soundtrckr

Live at Digital Hollywood

Digital Hollywood starts today in Santa Monica, CA. The conference and trade show focuses on the intersection of entertainment and technology, and soundtrckr's own Daniele Calabrese will be speaking tomorrow afternoon along with Stephen Jackson, Jason Henderson, Michael Schade, Jennifer Cooper, and self-styled "Mayor of LA" Matt Story. The event will be live-streamed via ultralivetv and AT&T Intelligent Content Distribution. 

Soundtrckr @ Mobile Monday DC

Soundtrckr is presenting at Mobile Monday DC's "Navigating GeoSocial Applications" event, joining Brightkite and Skyhook Wireless to discuss the convergence of geolocation and social networking. We'll put up video as soon as it's available. 

Press Update: John Vasko, MediaNet, and Lokale Suche

Today, John Vasko of Social Media Marketing released part 1 of his predictions for tech, web, and social media in 2010. Happily, the mainstreaming of geosocial apps and services came in at #1, with soundtrckr getting a nice namecheck alongside perennial favorites Foursquare, Gowalla, and Brightkite. 

Meanwhile, at MediaNet's blog, the beloved providers of our massive music library checked out last month's Wired article on soundtrckr and totally think you should, too.

Finally, German website Lokale Suche takes a stroll through Google Translate and asks this pleasantly cryptic and koan-like question: "Where does the music?"

The answer, it turns out, is soundtrckr! But that is not all, insists Lokale Suche, for not only is soundtrckr where the music does, it is also the perfect place for a person to work his or her Muntermachermusik. Obviously this has been our intent since the beginning, and we tip our hat kindly to Lokale Suche for the shout. 

soundtrckr is live!

Blending the best elements of Internet radio, social networks, and location-based mobile apps, soundtrckr has launched a free application and website that allows users to connect their mobile devices to the social and geographic aspects of music discovery.

Users can create and broadcast their own fully licensed radio stations, tap into the streams of other users, and geo-tag places with songs. All content can be shared on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

Soundtrckr is available on the iTunes Apps store for the iPhone, the iPod Touch, Macs, and PCs at: http://itunes.apple.com/app/soundtrckr/id339473336?mt=8. The website is also live at http://www.soundtrckr.com. New applications for Android, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile will be available in 2010.

Designed for the mobile environment, soundtrckr allows users, content owners, sponsors, partners, and licensors to interact in local and targeted ways. Soundtrckr users can create a musical map of their favorite places by associating songs to locations. One person can tag the route of their morning jog with the songs they listen to while running, and another can tag their neighborhood club with music by upcoming acts. All users can share and experience each other’s tags and music, and a ranking system will reward the most active and followed broadcasters.

"Music is a shared experience, a way to communicate and connect. It's intimately tied to the people and places in our daily lives, and soundtrckr is the first application that recognizes and facilitates this connection in a concrete way,” said soundtrckr CEO Daniele Calabrese. "Soundtrckr makes our cities and friends active participants in the way we experience music."

Chief Operating Officer Ken Manning agrees. "There is so much music available to consumers right now, with few good ways to find the material that's right for your tastes. Soundtrckr solves this problem by allowing you to listen to the tunes your friends are into."

Through its partnership with MediaNet, soundtrckr offers access to a music catalog featuring millions of songs from major and independent labels, aggregators, and distributors. Further licenses are in place with publishing clearinghouses including American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), SESAC, Inc., and Sound Exchange.

“We are committed to provide the best experience for both users and performers. Soundtrckr will provide legally licensed offerings for users and fair compensation to content owners, publishers, and partners,” said Chief Financial Officer David Porter.

The company’s management team has deep experience in the music and mobile sector. Mr. Calabrese is a former World Bank Communication Officer and Project Manager. Chief Operating Officer Ken Manning is also the founder and chairman of betterPropaganda Music, a leading music discovery site with relationships with more than 600 major and independent labels. Chief Financial Officer David Porter is the founder and CEO of online music mix-tape company 8tracks, and previously served as a manager and director of business development at Internet radio network Live365.

Soundtrckr has received funding from Lumu Invest in Luxembourg, Romulus Capital in Boston, and has recently completed an angel round in the US and Italy. The company was honored as the second most innovative startup of 2009 at the SMAU high-tech trade show in Milan.

"Global Map of Social Web" from TrendStream

Adam Ostrow at Mashable shared a delectable infographic from TrendStream today. Besides being all pretty, it offers some surprising insights on Chinese digital internalism, Japanese early-adopterism, and the Twitter hype-to-reality ratio.

Soundtrckr Alpha Testing Begins!

Soundtrckr is still in stealth mode, but we're showing a bit of ankle by sharing our Alpha application with 50 testers.

If you happen to be one, here's a page with a video and a PDF on how to install the app. You'll also find instructions for setting up a shortcut on your iPhone to give us feedback on any strange or wonderful behavior.

We've chosen 09/09/09 at 9pm PDT for our Alpha release because even though we're not superstitious, it still feels lucky (plus cool on general principle). That said, our real faith is with the Alpha Team-- your collective wisdom will go a long way toward rounding out soundtrckr and making it as engaging and fun as possible. We're looking forward to hearing from you, and thank you in advance for your input.

Congratulations to my team, and best wishes to the Alpha testers!

- Daniele