RIM (BLACKBERRY) announces new $5 BBM Music service (BLOG)

(ZDNET)I know it may sound crazy during this day and age of the iPhone, LTE Android phones, and the super slick Windows Phone 7 OS, but I moved from Android to a new BlackBerry Bold 9930 on Verizon this week after spending some time with the new BlackBerry lineup (see my review). The fact that HP dropped the webOS TouchPad also pushed me back to using my PlayBook and I am loving the integration with the Bold 9930, which was something we thought we would see with webOS tablets and phones. People have stated that a platform needs a solid ecosystem to compete and RIM does well with BBM. Tonight, RIM announced yet another new service that confirms my move to RIM and BlackBerry was a smart move with their upcomingBBM Music service.

As a person who has a small music collection and enjoys music discovery, check out my Streaming Music Showdown feature, I will be paying for this $4.99 monthly service as soon as I can. I would love to see a study that looks at “unlimited” music services to see how many different songs people actually listen to and my experiences and conversations with people lead me to believe it is not as large of a number as you might think. I am scheduled to receive a beta invite to start testing out this new music service tomorrow when the service is activated as a private beta. If you have a BlackBerry smartphone and are interested in testing out the service, follow me over on Twitterand I will give out beta invites that RIM sends my way.

This new BBM Music service is not piggybacked on any existing service and was worked out with artists and labels by RIM and is a RIM service. It will launch tomorrow as a closed limited beta in the U.S., Canada, and the UK and will launch in many more countries by the end of the year, including Australia, Columbia, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, and the UAE.

As stated in the press release, here are the key features of BBM Music:
Build a personal music profile with 50 of your favorite songs. You can refresh your profile by swapping out up to 25 songs each month.
Invite your BBM friends to subscribe to BBM Music and to join your BBM Music Community.
With each friend that is added to BBM Music, you grow your music collection since the songs from the profile of each BBM Music friend are available to you at any time.
Up to 50 tracks from your personal profile are shared with your BBM Music Community, and each member of your community shares up to 50 songs from their profile with you.
Enjoy a truly social community-based music experience – the more friends who join your community, the more songs you can listen to.
Easily discover music that your BBM Music friends are listening to, and comment on your friends‟ songs and playlists.
You can create multiple playlists from music in your profile as well as all of your friends‟ profiles, and with one click you can shuffle the entire collection of music from your BBM Music Community. You can even see which friend contributed each song while it plays.
Within your BBM Music app, you also see a visual timeline that shows the recent updates of all users within your community. It gives you a chronological view of community updates, including who added new friends, which songs were added or removed, which playlists were created and what comments were made by your BBM Music friends.
Listen to Full Tracks - BBM Music subscribers can listen to full tracks from their friends‟ profiles – not just previews.
Offline Listening - Music can be saved to smartphones for offline listening, allowing users to access songs even when they don‟t have wireless coverage.
Topping the Charts – Keep track of how many friends are listening to your tracks.

I chatted with Alistair Mitchell, VP BBM Platform & Integrated Services, about the new service to try to understand how it all works. So to be clear, you pay $4.99/month (skip a cup of latte for it) and then can select 50 songs from the collection of about 10 million titles to build your personal music profile. You then invite friends and gather in a BBM Music Community. You will then be able to enjoy (stream or download and listen offline) your own collection and the songs in each of your friends’ collections (they each share 50 songs each) so as you can see the more friends you have the larger your available collection becomes. This reminds me of the days when we would collect music CDs and share them with friends and I think this social interaction and sharing is a good move by RIM that we are starting to see on services such as Spotify and Rdio too. The service really isn’t about listening to the 10 million songs in the service database, but about the social community experience through BBM.

You can create playlists from your profile and from your friends’ profiles too so you won’t have to listen to all the songs in your friends’ collections. There is some other fun features built into the service such as the ability to see how many friends are listening to songs from your profile. You can switch out up to 25 songs in a month, but if you have a large number of friends in your community then you should have more than enough music to enjoy.

This is a unique service and it seems RIM may have figured out a good way to optimize the music and social experience. I look forward to trying it out and if you are interested follow me on Twitter and let me know you want an invite to the service. I have been using Slacker Radio on the BlackBerry devices for a couple of weeks, but at half the price and a lot more social integration it is highly likely I will be moving to BBM Music.

President Obama Joins Foursquare! ....Sorta(BLOG)

NEW YORK (AP) — President Barack Obama joined the location-based social network Foursquare this week, adding to his other hip, online destinations that include Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Obama is also on the professional social networking service LinkedIn, which suggests the president is hedging his bets, in case he's looking for work after the 2012 election.

In announcing his entry to Foursquare, the White House said in a blog post that it will offer "tips" on the places he visits, including his recently launched bus tour of the Midwest on economic issues. So far, his Foursquare posts have been past tense, giving information on where he was, rather than where he is (as most utilize Foursquare).

Follow The White House on Foursquare Here

The announcement didn't stop the jokes about the irony of the president — whose location is generally shrouded in secrecy for national security sake — advertising his movements on the Internet.

The chain of command seems backward, too. Foursquare rewards a user who heavily frequents a location by dubbing the user "mayor" of that spot. Would the president of the United States take pleasure in also being the mayor of Applebee's? He certainly has a lock as "mayor" of the Oval Office.

But the president's continuing push into Web interconnectivity begs the question: To what other digital destinations should Obama expand? It takes effort to stay current with the ever-shifting hangouts of the Internet. Here's a look envisioning a truly 2.0 President Obama.

Chatroulette: Imagine: You're flipping from webcam chat to webcam chat, and suddenly the leader of the free world pops up. It could actually be an effective and quick way of interacting with voters. Part of the problem is that no one would believe they were actually chatting with the president. This one might be a better fit for Vice President Joe Biden.

FarmVille: Zynga's popular social network game, in which you plow land, harvest crops and raise livestock could be a real boon to a campaign looking to attract voters from the nation's heartland. Candidates love to appear folksy. Perhaps FarmVille can be Obama's digital answer to President George W. Bush's brush clearing.

Singboard.com: Really, the pathway to Internet relevancy runs directly through karaoke. If Obama isn't going to post a YouTube video of him doing Beyonce's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" dance, he might as well get started on karaoke sites such as Singboard. There is obvious political risk here, though. More than a few have been undone by ABBA.

Etsy: The homemade marketplace Etsy has a largely female demographic from which Obama could benefit. Surely, he can assemble some kind of red-white-and-blue owl or "Yes We Can!" ceramic plates to add to the crafts site. After all, if he can appear on "The View," he can drop by Etsy.

Eons: An online community that caters specifically to baby boomers, Eons attracts an older demographic than Facebook. Obama is just 50 years old, but he's starting to show some gray hair.

"Between Two Ferns": Zach Galifianakis' mock-interview web series on FunnyOrDie.com would be the ultimate Web-savvy move for the president. The comedian's guests have largely been actors, but a head-of-state dropping by would be the digital age version of Nixon appearing on "Laugh-In" — only funnier, and with less dancing. Sock it to us, Mr. President.

Android app News360 captures headlines from all around you (BLOG)

(Appolicious)Are you a news junkie? If so, you’ll want to check out News360. It’s an interesting take on news aggregation that's certainly worth a look. Whether you stick with it depends on personal taste.

Upon launch, the app displays the latest stories from a variety of sources — the description claims more than 4,000. If you have “Use GPS Locations” checked in settings, it will use your whereabouts as a starting point for news sources you might be interested in.

Browse through the stories by flicking left or right, then tap on an article that interests you. That’s when News360 uses its “semantic analysis” technology to dig in deeper than other news apps. It highlights each story with words or terms that you can touch to bring up more details on that relevant person or sub-topic, using News360's own dossiers and profiles. It also provides a list of other articles at the bottom that relate to the one you’re currently reading so you can do some serious research on any event.

Flip up the menu from the bottom of the app to quickly switch general subject areas, like politics, world, tech, crime, sports, health and so on. Tap the favorite icon to save a story for reading later, touch the search icon for a keyword hunt, and share favorite finds via Facebook or Twitter.

All in all, the app does a great job of quickly bringing you up to speed on world events. You can brief yourself in a few minutes before any get-together and be the life of the party.

Download the free Appolicious Android app

Pandora now offering streaming comedy stations (BLOG)

Pandora, the popular internet radio company, recently announced that it will be making a new addition to its already huge selection — comedy. Starting today, Pandora will make over 10,000 clips by more than 700 comedians available for streaming.

For the uninitiated, Pandora takes a different approach to streaming radio than most of its competitors. It classifies songs and clips based on specific qualities, which it refers to as the Music Genome Project. It uses these classifications to determine what song or clip to play next, picking one that's similar to others you have enjoyed.

Playing comedy clips will function in much the same way as music does on Pandora, though in its own section — no comedy clips are going to find their way into your music stations.

One of the drawbacks to Pandora is the inability to pick a specific song or clip to play. You can create a personalized station based on a song, clip, or artist, but Pandora decides the next item to play using its classification system. While you can always skip to the next selection, this randomness isn't always a bad thing. It's a great way to discover new artists that are similar to ones you already know and love, which is something budding musicians and comedians are counting on.

Pandora has had a series of financial ups and downs over the years, fighting huge losses, and struggling to find new ways to make money while offering a high-quality service. It is hoping that the addition of comedy stations to its lineup will attract new customers, and put the company back into the black.

HOT OR NOT: AN iPHONE ATTACHMENT THAT TURNS YOUR PHONE INTO A GUITAR!

There have been numerous iPhone/iPod touch applications released, and musical instrument application is one of the popular categories among users.

Guitar, bass, piano, ocarina, the list goes on and on.
EVENNO introduces The Fingerist which is a music adapter that allows you to play those applications on iPhone/iPod touch like a real guitarist.

The Fingerist is a new style iPhone/iPod touch accessory that enables you to play your applications as if you are actually playing musical instruments.
This music adapter has a built-in speaker that operates on 3 AA batteries which will enable you to perform 6-hour stage live.

So, hot or not?