YouTube To Introduce A Live Streaming App

Where once we lived in a world of pre-recorded video, that's changing rapidly as millennials increasingly show how much they love live streaming.

For instance, Periscope has posted more than 100 million broadcasts since its debut in March of 2015, and Snapchat Live Stories has as many as 100 million users per day, which has lead Facebook into the same space with Facebook Live.

And Facebook Live has been successful in just a short time, with some creators pulling in over 100,000 viewers per broadcast.

All this has lead Google to decide that perhaps it's a good idea to enter this side of the online video business, and as a result, you'll be seeing its new stand-alone app called YouTube Connect in the coming months.

The service is said to have chat and tagging features built in, as well as a newsfeed that displays videos from friends and brands that the user has subscribed to.

YouTube is beginning to feel the pressure from Facebook when it comes to short form video, and Connect is its way for trying to get back in the game.

Too little too late? Users are fickle, but they usually go where their friends are, so don't be surprised if many don't even sample a new offering, even from market leader (for now) YouTube, at least until the next update of their favorite platform upsets them.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Google's Hangouts Changes To P2P

Many artists and bands use Google's Hangouts On Air to engage with their fans. This includes everything from mini-concerts to online meet and greets (I use it as part of Webinarjam for my webinars), and while it was reliable, there was always a question with its audio quality, especially when it came to music.

Google has now rolled out Hangouts 7.0, and while it has a number of cool features, the main upgrade is that it now uses a peer-to-peer connection, or P2P, between Hangout users who are on the call.

The reason is to make the calls more efficient, and as a result, take the audio and video quality up a notch to generally improve the experience.

Previously, the call would go through Google's servers, and while the company has what many consider one of the most robust backbone's in the world, the connection was always as solid as you'd expect, hence the move to P2P.

One of the potential downsides of using the P2P connection though is that each user's IP address is revealed, which means their location could be discovered and their privacy compromised as a result.

There's talk that the P2P feature may be selectively disabled in the future, but that's not the case at the moment.

So if you're a Hangouts users, enjoy the new features and increased quality. If you live in an area where you'd like to protect your IP address and privacy, maybe it's better to use another platform for the time being.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Despite Reports, Don’t Look For Pandora To Be Acquired Anytime Soon

Is Pandora really up for sale? If it is the timing is extremely curious.

Pandora was said to have begun talks with Morgan Stanley to help it find a buyer, according to an initial article by the New York Times, although the talks were deemed preliminary and had no guarantee of a deal. If you look deeper into the company’s pros and cons, a sale looks a lot more fantasy than reality though, at least in the near future. 

While much of the press has focused on the financial part of a possible sale, let’s look at what may be some of the more intriguing aspects of a possible sale.

Where’s the match? 

There are only a handful of deep-pocket companies that might take a even cursory glance at a Pandora acquisition, but most are not a good fit. For instance, Google’s name is frequently mentioned as a possible Pandora suitor, mostly because of the synergy with it’s ad network, since most of Pandora’s revenue comes from ads. That said, there’s really nothing about Pandora that Google doesn’t either already have, or can’t get for less money.

Apple is another that doesn’t need what Pandora has to offer. It already has the same infrastructure for its iTunes Radio, and chances are that most of Pandora’s subscribers are already iTunes users. There’s not much that Apple would find attractive.

iHeart Media could probably find a space for Pandora among its current online radio properties, but the company reportedly has a huge amount of debt and would find it tough to swing a sale that would probably cost it around $2 billion.

Some think that Samsung might be a fit based on the company’s need to keep up with Apple in the smartphone market. The problem is that it already has a similar service in its Milk Music which hasn’t gotten any traction in the U.S. Pandora could instantly give it that traction, but to what end? Does the addition of an on-board music app make that much of a difference to the average smartphone buyer? In a word, no. Samsung would be better off pouring that $2 billion or so into R&D than adding a music app that could be obsolete in the blink of an eye.

Then there’s Amazon. I’ve been predicting for the last year that Amazon would be the next deep-pocket company to enter the streaming music market in a big way, as it’s basically there already with its Amazon Prime Music service for its Amazon Prime members. Reports have recently surfaced that the company is getting ready to introduce a mainstream streaming service not tied to Amazon Prime, and Pandora could actually be a useful addition if that were the case.

Read more on Forbes.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Google's Removal Of Pirate Links Soars

If you're a content creator, then you may know how it feels when someone steals your content and passes it off as their own.

There is something that you can do about it online though. You can appeal to Google to delete the links to the pirated content via what's known as a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) Takedown Notice.

Google has been flooded with these requests lately to the tune of 1,500 per minute (25 per second, or 2 million a year), so it's happening more and more these days.

Over the last month alone, Google received notices from more than 5,600 different copyright holders targeting more than 65 million links spanning more than 68,000 domain names.

Amazingly, Google does respond in a timely manner and most links are removed quickly, although duplicate requests are common, which can slow things up.

Prior to actually removing the link, Google will downrank the URL in its search results, which is one of the main reasons that pirated content via torrent sites doesn't show up as high as it used to.

This applies not only to Google searches, but Blogger posts and YouTube posts as well, so be careful when you post something. If you don't have the rights, it could cost you your search engine ranking. On the other hand, if you feel that your content has been infringed, start here first.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

YouTube Red May Not Be Attractive To The Exact Audience It Seeks

YouTube finally announced its new subscription service today, and although the new Red service is somewhat different than last year’s beta test of Music Key, the basic concept still holds true - you now have the option to pay for something that’s widely available for free.

YouTube Red is slated to launch on October 28th, and will bring ad-free viewing at a cost of $9.99 with a free one month trial period. Red will only be available in the US at first, with a world-wide rollout to come in early 2016.

Getting people to pay for something that they’ve been trained to get for free may not be easy though, if my small sampling is any indication.

During a presentation I gave to a class of about 40 college students yesterday, I asked them how they consumed their music. Just about all of them said via YouTube and Soundcloud (Spotify and Apple Music had only one student subscriber each). 

When asked how many would pay if it were ad-free, the group erupted into laughter and indicated with a no-doubt-about-it “no” that they wouldn’t consider paying for the privilege anytime soon (to be fair, one student did say that she might consider it).

If that’s any indication of the widespread feeling of the age group, then Red may not be much of a player with the exact demographic that it’s aimed at, at least when it comes to music. Read more on Forbes.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Which Gets The Most Google Searches: Apple Music Or Spotify?

One way to measure the popularity of just about anything these days is the number of Google searches the topic has.

Music Business Worldwide looked at the number of searches for Spotify and Apple Music and found that Spotify beats Apple Music handily.

Except for a sharp spike around the time it was launched, Spotify (the blue line on the chart) has far more searches on a continuing basis than Apple Music (the red line).

That said, iTunes (the yellow line) beats them both, showing that the service still has plenty of life left.

Keep in mind that Apple Music is only 4 months old, and rumor has it that Apple is gearing up for a massive holiday ad blitz, which should raise the service's visibility significantly.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Google Trying To Finally Kill Flash

It hasn't been a good idea to use Flash animation on your website for a long time, and it looks like Google is finally trying to put the final nail in the coffin.

Goggle's Chrome browser now automatically pauses any web ads that use Flash. Ads that use the newer HTML5 will continue to work as always, as that's the favored format.

It's been recommended here for quite some time that Flash wasn't something that you wanted to use. First of all, anything iOS doesn't recognize it, so all those iPhone and iPad users never were able to access it.

From a website design perspective, Flash animation died a long time ago. Opening splash pages with lots of animation used to be all the rage but now look very last century.

Worse of all, Flash is a battery hog that compromises the security of your operating system. It's just not cut out for our new mobile world.

That said, advertisers still continue to favor Flash because most of the creative people at ad agencies everywhere grew with Adobe Creative Suite, of which Flash is a part of. HTML5 is more flexible, but it's not as designer friendly.

It looks like this move by Google will now force agency designers to make the switch.

So rejoice that there's one less vestige of the online past as Flash slowly passes into the night.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Google Launches A Dedicated Hangouts Site

As predicted, Google has begun the process of spinning off its popular Hangouts from Google+ by launching a new dedicated Hangouts site.

The new site allows you to do everything from instant messaging to one-on-one video calls to the killer app of G+ - group Hangouts, or Hangouts On Air.

The new site looks good and is easy to use compared to Google+. There's a navigation panel on the left side that allows you to switch between your phone contacts, chat contacts and conversations, but the main part consists of the big three buttons in the middle of the screen (see the graphic on the left). These allow you to immediately initiate a video call, phone call or message.

Everything is pretty much the same as it is in G+ after you initiate a call.

This is only the latest step in dismantling Google+ as Photos was spun off from the service in February.

While not a success as a social network, Google+ did have a few killer features in Photos and Hangouts, and thankfully they'll continue to live on.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Will YouTube’s Music Key Streaming Service Be A Hit Or A Miss?

Now that the Apple Music launch has come and gone the next shoe to drop in the ongoing music streaming wars may be the one swinging the heaviest hammer. That’s Google’s YouTube Music Key, which has been hinting at a launch for months now with very little solid information about its final form forthcoming.

Until last week when YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki spoke about it at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech event, the silence around Music Key had been so deafening that you get the feeling that Google (which owns YouTube) was waiting to see what would happen with Apple Music before it committed itself to a launch. If ever there was a strategic pause, we’ve just seen it, as the company could only be sure of the hand that Apple was playing by watching Apple Music’s actual entry into the market.

Now that all of Apple Music’s features are out in the open, YouTube is free to tweak its service to either take a different approach from the rest of the competition or attempt to do some of the same things.

Music Key has been in a limited beta since late last year at an introductory price of $8 per month, but we’ve already been told that the final price will be more in line with the rest of the streaming industry at $9.99. That’s not Google’s choice (nor was it Apple’s) even as the general feeling in the tech industry is that $5 per month is actually the ideal price point.

Five bucks won’t fly with the major labels though, and the streaming services can’t distribute something that they don’t own the rights to, so Google, like Apple, will be forced to toe the line and charge $10 per month when Music Key is finally introduced. The place where it can make a difference in price however is with a “family plan” that extends additional subscriptions to family members. Read more on Forbes.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

2 Tests To See If Your Site Is Affected By The Google Algorithm Update

Here's something that could be a big deal to those artists, bands, musicians, producers, managers, labels and just about anyone in the music business that has a website. Google now rates your site on how friendly it is when viewed on a mobile device.

The reason why this is important is mobile friendliness is now a big part of the algorithm that ranks your website during a search. That means that if you have an older site that didn't take this into consideration and doesn't look good on a phone or tablet, it's going to fall in the search engine rankings.

It's difficult to keep your site updated with timely information (which Google also looks at), but it's even more so to keep up with the latest technology. That said, if you haven't updated your site for a while (more than a year), it's not only time you do so, but it's important as well or it will be harder for your fans to find you.

How do you know if your site is mobile friendly? There are actually two quick tests.

1. Bring your website up in your browser, then grab the right side of your browser window and drag it all the way to the left until it won't shrink any more. If everything is a jumbled mess and you can't read it, it's probably not mobile friendly.

2. The second way is much better in that it comes from Google itself. Go to this test site and insert your site URL and click "Analyze." Google will then analyze it and tell you if it's mobile ready or not. If it's deemed not-ready, you'll not only be told why, but how to fix it as well.

The good thing is that sometimes the fix doesn't take much, but sometimes it does mean you need a total update in the case of a site built using older programming techniques.

Either way, do the test now so you can keep getting the most people to your site.

---

Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this blog at no cost to you (just click here).

Google Lays The Groundwork For Its YouTube Music Key Launch

When Google announced last November that it was rolling out a new YouTube subscription service in 2015, the major questions were when and how much. It now looks like we're getting closer to having at least one of those questions answered if yesterday's email to YouTube content creators is any indication.

While the email doesn't specifically mention the awaited Music Key service, it does lay the groundwork for it, asking its content partners to agree to a new terms-of-use contract that specifically mentions an ad-free subscription version of YouTube.

According to the email:

"We’re excited to build on this momentum by taking another big step in favor of choice: offering fans an ads-free version of YouTube for a monthly fee. By creating a new paid offering, we’ll generate a new source of revenue that will supplement your fast growing advertising revenue."

When the new terms are accessed via the Partner Creator Studio Dashboard, the most significant paragraph is one regarding the split of subscription revenue. Read more on Forbes.

---

Help support this blog by using our Amazon link at no cost to you. 

Jay-Z’s Radical Idea Is Out To Upend The Streaming Music Business

Rapper and business mogul Jay-Z has an old idea that he’d like to try out on the new music business.

Prior to the official announcement of his acquisition of the Swedish streaming music service Aspiro, the magnate held a giant pow-wow with some of the movers and shakers of the music business during Grammy week in February.

According to a post on Showbiz 411, guests at the meeting were literally a who’s who of music creators, including Madonna, Kanye West, Daft Punk, Nikki Minaj, Chris Martin of Coldplay, Jack White, Beyonce, two unnamed country music stars and about 20 other non-musicians ranging from attorneys to music execs. 

The reported reason behind the meeting was to gather information about how Jay-Z could turn his upcoming streaming network into something along the lines of the old United Artists film studio, where the artists themselves had control of the business and reaped more of the rewards than in the current mostly-corporately owned system.

Jay-Z (real name Shawn Carter)‘s company Project Panther Bidco Ltd complete its purchase of Aspire on March 13th. The company owns the WiMP and TIDAL streaming networks, one of the few services to currently provide CD quality streaming. The network is small with only 512,000 paying subscribers with only about 20,000 of those subscribed to the high-def tier. Upon relaunch the network will be renamed TIDALHiFi. 

The purchase seems like a good one from Jay-Z’s perspective. Paying only about $56 million for a service that already has infrastructure and subscribers seems like a steal compared with the estimated $300 million that Apple paid for the Beats Music service as part of last year’s $3 billion Beats acquisition. Still there’s plenty of challenges, with services like Pandora and Spotify already with a huge head start and deep pocket competitors like Apple (with its new service built around the Beats Music infrastructure) and Google (with its YouTube Music Key) set to relaunch later in the year. Read more on Forbes.

---

You should follow me on Forbes for some insights on the new music business, Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Making Your Videos Google Friendly

Video is an essential tool for artists and bands today, but regardless of the platform that you post it on, you want to make sure that people can find it if they do a search. Here are some tips from my Lynda.com course called YouTube For Musicians and Bands that will help to make your video Google search friendly.

Check out my other social media and recording video courses on Lynda.com, and get unlimited access for 7 days for free by using this link.

Pianist Asks To Remove Review Under "Right To Be Forgotten" Ruling

Did you ever get a review that you hated (or hated you) that you wanted removed? That's what happened to pianist Dejan Lazic, who received a less-than-flattering review in the Washington Post way back in 2010. Lazic, who lives in Zagreb, Croatia, decided to fight back by invoking the little known "Right To Be Forgotten" rule in the EU to get the the newspaper to remove the review from its website.

It wasn't the review itself that hurt, according to Lazic. It was the fact that it showed up on the first page of a Google search for the last 4 years that he claims is detrimental to his career.

What's more, he does have some legal standing here. The European Union has ruled that individuals have the right to their personal information, so they should also have control over their personal search results. If your name comes up in a search and the links turn out to "inadequate, irrelevant or ........ excessive," an EU court ruled that you should be able to ask the search engine to remove them.

The problem is that the court ruled that the newspaper doesn't actually have to remove the review, since they own it. Google and other search engines, on the other hand, must remove the review from their search listings, and they have.

In the end, this might have been a just a great PR stunt. Most of the links on a Lazic search refer to him asking to remove the review, and his name certainly got out there a lot more from this incident than from his performances.

Still, most people don't know about the "right to be forgotten" rule in Europe, so it's worth noting if ever needed. That said, this doesn't apply in the US - at least not yet.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

The Numbers Add Up For YouTube’s Music Key

For the better part of a year we’ve been hearing rumors about YouTube’s “soon to be launched” subscription music service, but details were always sorely lacking - until now. Android Police seems to not only have uncovered some details about the service, reportedly to be called “Music Key,” but even has a few screen graphics as well.

If you’re not familiar with the situation already, YouTube (which is owned by Google) is the leading online platform for music discovery, as well as the preferred music service for those 18 and younger. In fact, 38.4% of all its video views come from music, and 10 of YouTube’s top 20 channels are dedicated to music, according to the YouTube analytics firm Tubular. Google has wanted to monetize these music video views even more than it has already with advertising by spinning off a separate music-only subscription service, and that’s what Music Key is.

Reportedly the service will be an audio-only platform that will cost $9.99 per month, but for that the commercials are eliminated, and the user will have the new-found ability to listen to songs offline. A free 30 day trial is said to be offered, at least during the product launch.

Google does face a number of challenges with Music Key however. First is the cannibalization of its own Play All Access music streaming service. Word is that the company will rebrand it as Google Play Music Key, but it still seems like there’ll be some confusion there, like which service do you subscribe to? Is there a difference between the two? Does one have advantages over the other? Does a subscription cover both? The problem here is that the company should be trying to draw a distinction between itself and other competing services, not between its own properties. It seems like a small issue now, but it just might be enough to make a potential customer throw her hands in the air in a fit of indecision and subscribe to Spotify instead. Read more on Forbes.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

The Songza Feature That Google Couldn’t Resist

In a deal rumored for weeks, Google has finally acquired the music streaming service Songza for a reported $15 million. There appears to be no immediate plans to change the service, according to a post on the Songza site, except to “make it faster, smarter, and even more fun to use.”

But what’s the real reason behind the acquisition? Certainly Google has the cash to buy either Pandora or Spotify, market leaders in the radio-like non-interactive and on-demand categories of the music streaming market. The fact is that even though both of those services have the largest user bases in the sector, they actually bring little value in terms of what Google needs. The company’s Music Play All Access service doesn’t have the kind of subscriber numbers it wants, but that could be just a matter of time, considering that YouTube (which it owns) is the number one online source for music discovery and access already. And the company already has a large catalog of licensed songs, so a purchase with that in mind is redundant.

What Songza specializes in is music curation, a feature that Beats Music used as its primary lure in its purchase by Apple. While Google may be the king of the algorithm, it’s been proven time and again that computer generated playlists can’t come close to the musical taste of human. It’s been reported that Pandora’s Music Genome Project, which many contend is the heart of the service, is already 10 years in the making. Google has the resources to bump that timeline up, but the way the streaming market is heading, time is of the essence. Google needs a similar feature right now. Read more on Forbes.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Who Will Be The Last Streaming Service Standing?

Reports last week that Google is in talks to acquire Songza, a six year old music curation and streaming service, show that an industry-wide rollup in streaming services is now in real possibility. This is on the heels of Apple snapping up Beats Music recently, and may be a sign of things to come in the sector.

Although Songza is a relatively minor player in the space with only 5.5 million active users, it does show that the major players are interested in acquiring infrastructure or feature parts they don’t currently have in order to quickly compete with the other major players. Songza is known for its music curation, which could be immediately integrated into Google Play Music All Access (perhaps the world’s worst brand name) in order to compete with an anticipated new Apple streaming service. Beats Music’s main feature is also curation, and having Apple jump out in front with that feature would require Google Play to catch up even more than it has to already.

It’s still unclear whether curation is the killer feature that music consumers want though. A trusted source has always been the key to popularizing new music, from radio DJs to MTV to music critics, but as of yet no single curation source has risen above the rest online as the de facto standard. In fact, it can be speculated that curation doesn’t actually matter much at all, given the fact that Beats Music subscriber numbers are so low at between 110,000 to 250,000, depending on what you read. It was the feature that the service hung its hat on, yet it wasn’t something that consumers flocked to when it became available.

That said, there are indications that we’re beginning to see what has been predicted as a slow rollup of smaller streaming players that will eventually leave only the major players of Amazon, Google and Apple, and maybe one or two of the smaller ones, standing. Read more on Forbes.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

A Peek At The Upcoming YouTube Mobile Features

Google is becoming more and more sensitive to YouTube video creators and has been hard at work developing new features to make posting more efficient. In this video preview of the upcoming YouTube mobile tools, you'll see some of the things they're working on, including:

• a community captions feature to help make a video more accessible overseas
• more royalty-free music available
• a way for artists to collect money from doing cover songs
• its own way of crowdfunding video creators (you can now link to Kickstarter and Indiegogo via annotations)

Musicians are receiving more and more of their income from YouTube videos, and anything that makes it more lucrative is most welcome. The real key is that you have to use the tools, including the existing ones, and not enough people are doing that yet.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Keeping The Cannibal Away: The 3 Biggest Issues Facing The Upcoming YouTube Streaming Service

There’s been a lot of rumblings from Googleland again about the new YouTube streaming service that it’s preparing to introduce, with most of more recent ones being about how Google is struggling with getting everything just right before it launches. There’s good reason for the company to be so cautious as there’s a lot riding on the decisions that are being made right now, at least in the music sphere.

The launch of the new YouTube streaming service has actually been speculated for months, and if I didn’t actually know people who have seen it for themselves, it might be easy to think of the launch whispers as a just a diversion to throw off the competition, a nice rumor to scare the pants off of Spotify, Pandora and Beats Music. That said, all indications are that the service is being crafted to be a serious contender in the music streaming space, but the fact of the matter is that there are three major issues facing Google here, and none of them trivial.

The biggest question is how to top something that’s doing so well already under its own momentum. YouTube is already the largest music discovery engine online, beating all competitors by a large margin, according to Nielson’s Music 360 Report. You don’t hear a lot of complaints or “if only it did” comments from its users, as most are quite content with the on-demand access that they have now. Oh, and it’s free too. How do you surpass that without becoming just another service groveling for some of Pandora or Spotify’s marketshare?

By delivering picture along with the audio, that’s how, which raises the second question of how Google gets around delivering that picture without it resembling a late night at a Karaoke bar. Word has it that the company is looking into licensing different types of artwork to play behind the music; some static and some dynamic. Ideally the graphics would have at least something to do with the artist, but many videos today get by just fine with abstract graphic designs. Read more on Forbes.

Can Twitter’s Big Data Influence The Music Business?

Twitter is a vast repository of all sorts of data on trends and users, but that data isn't always easy to delineate, even for Twitter. Now a new venture with former Warner Bros top exec Lyor Cohen's new 300 label intends to take advantage of the social network to discover new music trends and artists bubbling under the radar.

Under a joint agreement announced at the recent MIDEM conference in Cannes France, 300 (who’s name was derived from the movie of the same name) now gets to organize Twitter's music data, including some that's not available to the public, like location tags that shows from where tweets are sent. The company also plans to develop software around the information that might also be useful to musicians, record companies and publishing companies.

The venture is important for the Google backed 300 (Google is its largest investor), but it’s also important for Twitter as well. Just the fact that it’s accumulated a treasure trove of data over its seven years of existence isn't doing the company much good at moment, but having a partner make new use of it in one sector could give it ideas on how to repurpose other data specifically for other industries as well. Read more on Forbes.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter and Facebook for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.