The Next Web

Music service Qtrax: many promises, no music

Written on January 31, 2008 – 2:42 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Frank Abagnale Sr.: You know why the Yankees always win, Frank?
Frank Abagnale Jr.: ‘Cause they have Mickey Mantle?
Frank Abagnale Sr.: No, it’s ’cause the other teams can’t stop staring at those damn pinstripes.
Catch me if you Can

Last week we told you that our office pals Tim Heineke and Diederik Martens from Twones would show up at Midem to pitch their start-up. They came back with some great stories, one of which I have to share with you.

The people from music service Qtrax must have seen the movie Catch me if you Can. While watching, they’ve learned that it’s all about appearance. Impress people and they’ll love you, and your service. Frank Abagnale Jr was a doctor, pilot and lawyer, without any education. Only because he blinded people with his charming appearance.

So the guys from Qtrax impressed the people in Cannes with several parties. They even invited LL Cool J, Don Henley and James Blunt to spice up their show with some music. Digital Music News reports that several executives shared details with them of the extravagance. One of their sources estimated that the costs are between 1 tot 1.5 million dollars. The Henley show expenses topped 456,000 euros and James Blunt showed up for an amount of 135,000 euros. “You can’t walk anywhere without seeing Qtrax,” said one executive.

Aside from the star element, Qtrax also bragged about some deals with major labels and a launch. They would supply Qtrax with music, which they would offer to their users for free. But in the end, Qtrax failed to launch and the majors didn’t know anything about the deals. Qtrax president and chief executive Allan Klepfisz remains optimistic though. “The response to the service is clearly unprecedented,” he claimed. “We believe the exact nature of that support will be publicly clarified within a very short time.”

Meanwhile, rumors about a possible stock manipulation are becoming louder. It seems like Qtrax is making the same mistake as Frank Abagnale Jr made, they got a little bit too enthusiastic. In the end, the charms don’t work anymore and you actually have to offer people something. In this case free and legal music downloads.

I hope you like that post!

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cannes, Deadpool, midem, music, qtrax, twones

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Beware of the European music revolution

Written on January 25, 2008 – 12:27 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

The world’s music market will gather in Cannes this weekend. The Palais des Festivals is the decor for Midem, a five-day conference (if you include the forum). The program has some interesting web aspects. One of those is organized by London-based MusicAlly, ‘the world’s leading digital music research and strategy company’. They will present six finalists in the first ever Music Ally/MidemNet New Business Showcase. That basically comes down to six great music technology ideas that will change the way we listen to music.

The Next Web Blog actually shares an office with Twones, one of the nominees. Next to playing soccer in the hallway with us, they’re also developing a ‘fresh way to find & discover music via trusted connections’. Diederik Martens en Tim Heineke are looking forward to the ‘fun, exposure and all the new contacts’. “We never had so many appointments as we have this weekend”, says Heineke. Martens: “Plus, we’ll be chilling in a beach bar, of which I actually forgot the name”.

Four of the six nominees are from Europe. Together they’re shaping a new European revolution in music technology. This is how the future in music looks:

The Music Drop from Germany.
An earpiece with only one song on it that can be played only once to ‘emphasize the value of the product and the meaning of giving’. Well it’s an original gift, hope it won’t leave some people frustrated to hear the song again. The inventor of the award-winning idea, student Noa Lerner, is looking for investors now.

Musiclink from Sweden
Musiclink draws a good picture of the popularity of an artist or cd by collecting on-line data from social networks, blogs, file sharing services and web radio. Billboard Chart 2.0 that uses API’s and web scraping services. Does it also counts the number of sold Music Drops?

Twones from Holland
Tim and Diederik are working on a service that’s monitoring the music you play, anywhere. From your iPod to music web services as Last.fm. The data is collected in a music timeline. Friends, foes or fans can subscribe to your time line - follow you Twitter-style - and will receive updates of new music you’re listening. Talking about good recommendations! Another cool thing is that your music timeline is a music library at the same time. So you can play your music wherever you want, as long as you hook up to the Internet.

ReacTable from Spain
Imagine making music by moving weird shapes on top of a science fiction-like table. With ReacTable you can and it creates an original electric sound. Rolling Stone magazine voted it as Hot Instrument of the Year 2007! Bjork loves it! Need more arguments? Have a look at the video:

By the way, the American nominees are pretty cool as well. Read more about Recombinant and Voxonic on Wired.

midem, music, musically, twones

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