thing that had gotten me to purchase any new music in years was eviscerated, stuffed full of ads, and then sold to Yahoo! as a 'service' with all the collaboration gone. You could pay money to lose the ads. Whee.

Bitter? Me?

Launch is $3 or $4 a month for streaming radio and has a ton of users (I've been a user for abour 4 years but never sprung for the pay version).

Rhapsody is $10/month with unlimited streaming stations and unlimited on-demand. This is the greatest thing to ever happen to me since my first cassette player. Why would I pay $8 a month for XM when I get as many stations and as much variety from Rhapsody PLUS the ability to listen to damn near anything I want within about 2 seconds of deciding I want to hear it? Rhapsody allows me to listen to full CDs that I would never buy, just to verify that I don't like them. And it allows me to listen to a full CD 3 times and have it grow into my favorite band this year. And make playlists that rival anything anyone would ever dare play on the radio.

Streaming radio is great, I am a fan. On-demand is heaven. Unless XM is on-demand, that price will never suceed.

winword.exe has troubles launching. And no default associatiuons for .wma and .wmv, so I can't visit Yahoo Launch and view D12 videos.

By the way, D12 has new album out today.

For a full updated list of sites pulling april fools jokes see here

Some of the latest enteries:
livejournal.com - on userinfo pages, "Friend"/"Friend Of" -> "Stalking"/"Stalked By"
www.gpf-comics.com - Comic mirrored.
smh.com.au - Yum-cha trolleys with "L" plates
www.clutchfans.com - Patrick Ewing returning to NBA
www.freeciv.org - Freeciv ANSI client
www.rav4world.com - Closed? Should have announced that TOMORROW!
www.retrocrush.com - Nude pics of Jaclyn Smith
westcoaster.net - Roller coaster site turned into teen girl site
www.meowpawjects.com - Sock people forced webmaster to take website down.
miceage.com - Disney merges with Walmart
www.badgerbadgerbadger.com - Badgers replaces with zombies
skepdic.com - Skeptic's Dictionary closing
fool.com - Buffett buys Krispy Cream
launch.com - Britney Spears & Jason Alexander To Renew Wedding Vows
MetaFilter.com - Turned in to a Wiki for the day
www.ddrkc.com - owner sold site to a user that is unpopular
brownpau.com - March for Web Standards
www.beyondunreal.com - ut2k4 production suspended
globetechnology.com - Microsoft Solitaire
www.modernwiccan.com - Randomized Color Scheme
bbs.fuckedcompany.com - Site shutting down
www.diary-x.com - looks like diaryland!
theprp.com - Music site to "Previously Ridden Ponies"
mpx200.org - Pocket PC with 2Gb system memory/Smart Drunk Pocket PC application
www.macosxhints.com - triple G5 Powermacs
www.slyfx.com - AOL buys slyfx
palminfocenter.com - Palms for toddlers.
www.carniola.org - fake news story
eikenes.alvestrand.no - Considering porn spam to be in a separate dialect to everything else
defunctgames.com - Pimps At Sea fox xbox

For a full updated list of sites pulling april fools jokes see here

Some highlites:
livejournal.com - on userinfo pages, "Friend"/"Friend Of" -> "Stalking"/"Stalked By"
www.gpf-comics.com - Comic mirrored.
smh.com.au - Yum-cha trolleys with "L" plates
www.clutchfans.com - Patrick Ewing returning to NBA
www.freeciv.org - Freeciv ANSI client
www.rav4world.com - Closed? Should have announced that TOMORROW!
www.retrocrush.com - Nude pics of Jaclyn Smith
westcoaster.net - Roller coaster site turned into teen girl site
www.meowpawjects.com - Sock people forced webmaster to take website down.
miceage.com - Disney merges with Walmart
www.badgerbadgerbadger.com - Badgers replaces with zombies
skepdic.com - Skeptic's Dictionary closing
fool.com - Buffett buys Krispy Cream
launch.com - Britney Spears & Jason Alexander To Renew Wedding Vows
MetaFilter.com - Turned in to a Wiki for the day
www.ddrkc.com - owner sold site to a user that is unpopular
brownpau.com - March for Web Standards
www.beyondunreal.com - ut2k4 production suspended
globetechnology.com - Microsoft Solitaire
www.modernwiccan.com - Randomized Color Scheme
bbs.fuckedcompany.com - Site shutting down
www.diary-x.com - looks like diaryland!
theprp.com - Music site to "Previously Ridden Ponies"
mpx200.org - Pocket PC with 2Gb system memory/Smart Drunk Pocket PC application
www.macosxhints.com - triple G5 Powermacs
www.slyfx.com - AOL buys slyfx
palminfocenter.com - Palms for toddlers.
www.carniola.org - fake news story
eikenes.alvestrand.no - Considering porn spam to be in a separate dialect to everything else
defunctgames.com - Pimps At Sea fox xbox

Check out LaunchCast
They've been doing this for several years now (create a personal radio station). They get by the rules that which "explicitly prevent radio stations from doing things like allowing listeners to democratically select which songs to play" by letting listeners rate music, which performs two tasks: 1) a rather TiVo like function, using your ratings to find new music you might also like and 2) to help decide what songs you get to listen to. Note that listeners aren't saying "I'd like to hear song X next." Instead, listeners are simply showing preference for a song, artist, album, genre, or other member's preferences. The best feature is the "Red X" option, to ban a song, artist, or album from your station. It's quite swank. Best of all, it's free for basic service, and an actually reasonable subscription for enhanced features.

Overprotected, the list goes on and on! Brittney rocks and I watch her videos constantly on Lauch!

• Using Kazaa, search for a favourite artist. Go and browse the collection of someone with a lot of that artist. Download one track from every artist whose music/name you don't know
• Look up favourites on Amazon, and as well as reading the "other people bought..." section, read the comments, they often mention other bands. I've found a few this way.
• Search on Google Groups. See who is talking about a favourite artist. Who else are they talking about?
• Try and find like minded friends. I find this hard as my tastes are fairly esoteric, but I've got one or two friends who aren't too far off, and I have some good discoveries through them.
• Use Launch. It takes a while but once you've customised it enough it does make pretty good suggestions every now and again. I've discovered at least 2 favourite bands via launch. Also good to listen to at work.
• Find a radio station that plays interesting music. My personal favourite is WFMU - mostly shows are rubbish, but a few real gems in there (your mileage may vary). Browse the playlists. Some of the radio stations have "top 100 most played songs for 200x" lists - these are great.
• Just keep your eyes open. You'll find stuff when you least expect it.

Defining a 'best' in electronic music is like defining a 'best' in rock....Electronic music has the most sub-genres of any music type I know of. Nevertheless, there are the major categories, but keep in mind that often the most talented artists do not confine their music to one type alone.

The most well known word for electronic music is probably techno, however techno != electronic, rather it is a type of electronic popular earlier in the 90s, while electronic music was growing more mainstream. You'll most often hear (for subgenres):

Techno | Trance | Drum n' Bass | Breakbeat | House | Jungle | Industrial | Ambient | Chill

often used with the modifiers 'hard', 'acid', or 'progressive' as in hard house, or progressive trance. In a lot of ways, these are self-explanatory...hard means that the music is rougher, and is usually faster paced; drum n bass consists of drum beats and heavy basslines.

Everyone here will try to tell you the best artist to listen to....but I can tell you for sure that I know no two people with the same taste in electronic music. You really have to discover for yourself the kind that interests you most. I suggest listening to some generic online radio if you want to know the mainstream electronica, most of which is a carryover from europe's tech-pop eurotrash trance. That's where you'll find the names most people will refer to you.

However, the best way to discover electronic music is to support your local scene. I would list true local websites, but being low-budget community supported as they are, I wouldn't subject them to the bandwidth of the slightest slashdotting. You can, however, find your nearest real record store (good electronic comes out on analog lps for real djs) and they will be happy to direct you to flyers and websites informing you of local happenings. Go out and hear some of your best local djs, and truly experience the music for yourself (many djs of different styles will play in the same night) - that will be the fastest path to knowing your interests. Also, once you find a dj you like, find out his/her influences, and that will point you to some excellent (lesser-known?) artists.

Some of the best cuts are the hardest to find, but there's a ton of great music out there. I wish you (all) luck, and PLUR!!

(this is not a troll)

have you seen www.launch.com? It's yahoo's new music site, and i think it's pretty good because:

-you make a "radio station" by rating groups/songs/albums that you like.
-there are preprogrammed stations if you want
-you don't need to store mp3s, because it streams
-the sound quality is very good
-the licensing is legit and taken car of already
-you can listen to your "station" from any computer

drawbacks:
-sometimes their audio server gets choked up
-you can't pick just one song very easily
-you can't copy the files
-it's probably linked somehow to evil marketing schemes
-their selection is pretty extensive, but if you listen to any station a lot, you do hear repeats

that said, it's better than pain-in-the-tucus, not to mention shady downloading sites like audiogalaxy or kazaa.

8. Or you can go to Launch.com and listen there. For free.

From AC/DC To Zombies, Songs Listed As Unsuitable For Radio

The world's largest radio network has generated for its radio stations a staggering list of rock songs and pop songs with words presumably inappropriate for the airwaves in light of last week's terrorist attacks, including such near-standards as John Lennon's "Imagine," Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven," and Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World."

The list, from industry leader Clear Channel, amasses approximately 150 songs considered "lyrically inappropriate," LAUNCH has confirmed; and it includes everything from Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" and Elvis Presley's "(You're The) Devil In Disguise" to current hits such as "Chop Suey!," the single from System Of A Down, currently the number-one selling band in the country.

However, a spokeswoman for Clear Channel tells LAUNCH that the list was not meant as a corporate mandate, it was merely a "grass roots kind of effort" by an employee looking to give stations a reference list of song potentially disconcerting in light of last Tuesday's (September 11) tragedies. "It's clearly up to the local programmer to take the pulse of their own market," she said.

Hard rock acts were prominent on the list--AC/DC has seven songs on the list, Metallica and Alice In Chains four, and Black Sabbath and Soundgarden three. However, no group was singled out like Rage Against The Machine--"all songs" from the aggressive, overtly political group made the list.

The idea of a music DB is an interesting one, and has already been partially implemented on Launch.com. You rated songs you liked by album, artist, track and genre, and thier software used those choices to predict other music you liked. When you listened to a song, the names of other people who liked it popped up in a little side window, and if you wanted to, you could throw them onto your list of 'music selection factors'.

Sadly enough, thier service is crippled right now, because the fsking RIAA is suing them. Combine that with the no more streaming audio, and I have to listen to my mp3s at work instead of ever having a chance to hear new music. Grumble.


Brant

Of course, they had no revenue stream anyway, but that's a different issue.

From the LaunchCAST FAQ:

Q. What is the DMCA and how does LAUNCHcast comply with it?

A. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) addresses protections for copyrighted works transmitted online. The DMCA entitles websites that stream music to a statutory license to perform copyrighted sound recordings as long as they meet certain requirements. LAUNCHcast complies with these requirements by, among other ways:

(a) Not streaming over a three-hour period, more than three songs or more than two in a row from the same recording, or four songs or more than three in a row from the same recording artist or anthology; and
(b) Transmitting songs in a noninteractive format by, for example, not allowing users to specifically create or request programming on demand, to hear programming at designated times.
(c) Not publishing advance song or artist playlists.

--

' Ore stabit fortis a fine placet ore stat '

Since the people who've posted in this thread obviously know very little about launchcast and are just rehashing the "evil MPAA suing everyone" song, I guess it's time for me to pop in, given that I've actually been *gasp* using launchcast for the past year or so.

Launchcast is an odd combination of interactivity and basic streaming. When you first get on, you select your genres of music and it plays in a perfectly legal stream. There are no repeats or requests - it just plays music out of it's massive database.

As a song plays, however, you can rate the song, the album, and the artist, from zero (never play again) anywhere to one hundred (this song/album/artist makes me happy). The stream adapts to your request. It plays stuff you've rated highly more, and it doesn't play stuff you've rated zero at all.

The important thing to notice is that it *still* obeys the rules binding to radio. You can't request a song directly, and it won't do repeats, and all of the other rules that must be obeyed. You get your own ultimate radio station, without commercials.

So where's the basis for a lawsuit? Well, if you were to take the customizable radio station and broadcast it to a hundred thousand people, there wouldn't *be* a lawsuit. The point is, however, each person gets thier own unique stream. RIAA is probably asserting that since each person gets thier own stream, it's not a radio station and isn't under a radio station's legal protection.

The interesting thing is the way I learned about launchcast. We here at rovion.com were going to release a product that would have been a competitor to launch.com. We summoned a pack of lawyers and they took a look at it, and said, "If you do this, then you will eventually be sued by the RIAA or someone else, and they will win, because it's quite demonstrable in court that you arn't a radio station and thus can't hide behind thier protections." So now we do something else.

I've been following this with half an eye for a while, and the RIAA sent a cease and desist order (or whatever those DMCA thingies are called) a while back, which launch ignored. Now it goes to court.

The video in question is available for free in streaming formats (Windows, Quick Time, and Real) at www.launch.com. The site is a "free registration required" site, but I can get the 300K Windows Media version on the @Home network flawlessly. It, it *still* kicks ass one of the all-time greatest videos ever.

Why can't you just use something like launch.com? Sure, you can't download the songs, but it's still streaming music and 100% free. The only worthwhile reason to use Napster is to get that one song you really don't want to buy a whole CD for so you can burn it onto a Fistgrrl Hot Mix. It takes about 3 minutes to download a song from Napster, launch.com just streams.

Vote for me for Hippest DJ.

Fistgrrl
"We're tired of all those Microsoft developers shoving their Win-Ho's in our face. Now we can tell them about Todd. Who's laughing now?" Linux Developer Gets Laid

Last school year, Bucknell University did block students from using Napster after realizing that the file-sharing program represented at least 40% of all network traffic and resulted in a total saturation of our T-3 at the peak of Napster's popularity here on campus. Since the staff and administrators at Bucknell care a great deal about their students' welfare, they worked hard to provide a legal alternative that didn't saturate our network.

Their final solution was entirely free (i.e. Bucknell paid $0.00); it involved setting up an iBeam server and coordinating with content provider Launch.com so that anyone Bucknellians can listen to a seemingly infinite amount of legal music beamed off of a dish on top of the campus' Computer Center.
______________________________
Eric Krout

Last school year, Bucknell University did block students from using Napster after realizing that the file-sharing program represented at least 40% of all network traffic and resulted in a total saturation of our T-3 at the peak of Napster's popularity here on campus. Since the staff and administrators at Bucknell care a great deal about their students' welfare, they worked hard to provide a legal alternative that didn't saturate our network.

Their final solution was entirely free (i.e. Bucknell paid $0.00); it involved setting up an iBeam server and coordinating with content provider Launch.com so that anyone Bucknellians can listen to a seemingly infinite amount of legal music beamed off of a dish on top of the campus' Computer Center.
______________________________
Eric Krout

This sounds a whole lot like LAUNCHcast. And they aren't even in trouble with the RIAA.