Nokia Music Launches in Canada

There was an event ahead of The Killers show at the ACC in Toronto last night held by Nokia, announcing the arrival of their new streaming music service to Canada.

Nokia Music is a free (and ad-free) streaming music service featuring a library of 18 million (and growing songs) available through their Windows Phone handsets.  I've had a chance to play with a Lumia 920 and I gotta say that I like it.

First, don't pooh-pooh the Windows mobile OS.  It's actually quite good and very intuitive.  The home screen is easy to customize and it's cool watching all the tiles update themselves in real time.  When I went back to my iPhone 5, I was stunned to see how old and tired iOS seemed in comparison.

Going one level deeper into the menu is the Nokia Store, which is where you go for your music, apps and games.  You can also easily pin the Store to your home screen for faster access.  (Here's a look at the desktop version.)

Accessing music is free and simple with no sign-up or subscription fees required.  And there are no ads, either.  All access is included for anyone who has a Lumia phone.  Pretty sweet, really.

Once inside, you can assemble your own playlists or access human-curated streams called Mix Radio There's also a way to have Nokia Music analyze the music in your library so it returns a custom music discovery-type stream. So if, for example, it determines that your library is 77% rock, 13% hip hop and 10% country, those same percentages will be reflected in the music it chooses for you.  Interesting.

Songs from your streams are resident on your device (good for those long plane rides) but you can also purchase songs for permanent access.  Prices are right in line with what we've come to expect from iTunes.

Where it gets more interesting is in the ancillary services.  There's a gig finder function that lets you know where and when artists on your playlists are performing nearby (complete with a map app, too.) There's a lyric function that displays the words of a song as its playing.  Basic access to these services is free, but you can always upgrade for $3.99 a month for the full monty.

It's all rather interesting. There's a bit of learning curve with the OS, but that's normal.  It's certainly worth a look if you need a new phone and you want a different way to access music.  

Have a look at Nokia Music through the Windows Phone store.

Tweet Analyzer Claims That Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga Are Sexist (And Don't Even Ask About Slipknot)

I've occasionally been criticized for posting what's perceived to be sexist material. (Be careful whenever using the term "rock chick," even in the most positive way, including reference to those who self-describe themselves as such.  Trust me.) 

Perhaps this is a way to innoculate ourselves against perceived sexism.  A new site claims to tell Twitter users if they tweets are sexist.  

Twee-Q (Twitter Equality Quotient) was developed in Sweden by an equal opportunities group called Crossing Boarders in association wtih Joan Smith, the UK author of a book called The Public Woman, which deals with gender roles and inequality.

By entering in your Twitter name, the site will look back at your last 100 tweets and render an opinion on your level of sexism.  A perfect score is 10.

Entering @alancross returned a Twee-Q score of 1.6, which is horrendous.  But what, exactly, does that mean?  

The score is based on the source of the tweets that I've retweeted.  Of the recent retweets analyzed, 87% (47 out of 52), were tweets by men.  In other words, Twee-Q insists that I'm only interested in propogating male opinions.  This makes me sexist, apparently.

Let's plug in some other folks, shall we?

Amanda Palmer:  8

Lady Gaga:  7.6

Justin Bieber:  4.6

Pitchfork:  4.8

Slash:  2.6

Rolling Stone magazine:  0.4

Slipknot:  0

Anti-Pirate Site Uses Pirated Photos on Its Website

Well, isn't this a big oopsie.  

You may have heard of Canipre, a company that promises to track down and sue the bejeezus of alleged BitTorrent pirates in Canada.  However, TorrentFreak has uncovered an issue:

Anti-piracy group Canipre, who work with the makers of the Hurt Locker as did the U.S Copyright Group, have been busted ripping-off the work of independent photographers.

Their dark themed website features images that originate from several photographers, but they all have one thing in common – they are being used without permission. A classic mistake, but one that should have never been made by a company that takes the moral high ground when it comes to piracy.

Just a few days ago Canipre’s boss defended their plan to sue thousands of BitTorrent pirates by claiming that they want to change people’s attitudes. In addition, they proudly use the ironic slogan “they all know it’s wrong and they ‘re still doing it.”

Read the whole story and see the offending photograph here.

Google Announces Their Streaming Music Service

The rumours were true.  At the Google I/O conference, the company unveiled Google Play Music, a subscription music service designed to compete with the likes of Spotify, Pandora, Rdio and whatever Apple is hoping to launch.

At first blush it looks pretty good.  Nice customization, a good price ($9.99 a month after a 30 day free trial) and integration with their music-locker-in-the-cloud service.  And if you sign up for a trial by June 30, the price drops to $7.99 a month.

But there are also questions.

1.  For the most part, Google is identified with "free."  When was the last you paid Google for any of their services?  This could be a problem.

2.  $9.99 is an okay price, competitive with other players. But do they have to charge that much? Shouldn't there be a free option? (See point 1.)

3.  Google is first and foremost an advertising company.  They make the vast majority of their money from ads.  How do paid music subscriptions fit into the standard Google business model?

4.  The world of streaming music services is pretty crowded, especially in the US.  Even with Google's strength, reach and deep pockets, do we need them to play in this space?  Or is this just something to annoy Apple?  Or do they really need to tend to the music needs of all those Android phones (none of which work with iTunes, of course).

5.  So we have Play, YouTube, Google+, the Motorola properties, Android and a host of other products. If they could be put together, you'd have something pretty spectacular.  But that's not the case.  For example, YouTube's music licenses are completely different than what they negotiated for Play.

But here's the thing we need to remember about Google:  more than any other big company, they're in it for the long haul.  People said they were crazy when they started as a search engine.  People believed they were nuts when they started running ads based on search.  When they bought YouTube, they were condemned for wasting their money.  When the first Android phones came out, they were derided as crap.

And let's not forget that Gmail was in beta for, what, a decade?  This is just v1.0 of Play.  Like I said, remember what people said Android during the Cupcake and Donut eras. Never, EVER judge Google on v1.0 of ANYTHING they do.

Episode 9 of the Geeks&Beats Podcast Is Now Available

This week's episode with me and BNN/CTV's Michael Hainsworth features Dave Wakeling of The English Beat and General Public.  One of the things he reveals is the exact location of the famous mirror in the bathroom. Stream the episode here or subscribe through iTunes.

Thanks to this week's co-producers Thomas C. Foster Jr., Alex Reedman and Alan Gibson.  All it takes for you to be a co-producer is to help us defray some costs with a donation.

Show notes:

Proof that your band is never too old to have an app.

The most-tagged songs on Shazam in 2012 along with why Shazam is important to the music industry.

A summary of who I saw and what I learned at the Worldwide Radio Summit in LA. (Example)

Prince's original demo for "Manic Monday."

Want to buy John Lennon's Ferrari?

Star Trek socks?