Songza is a free music streaming group, heavily based on consumers’ playlist. They could play anything from your favorite workout songs to your favorite decade. Now they’re playing to Google’s tune.
Google has purchased Songza. Rumors are flying about how much: some say $15 million and some say $39 million. What make Songza different from most online radio is that Songza uses lots of data about what people like to listen to, down to the time of day, location, even activity of the consumer. Some speculate Google had to increase their generosity because others are interested in this music streaming group. Google insists nothing will change about Songza…yet. But Songza is expected to supply their knowledge to Google franchises like You Tube. Songza has approximately five and a half million active users.
I find this intriguing they make this deal not long after Apple made it’s three billion dollar deal with Dr. Dre’s Beats. This goes to show you how competitive the music/social media avenue is getting. I think Google is doing a great thing here, and I don’t even like mergers very much. But this one makes a lot of sense. On my You Tube account, it recommends videos for me a lot, according to what I already subscribe to. So it makes perfect sense to hook up with a music streaming group that gives you playlist that does the same thing according to your music list. To me, that sounds like a combination that can’t be beat. Does this acquisition make you want to use Songza or avoid it?
I once heard a news report saying Facebook can make you more depressed. The reason is other people’s lives look perfect while your life seems to be falling apart. Is this report onto something?
In one week, a team of researchers led by psychologists Adam Kramer, studied Facebook accounts of over 600,000 people. They saw people who saw more negative posts tended to be more negative and those with positive posts tended to be more positive people. They studied these people for over a week. My question is: Is this ethical? I’m hoping they at least got the approval of the 600,000 people, or at least, these people knew they were being subjected to such an experiment. But you never know.
I’m wondering why Dr. Kramer and his team did this. I seriously doubt it was for the health and welfare of the Facebook users. I can see them using the information that was gathered for maybe marketing and promotional purposes. Oh, I almost forgot, the US government sponsor this study. Now I’m really skeptical.? Don’t get me wrong: I like Facebook. I’m thankful for the reconciliation that it’s gotten me with hundreds of people over the years. And in my three plus years of using this social medium, it has never made me depressed. But what’s the real purpose of this study?
In nine years, YouTube went from an start-up website of sharing videos to being the king of online viewership in the world. And they’re not stopping there.
At a meeting at YouTube headquarters, they’re coming up with ways to make You Tube more creative. Under YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, tools are being created in hopes of a better YouTube site and reach a wider audience (if that’s even possible). Let’s look at some of these new tools. The Creator Studio will help producers analyze and and manage their videos. The library sound effects will give video producers freedom to add cool special effects, royalty free, without the copyright police bearing down. Creator credits give your collaborators credit and possibly spin off another channel. And they plan to replace annotations with cards.
But the one that caught my eye is fan funding. Like Kickstarter, this app that allows people to donate to your YouTube video, project or cause. I want to believe this will be a great way to help struggling video producers get off the ground. This could fund someone’s dream of being the next YouTube star. I fear this could be take advantage of. But I’m liking all these changes. Most you have to wait for, but some are already running. Creator Studio is already available on Android, and coming out on Apple. Why they wouldn’t be released on both at the same time is beyond me. Do these changes make you want to watch more YouTube, or make videos through this medium?
Ever been to a website, whether it’s a social media site, news site, or any other, and you just couldn’t leave? Yahoo wants to be that kind of website.
And they’re taking creative steps to make that happen. Under the leadership of CEO Marissa Meyer, Yahoo is creating digital magazines. They’ve already hired journalism legend Katie Couric to produce informative videos for Yahoo News. They have fashion cosmetics guru Bobbi Brown for Yahoo Beauty. They’ve also brought on best selling technology author David Pogue and Elle Magazine creative director Joe Zee. Last month, Yahoo Tech won over 9 million new visitors. Yahoo Food is calling on all aspects of food and drink, form Klondike bars to making the best cocktails.
This is another way for Yahoo to continue it’s comeback. And it looks to me they’re off to a good start. I like the way they’re bringing in the celebrities and top experts to launch and improve these various news magazines. But celebrity should be only part of it. I’d like to see regular people put up videos of their favorite food or beauty product, or debate the latest news topic or which tech product is best. Make a dialogue for all people, not just a select few. I hope this works for their sake. Meyer and company shelled out scores of millions. Is this gamble worth it?
Today, the early morning hours of June 19, 2014, is a day social media giant Facebook wants to forget.
This is the day Facebook suffered a major outage. This outage was felt worldwide, from the United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, France, India other parts of Asia and much of Africa. This includes Facebook mobile as well as the Web. Fortunately, the outage didn’t last long, and the site was back up within a few minutes. In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson said ‘an issue’ caused to go offline, and apologized for any inconvenience the glitch caused. The ‘issue’ was never specified, either because they don’t know or aren’t telling us. Facebook experienced a glitch down last month.
The good news is the shut down could have lasted a lot longer. The other good news, at least for us in the United States, is that the glitch took place overnight. Can you imagine if it took place later in the day? I’ve read reports of people switching to Twitter while Facebook was down. Some say Twitter is more popular anyway and some say Facebook’s glory days are about over. If you said that, then you probably learned a lesson from all this. Facebook, like all social media, is still a very popular social media entity, especially among older people. If it goes down, even if it’s but a few minutes, it will be sorely missed. Ever hear of the saying, “Don’t know what you got until it’s gone?” Well, that’s what happened here. I think the consumers directly affected get that. Do Facebook employees and advertisers get that?
You Tube is about to launch a music subscription service. We don’t know the date yet. But not everybody is celebrating the occasion.
Independent record labels and acts are upset, to put it in kid friendly terms. There’s a dispute going on. Indie labels, such as Beggars Group and Google’s mega streaming video service can’t agree on royalty terms or existing terms of free service. You Tube leaders say they can’t offer free service and pay indies royalties at the same time. Therefore, indie videos are being taking down. You Tube leads the world in free streaming music and video service. Since it’s inception in the mid 2000s, they’ve paid over one billion dollars to music-right holders.
And it’s not just your local garage or nightclub band’s video that’s being pulled off You Tube. Major acts like Adele are being affected due to the dispute. Indie labels are skeptical. They argue they get far better treatment at rival digital services. This dispute is going to be settled eventually. There’s too much money to be made and too much potential. The indies may not get what they want out of this. But a little something is better than a lot of nothing. You Tube may have to shell out more cash, but look at the alternative. Keep in mind they’ve literally given out billions for royalties. Now they can’t give out more to these independent labels? So they’d rather cut off artists’ videos altogether, and the fan base is the one that suffers most. Come on people! These guys are executives of businesses and have people’s careers and dreams on the line. This isn’t some 4th grade playground dispute over whose captain of the kickball team. How should this dispute be settled?
