8tracks
Andrew and I met with David Porter, founder of 8tracks, the "legal muxtape", yesterday. David offered to let me try their new uploader (not yet available) that lets you drag and drop iTunes playlists into 8tracks. It’s killer.
Here’s what I did with it in about 2 minutes. I hope you like it.
And here’s my 8tracks page, where my other mix is also listed.
Comments (Archived):
It is nice indeed and I’ll probably use it on my blog as well.
It is quite similar to Playlist.com and maybe i’ll try to visit it. I couldn’t find a list. Anyway, its good.Money Making and Blogging Tips
I like it. Still my biggest complaint about the majority of the music players available online is the inability for me to separate my current browsing experience from what I’m currently listening to. For me, a great music experience isn’t just another tab in my browser.
You have a nice taste for indie music, Fred. I`m signing up for this service and using it in my page, nice to know they are legal, but i think it will be hard for them to survive needing to make a $30 CPM overall.
You’re right, streaming is an expensive proposition. The royalty rates available for radio-style webcasting are $0.0014 per “performance” (per stream, per listener), which at ~4 min/track average, works out to 2.1 cents/hour. Throw in composition royalties (paid to ASCAP, BMI and SESAC) and bandwidth, and you likely need *at least* 3 cents of revenue per hour (i.e. a $30 CPM per *hour*) just to cover marginal costs.So, for instance, you’d need 10 ads during the course of an hour at an effective CPM of $3 (display/audio/video) to cover these costs.While there’s no guarantee, there may be some relief forthcoming from negotiations following the Webcaster Settlement Act. At 8tracks, we’ll also be offering a premium service for DJs, a model which worked well at Live365 (where I used to work).
Challenging, but at the same time you’re lucky the Sound Exchange/US Copyright Act shows more tolerance and forward thinking than their UK counterparts!Good to see some nice new 8tracks innovations.
Thanks, Nikhil! Let me know what you think of the Uploader, if you’ve a chance. Hope all’s well with you – we should catch up soon.
Thanks for the props, Fred – much appreciated.Love the fact that you were able to create a mix (playlist) in 2 min! As mentioned and for others reading, the objective here is to allow people to use their existing playlist tool — iTunes — and then simply drag-and-drop full playlists to the 8tracks “cloud”.If anyone else would like to give the Uploader a spin, grab it here and let me know what you think: http://8tracks.tumblr.com/p…
whoa – plane ride mix.
8Tracks is the bomb! Hope to feature it and take it to the Latino Community / Music Industry Players…speaking of which David when you are ready to talk to labels other producers let me know…Wu Latino CEO is NYC for example.
Nice mix Fred, I’m glad you like the uploader.
man, thanks for that royal alberta advantage track. it’s like an indie-rock steve earle.
This is a great product – love the simplicity and ease of use. Nice work David!
Hey thanks Doug! Perhaps we’ll be able to keep the UI clean by making use of short, highly-targeted audio spots down the road ; )
It would be interesting to hear why 8tracks is legal but Muxtape wasn’t. Not at all clear to the quick glancer.
Hi Ken,8tracks operates under the US compulsory license for webcasting, which requires that access by a listener conform with a set of rules established under the DMCA, the spirit of which is to ensure that playback is analogous to radio, promoting rather than substituting for music sale. So, for instance, a listener can’t search and stream a particular track on demand, or re-wind to listen repeatedly to the same track. In addition, the playlist can’t be displayed in advance; track information must be displayed when the track comes up, in order. There’s also a set of rules around how frequently tracks from the same artist or album can be played in a specified period.These are the same rules that other internet radio services (Pandora, Last.fm) follow.
ah ok, well-explained. It’s a subtlelty that changes everything.
Fred, You’ve got really great taste in music.
Hey Fred,Do you use Lala.com? I’m pretty excited about it and we share a lot of musical tastes (Okkervill River has been a favorite of mine since Black Sheep Boy). 8tracks looks pretty awesome but Lala is winning me over.
I’ve tried lala on and off over the years. They’ve had like five different business models/offeringsI can’t keep coming back like that
nice mix freddy… and love the uploader concept!
Hey Fred,Hi Fred, Been a follower for years. This is maybe my 2nd or 3rd post. Thanks again for introducing me cool and useful web tools. I’ve just implemented 8tracks on my new audio publishing label’s web site. As far as I know, BetterListen! is the first to use 8tracks for spoken word material. I think it is cool and plan to use it in different ways as my new label evolves.Check it out if you get a chance – let me know what you thinkhttp://www.betterlisten.com…