Instagram ‘pauses’ its plans to build Instagram Kids app
Instagram was making a version of its app for children aged under 13. Now it’s not – at least not for the moment.
“We believe building Instagram Kids is the right thing to do, but we’re pausing the work,” wrote Instagram boss Adam Mosseri in a blog post yesterday.
“This will give us time to work with parents, experts, policymakers and regulators, to listen to their concerns, and to demonstrate the value and importance of this project for younger teens online today.”
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Source: Music ally
Single Music opens up its video streaming for Shopify stores
Single Music is a startup that makes a ‘monetised video’ tool for ecommerce platform Shopify, so that artists using the latter to sell merch can also use it for ticketed livestreams.
The company says that it has sold nearly a million tickets and generated more than $22m of revenue for its clients since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
It has been choosing which artists to work with – including Def Leppard, Smashing Pumpkins and Korn – but now it is opening up the tool so that it can be used by any artist on Shopify on a self-serve basis.
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Source: Music ally
Song Sleuth seeks out user-uploaded live music recordings
There are several ways labels can scan video and social services for use of their recordings, including the tools of those platforms and third-party startups.
What about recordings of live music performances though? That’s a trickier task, but startups are trying to tackle that too. Song Sleuth is one example.
It uses AI and machine learning to scan social platforms to identify live recordings, then has a human team of moderators to check them, before submitting monetisation claims. The company says it works on an artist-by-artist or label-by-label basis.
Its executive team includes CEO Jordan Gross, the former CEO of karaoke service Sing King, and COO Lucas Bleeg, formerly of The Orchard and Studio71.
Armed with a “finding the unfindable” slogan, it will be hoping to carve out a niche for itself alongside established startups like Pex, which says its own ‘attribution engine’ is also capable of detecting live versions of tracks.
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Source: Music ally
FIMI boss hails “incredible jump” for Italian music listening
Recorded music income in Italy rose 34% in the first half of 2021, with subscription revenue up 41%. More importantly, perhaps, Enzo Mazza, CEO of Italian recorded music body FIMI, says that Italy made “an incredible jump” in the transition to digital consumption during the pandemic.
“In one year Italy reached a penetration in the usage of new devices and internet the country would [otherwise] have reached in four years at least,” he told Music Ally, for our latest country profile. “Italian consumers adapted very fast to the new environment generated by the several lockdowns,”
Mazza added. “Even people with a low digital culture were involved in a strong usage of the new technologies and in particular video streaming platforms, like Netflix, and also the music platforms saw an increase.”
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Source: Music ally
BT and Paul Oakenfold put blockchain at the heart of new albums
Since the earliest days of blockchain hype in the music industry, electronic music artists have often been the first to experiment with the technology: particularly those that are most tech-savvy and who control their rights.
There are two new examples this week. First, trance legend BT is releasing what’s being described as “the world’s first programmatic album… designed from the ground up for the blockchain”.
It’s called ‘Metaversal’ and is being released as an NFT. The album plays differently if you listen to it in the day, at night or during a full moon, and there’s a cryptographic treasure hunt built in for fans. It follows BT’s ‘Genesis.Json’ project in May, which was also sold as an NFT (for the ether equivalent of $217.2k).
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Source: Music ally