MXM’s AppLause Showcase

By Seaver Wong

It was one week ago that Media Cross Media (MXM) had their AppLause Showcase. It was a private event that was held to showcase five new live music apps. Held at The Limelight Marketplace at West 20th Street and Sixth Avenue, the second floor was filled to the brim with people who just came out of work. There was a bar to drink and food to eat. Everybody was busy talking while the people on stage where setting things up. After a little bit of a delay, we got started.

The first app was Timbre. The presenter, Tong Yu, explained that Timbre allows people to locate local concerts in the area in a five mile radius for 30 days. Using JamBase and other companies as ticket vendors, you can purchase your tickets in the app. Timbre has already been released for the iPhone. It was noted that Apple presented Timbre as a new and noteworthy app during the iPhone 5 launch. Timbre was also featured on TechCrunch, Mashable and Wired. In terms of how they implement songs, they use Spotify to play the whole song instead of iTunes’ 30 second previews. As far as future plans go, an Android app is in the works, the international version of Timbre is under beta testing right now. If all goes well, then Timbre will be ready for international release next month. One big omission was the ability to search by genre. Yu’s explanation for this was that they would’ve loved to implement a back-end database, but unfortunately they had to do without those features. He added that the app is more lightweight without it. However, they will be adding customization options in the future. They will also be implementing a tutorial on their main website sometime down the line. In terms of expanding the userbase, it’s a viral loop. They use social media sites and word of mouth to market their app. For more info, please visit http://www.timbreapp.com/.

The second app, Playmysong, is a digital jukebox app that allows you to request songs or use any of your playlists to be played for free at parties, homes, bars, cafes, restaurants, or other Playmysong-powered venues. You can also use it as a remote to play Spotify songs on your desktop. You can actually use your own mp3s or Spotify playlists as well. The whole thing takes 3 minutes to set up. The idea is that you control the music you’re playing and expose your tastes to everybody else whether it’s at home, at a coffeehouse, or out being a DJ. While you can use Playmysong for free, there is a pro subscription that costs $39/month. It includes playlist scheduling, in-venue marketing, and customization features. They have already partnered with Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, and iTunes. Foursquare, Rdio, and B2B (business-to-business) integration is also planned. Since traditional jukebox companies struggle to embrace change, with Playmysong, customers turn into free social marketers who share songs that are playing right then and there. In terms of licenses, Spotify takes care of the music licenses. Spotify does not allow selling for commercial use. It’s mainly for consumer use. There are no deals for artists, but stream licensing is possible. However, that is best left up to licensing professionals. Playmysong is available for iOS with a consumer version and a business version for public venues or business use. It’s also available for Android and Windows Phone, making this a multi-platform application. For more info, please visit http://playmysong.tumblr.com/about.

The third app comes from Aloompa. Aloompa was demoing a new app involving a large music festival for Bonnaroo in Manchester, England. You have directions to a concert, and artist description, a 90 second preview of a song from iTunes, and song history. You also have a map of the Bonnaroo Festival, which lists the times and stages of where a band or artist would be playing. Basically, they include all the things that a person would need to know for the Festival. There’s also an online sync for your calendar app. You have a photo booth option which can be shared to Instagram.Feature buttons include food & retail, news, and the ability to socialize. One thing to note is that they do not solve cases of ticket scalping even though it’s something they feel strongly about. It’s available on iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and Mac. So far, 70% of people have downloaded this app. For more info, please visit http://www.bonnaroo.com/.

The fourth app coming from CrowdTorch, which highlighted its Insomniac Mothership app. This app can be thought of as many apps inside a single native app since it houses all of Insomniac’s large festivals as well as their local shows. Concerts can be easily searched and filtered by either month or venue, while the large festivals are “sub-apps” that can be skinned to match each event’s unique branding. The sub-apps have their own navigation so it’s easy for festival goers to view the festival lineup and find where they’re going with interactive maps. The main benefit is that all of Insomniac’s events live in one native app on the fan’s device so they don’t need to download multiple apps from Insomniac to stay up to date with all of the events. Plus, there’s a cost efficiency: instead of having to pay for an app for each event, you can purchase a single app to house multiple events. Insomniac’s app is out for iPhone and Android platforms. For more info, please visit http://insomniac.com/newsDetails.php?news=286.

Following a break, Walter Gross came up to showcase the final app coming from EMI North America. This app is called Blue Note. Blue Note isn’t a mobile app like the other four apps preceding Blue Note. However, what this app does is take all of their jazz music content and turn it into a timeline. An example of this was done in the genre of jazz. EMI wanted to create a dataset and a discography for past artists in the timeline. Every past artist has their own dedicated page. You can compare similar sample beats between a past song and a modern song. It’s the perfect way to sample songs from two different times for similarities. It was very surprising to find out that one of Snoop Dog’s songs has a beat that was lifted from a past Jazz singer. Blue Note was being presented on a Macbook with Spotify installed. However, Gross said that the iOS version would be different from the one with Spotify. Blue Note is out for iPad right now. For more info, please visit http://www.bluenote.com/.

It should be noted that all five apps are free to download and won’t cost a penny to download. There were two apps that I thought stood out in presentation: Timbre and Playmysong. The presenters were to the point and I really liked the features that were shown. That being said, all the apps were good because they make finding concerts easier and they easily make it easier to find your way through a music festival. I’m excited for all of them and I hope that they will continue making these apps great. Afterwards, they had a giveaway for a bottle of vodka to whoever had the best question that was asked. Then it was a live stream of the Concert for Hurricane Sandy victims at Madison Square Garden on YouTube. Once the concert ended, then the party was to start. I decided to head out after the presentation. Blue Note seems to be a great history site. Of all the five apps, I might try out Timbre and Playmysong out. For the other two, it depends if I’ll be in Manchester or the West Coast. All five apps have great potential and I’m really excited for the future of concerts and festivals. It seems very bright.

For more info on this event, please visit http://www.mediacrossmedia.com/.

Follow us at https://www.facebook.com/AsianInNYFans for more future events.

About swong