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SoundTracking Receives $4.75M in Financing

Reid McCarter — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 09:10:55 +0000

SoundTracking is becoming more and more popular and, of course, that means that it’s becoming more and more attractive to investors — to the point that it has just received some $4.75 million in venture capital.

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Mobile Spectator App Expands for New York Marathon

Anthony Marcusa — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:41:07 +0000

Social media is overtaking one of the world’s most exciting races, as mobile phones and social networks will play major roles in the upcoming New York City Marathon. For this year’s big event, the Mobile Spectator App has expanded, allowing fans to follow runners throughout the event that will be held on Sunday, November 6. continued…

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PlayUp Aims to Be Exclusive Social Network for Sports Fans

Anthony Marcusa — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:38:42 +0000

For most sports fans, watching a game has always and will forever be a social event. NFL Sunday, March Madness, the Olympics, and anything involving the playoffs are much anticipated and social-centered affairs. While smartphones and Twitter in particular have connected sports fans around the world while watching games, one social network is attempting to streamline fandom, hoping it will occur exclusively within their online world. continued…

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72 Percent of iPhone App Revenue Comes from Apps Featuring In-App Purchases

Azam Khan — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 17:20:02 +0000

Distimo, the app store market tracking service, continues to reveal the importance of the freemium model. Free app downloads have grown 34 percent since 2010 in contrast to paid app downloads which grew by 7 percent. In the past the firm also reported a 10x growth in freemium revenue from top releases on the App Store. continued…

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Pandora Launches Layout Redesign

Reid McCarter — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:00:57 +0000

Pandora has just launched a comprehensive redesign that makes the streaming radio/music discovery service, like a backward-time-traveling grandparent, both prettier and more functional than before. The new look (which provides a bit more context for the company’s rising IPO this past summer) is available to all Pandora users and adds improvements like streamlined cross platform communication, bulked-up social networking features and more.

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DJ’s Can Now Spin On the Go with Turntable.fm

Reid McCarter — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 13:40:56 +0000

Have you ever seen a DJ playing a set while walking down the street? I haven’t. But the wonders of modern technology continue to astound us by taking impossible (and maybe even unnecessary) scenarios and translating them to reality. Hence the adaptation of Turntable.fm, the social music service that digitizes DJing, to an iPhone app — the exact scientific breakthrough we need to move forward in the field of mobile party-starting.

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Tapjoy Hits a Milestone With 10,000 Apps

Azam Khan — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 14:30:26 +0000

Today Tapjoy has hit a major landmark of attaining over 10,000 apps in its network through its latest partnerships with OMGPOP and Moblyng among others. This milestone is significant because it shows that there are at least that many freemium based apps utilizing virtual currency to monetize their apps. More after the jump.

Apart from virtual currency based monetization offerings on Android, Tapjoy is still making strides on iOS by offering monetization solutions to publishers through videos, and high-quality CPA offers. Some of the recent partners in addition to OMGPOP and Moblyng include Craneballs Studios, Game Circus and Spry Fox. If you don’t already know, Tapjoy’s solution can be plugged into apps so that consumers can earn in-app virtual goods or currency in exchange for completing various tasks from Tapjoy’s platform.

“Free-to-play titles are driving user experience and engagement in mobile, and we are honored to partner with so many of the best and fastest growing developers leading this charge,” said Mihir Shah, president and CEO of Tapjoy. “Our developers tell us that nearly one-third of their total revenue comes from our platform, which speaks to the tremendous consumer demand for easy-to-use and 100% trustworthy alternative payment options like ours.”

Tapjoy is apparently delivering over 1.5 million ad completions everyday for app developers and brand advertisers and its partners are happy with the results. OMGPOP’s latest title Puppy World on iOS, which has garnered over 1M downloads, plugged in Tapjoy’s ad platform and is seeing great success. They plan on continuing using Tapjoy as they expand to Android. Craneballs Studios’ free-to-play title Overkill has also integrated Tapjoy’s ad platform, a choice the company made after evaluating various other solutions on the market.

“Tapjoy is a true partner in every sense of the word,” said Mike Wagner, owner of Game Circus, developers of hit mobile games such as Coin Dozer, Cookie Dozer and Prize Claw, which was voted one of the top free mobile games in July by AOL’s Games Blog. “Not only does their monetization platform generate incremental revenue that is critical to our freemium strategy, but their distribution channel – and especially their innovative engagement ad units on Android – delivers extremely high-value new users at remarkable scale.”

Having raised $21M in January, Tapjoy’s solutions remain one of the most popular in the community despite encountering an Apple-induced gauntlet against incentivized installs. In March Tapjoy announced a fund for developers that would pour resources and capital into pre-launch games to expose them to Tapjoy’s network of over 100M social mobile gamers.

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Kanye and Gaga Invest in Turntable.fm

Reid McCarter — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 17:00:22 +0000

Turntable.fm, you beautiful creature. So many of us thought that you had disappeared but here you are again, getting back to business and, reportedly, being funded by two of the biggest names in contemporary pop music: Lady Gaga and Kanye West.

Although the news is still only a well-founded rumour at this point, all signs point to an incoming sum of cash arriving from the (deep, deep) pockets of the Fame Monster and ‘Ye. As valulations of the social music/game company have skyrocketed, some $7.5 million has been drawn up by Union Square Ventures, West and Gaga. Neither musicians’ camps have officially commented on the deal but its validty seems extremely likely, given that Union Square Ventures has gone on record regarding their part in the business’ financing.

West and Gaga aren’t the only ones likely to become interested in Turntable.fm either. The recent financing round that drew the two artist’s attention has led to the service being valued at a formidable $37.5 million (surely more than enough to design a few more loudly coloured player avatars).

With licensing arrangements already having been made with industry giants, BMI and ASCAP, the future looks bright for Turntable.fm. An influx of cash and a solution to the site’s previous legal quagmires are probably all it will take to get the music giant into the right position to enjoy a massive, wide-scale launch.

Turntable.fm is currently in invite-only beta mode right now but, if you’d like to look through the window at what the cool kids are up to, you can go ahead and click on this link. We’ll be keeping a close watch on what happens next as Turntable.fm moves closer to public release.

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Doodling Gets Social With New Service That Lets You Doodle & Share

Megan O'Neill — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:00:30 +0000

Are you a doodler? Do you finish up every meeting, workday or class with a notebook full of doodles? Doodle.ly, a new project from Night Agency’s Night Incubator, wants you to set your notebook aside take your doodling online with a new social sketchpad that lets you create and share doodles with your friends on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Google+.

Doodle.ly is a bit like Draw for iPad, Draw 4 Free, Facebook Graffiti, and other doodling apps for the iPad, iPod and iPhone, but they’ve taken the sketchpad off of your mobile device and put it on the web. It’s perfect for doodling at your desk (though you might want to avoid sharing your doodles with your boss).

Rachel Cone-Gorham, Director of Communications at Night Agency, tells us, “Doodle.ly is easy to use and can become quite addicting. Once someone has completed their doodle, they can publish it to the Doodle.ly stream as well as their Twitter or Facebook page to share with friends. And we’re seeing every type of doodler out there—from the ‘I’m on a conference call and want something to do’ doodler to the professional illustrator, and the actual doodles span from quick scribbles to messages for friends to cartoon-like commentaries (with a few Justin Bieber love letters sprinkled in).” Check out some of the doodles in the screenshot below.

Doodle.ly is currently in public beta and Rachel assures us that they’ve already got several updates and additions planned. I hope that some new colors and textures are among these additions. They’ve currently got pencil-thin and marker-thick black, red, yellow, blue and green, which was launched just days ago when Doodle.ly hit their 5,000 Doodle mark.

Check out the site to see some more doodles and make your own and share your thoughts in the comments below. What do you think of Doodle.ly? What updates do you hope to see from the project in the coming weeks and months?

Megan O’Neill is the resident web video enthusiast here at Social Times. Megan covers everything from the latest viral videos to online video news and tips, and has a passion for bizarre, original and revolutionary content and ideas.

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A Major League Baseball-Only App Lets Players Study Video

Anthony Marcusa — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 09:14:03 +0000

It is one of the most exclusive leagues in the world. People aspire to belong, spending their lives working hard to gain access, while others on the outside simply resent those on the inside. Major League Baseball, much beloved and elite, just added another perk to their long list of comforts: an iPad app for players-only. continued…

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Has Music Become Social Enough? Sean Parker Thinks So

Reid McCarter — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 10:20:46 +0000

Listening to Sean Parker’s advice is a bit like trying to take life lessons from your parents seriously. Sure, they have experience and probably know what they’re talking about, but you always have the sneaking suspicion that their viewpoint may not be entirely relevant anymore. Just the same, let’s talk about the Napster founder’s recent decree that social music has finally reached its proper level of, umm, social-ness.

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Twitter Client For TV Launches On iPhone & iPad

Megan O'Neill — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 11:30:43 +0000

This morning, BeeTV announced the launch of their new social TV app, BeeTV HD, for iPhone and iPad. The app, which they describe as a “Twitter client for TV”, filters Twitter and Facebook to bring you real-time tweets about the TV show you’re currently watching.
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The First Social TV Guide App Hits iPhone & Android

Megan O'Neill — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 09:02:17 +0000

There’s no question about it—the future of TV is social. And SocialGuide is upping the social ante with the launch of their social guide and TV companion app for iPhone and Android. The new app features a social programming guide, genre filter and social streams and offers a new, smart way for users to discover and watch TV.
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Allow Radical.FM to, Like, Totally Introduce Itself

Reid McCarter — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 09:45:24 +0000

With the launch of Radical.FM‘s public beta I have rediscovered a long-lost love, fostered in the ’80s saturated cartoons and buddy-pics of my youth: ridiculous adjectives. Despite the fact that the new social music service is probably more notable for its committment to innovative features and interesting software, for me at least, it creates a more notable distinction for itself on name alone.

So what is Radical.FM? Well, we might as well do this right.

TUBULAR FEATURES!

Radical.FM looks to set itself apart from the pack through the inclusion of a suite of essential features, all integrated into a single service. Inspired by user-made “radio station” sites (like Slacker and Pandora) and the kind of on-demand playlist creation made popular by Rhapsody, Radical.FM looks to position itself as a sort of “catch-all” social music solution.

The application is presented well, coming complete with robust player controls and an interesting new take on song recommendation that shrugs off tricky algorithms in favor of user-chosen genre groupings. Being able to select from given genres (defined by personal takes on the nebulous term) allows for more intelligent blending of smaller playlists into a greater whole. Operating as a browser-based application (with mobile iterations to follow), Radical.FM combines a number of the most popular social music features into a single service in a way that could very well attract a devout fan following.

STOKED FOR NEW SOFTWARE?

The current inclusion of — and I swear I’m not making this name up — RadCast, Radical.FM’s patent-pending music streaming software, and plans for the release of DeeJay (technology that allows users to speak to their RadCast subscribers) also serve to make the service a unique one. While these two features alone create a great opportunity for amateur DJs, Radical.FM is also working on the launch of a sister site, Radical Indie — something that would help to bolster support for fledging artists while simultaneously creating a community where discovering new bands is simple. The current (and future software) that act as Radical.FM’s foundation provide fantastic possibilities for users interested in the social side of web-based listening.

And that brings us to:

GNARLY NETWORKING!

Social networking has been given its dues with Radical.FM as well. Aside from the standard inclusion of Facebook invitations, the most community-centered aspect of the app comes from its ability to be used as a free personal radio station, as touched on above. Radical.FM provides every member with their own station and is working on offering Play On Demand services to premium subscribers. Regardless of whether a user chooses to pony up money or not, the social aspect made possible through radio functionality is a fantastic way to share and discover music with friends and strangers alike.

Personal music streams can be shared by both amateur enthusiasts and professional recording artists. In Radical.FM’s press information, the app’s creators even posit the (corporate daydream) of ” . . . Lady Gaga . . . [having] millions of fans tune-in to her station”. The fact that Radical.FM’s infrastructure is composed of legal files makes this actually possible — and a pretty excited prospect.

Interested in checking out the (actually not in any way 80′s-culture related) Radical.FM for yourself? Do a click on these words and sign up for the free public beta to take it for a spin. It’s fresh enough that, even in beta, I’m willing to give it a tenative four out of a possible five cowabungas.

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GameSlam App is the Perfect Baseball Companion

Anthony Marcusa — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 13:51:11 +0000

There is nothing as simultaneously enjoyable and boring as sitting at a baseball park on a Sunday afternoon watching one game of 162 on the season. There is something nostalgic about being at the field in the middle of the day even if you have never done it before in your life. At times exciting, and at times interminable, the baseball game is a sporting experience unlike any other in culture.

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