Amazon has introduced “Prime Stations” for users of its Prime Music iOS app. The mobile update is intended to help the music service better compete with the likes of Pandora and iTunes Radio. Prime Stations are ad-free stations that offer unlimited song skips. The updated app features personalized recommendations that are based on a user’s play history and will therefore become more accurate over time. Prime Stations can also learn from user feedback (thumbs up or thumbs down) to create better playlists. Continue reading Amazon Launches Streaming Music Update with Prime Stations

YouTube has made some compelling new changes in the last week. The video site just announced the launch of its “Cards” system, which is designed to eventually supplant annotations. The company also announced its new site, “YouTube for Artists,” essentially a resource guide for music artists promoting their work on YouTube. In addition, YouTube now supports 360-degree video formats in most of its mobile and Internet platforms, a move the company promised earlier in the year to address the growing interest in virtual reality content. Continue reading YouTube Upgrades Support Music Artists and Virtual Reality

Forty years ago, Pepsi famously conducted a series of blind taste tests where participants were given two sample cups of soda containing Pepsi in one and Coca-Cola in the other. That campaign, known as the “Pepsi Challenge,” is about to resurface, only this time Pepsi plans to take a very different approach. Pepsi has brought on celebrities such as Usher, Serena Williams and Usain Bolt to encourage consumers of today’s generation to partake in socially responsible and pop culture embedded challenges. Continue reading The Pepsi Challenge is Retooled for Today’s Social Generation

Sony is planning the nationwide launch of its PlayStation Vue online TV service to take place by the end of this year. Sony Computer Entertainment President Andrew House announced yesterday that commercial operation will kick-off within the next few weeks via invitation-only tests in Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. PlayStation Vue, the latest Internet service to target cord cutters, will compete with offerings such as Dish Network’s Sling TV and standalone network services from CBS, HBO and Nickelodeon. Continue reading PlayStation Vue: Sony Readies Rollout of Internet TV Service

Apple has scheduled two upcoming events during which the company is expected to share more about the release of some of the year’s most anticipated products, including the relaunch of Beats Music, a new Apple TV set-top, and the Apple Watch. The company will introduce the remake of Beats Music, a streaming music service with curated playlists, at an event in June. Meanwhile, today’s “Spring Forward” event will likely feature the long awaited Apple Watch and its Watchkit applications. Continue reading Apple to Unveil New Watch, Beats Music Service and Apple TV

The most recent prototype of Avegant’s Glyph video headset could possibly illustrate what the future of media consumption will look like. The headset allows users to plug in any HDMI video source to watch movies or play video games. The image is crisp because of a new micromirror projection technique that eliminates the problem of seeing individual pixels. Glyph also has a head-tracking feature so that users can immerse themselves in 360-degree video, but the real world is still visible above or below the eye line. Continue reading Avegant’s Upcoming Glyph Headset Plays Music, Movies and VR

ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) reported having its best year to date in 2014. The not-for-profit performance-rights organization, which collects royalties on behalf of over 500,000 musical artists and more than 10 million songs, collected a little over $1 billion in revenue for 2014. ASCAP said that it had improved its efforts in identifying songs being played via streaming services and in return created opportunities to pay more artists for their work. Continue reading ASCAP Turns to Streaming Services for Collection of Royalties

The 2015 South by Southwest (SXSW) Music, Film and Interactive Festival — which runs March 13-22 in Austin, Texas — plans to employ the latest beacon technology to help attendees navigate the sprawling event this time around. SXSW has partnered with Eventbase to install 1,000 Apple iBeacons that will deliver location-based information about who else is nearby and what acts are performing nearby. These Bluetooth-enabled devices send the information to the 2015 SXSW Go app. Continue reading SXSW Will Use Beacon Technology to Push Festival Information

After several months of discussions, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry has officially declared Fridays as the release day for all new music albums. In today’s digital era, music listeners want to have access to albums the moment they are available anywhere in the world. Rather than staggering the releases on different days in different countries, the universal release approach aims to combat piracy. There is no word yet on when this new distribution model will take effect. Continue reading Global Trade Group Proposes Universal Release Day for Albums

A recent study by Hunter Qualitative Research, commissioned by Defy Media, determined that millennials prefer video available via YouTube and other digital venues as compared to traditional television because they find the content to be more relevant and enjoyable. Digital content also feels more real to them. The study, conducted in the fall of 2014, found that consumers 13-24 years of age spend 11.3 hours watching free online video in a typical week. The same group watches a weekly average of 8.3 hours of regularly scheduled TV. Continue reading Younger Consumers Find Digital Video More Relevant Than TV

YouTube has announced the 50 winners of its 2015 YouTube Music Awards, which were selected this time around by data analysis of growth in views, subscribers and engagement during the last six months on the Google-owned video site. The honorees include mainstream acts such as Ariana Grande, Beyonce, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift — in addition to YouTube stars including Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix. The 50 artists collectively represent more than 164 million subscribers and 47 billion video views on YouTube. Continue reading YouTube Turns to Big Data for Selecting Music Awards Winners

Google is now offering users more cloud storage to upload their personal music files through Google Play Music at no cost. Earlier this week, Google upped the cloud capacity of music storage to 50,000 songs, far exceeding the 20,000 song limitation previously in effect. The company’s upgraded cloud capacity for music storage dramatically surpasses that of its competitors, including Apple, Amazon and Xbox Music. Additionally, other cloud offerings for music storage generally come at a premium cost. Continue reading Google More Than Doubles Cloud Storage Capacity for Music

Revenue from mobile gaming is expected to rise 16.5 percent this year to $3.04 billion, surpassing the revenue growth of e-books, music, and videos. An estimated 60 percent of that growth is expected from in-app purchases. Mobile gaming companies will likely make most of that revenue from only a few strong-performing games because the revenue distribution is highly skewed towards the top. Currently, European gaming companies are making the most successful mobile games. Continue reading Mobile Gaming Revenue on an Upswing, Supercell is Top Earner

The Kardashian sisters, Howard Stern and rap artist Tyler The Creator are all getting new shows, only not on traditional TV but rather the Internet and a mobile app. Whalerock Industries, a company based in Santa Monica, has confirmed it plans to launch personal channels for these artists in the coming months. Each channel will feature an eclectic mix of premium content from the celebrities including videos, music, photos, merchandise and gaming. The app will be available this June.  Continue reading Whalerock to Launch Celebrity Networks via Web and Mobile App

Apple has hired popular BBC Radio 1 host Zane Lowe to give its streaming service Beats Music a new personality. From the beginning, Beats Music was different from other music streaming services because it featured real humans with knowledge of specific genres to curate the playlists, rather than relying upon an algorithm or its other employees. However, Lowe with his name recognition and experience as a radio host may finally give Beats the star power it needs to appeal to the mainstream. Continue reading Beats Music Gets Star Power with Newly Hired Host Zane Lowe