It took some time, but the music industry is finally starting embrace the possibilities of the Internet, and one of the best places you can go to witness this is the annual Midem conference in Cannes, France.
2012’s event takes place from 28 to 31 January, featuring talks, exhibits, gigs and more as people from the worlds of music, technology and marketing get together to help shape the future. The Next Web will be there, and as you’d expect, we’ll be keeping a particularly close eye on the startups involved.
The event’s startup competition, Midemlab, has previously helped launch such notable companies as audio sharing platform SoundCloud, concert information service Songkick, and smart music data manipulators, The Echo Nest – the company powering Spotify’s new radio app, EMI’s API and other recent exciting developments.
The startups taking part in 2012 have been announced, and they’re divided into three categories: Music Discovery, Recommendation & Creation; Marketing, and Direct to Consumer Sales and Content Monetisation. We’ll be taking a closer look at the best of the bunch when we touch down in Cannes for the event in January.
To register for your ticket to Midem 2012, visit this page. There are special discounts for startups, artists and students.
Here are the Midemlab startups, with links where available.
Music Discovery, Recommendation & Creation
ChartsNow.mobi (UK) – mass market mobile music service
MPme by Apsmart (UK) – curated internet radio
musicplayr (Germany) – music discovery & blogging
Navegas (Germany) – connecting the world of music tool
Rexly (USA) – social discovery & recommendation
Songs2See by Fraunhofer (Germany) – music game development
SoshiGames (UK) – game-based social music discovery
Twusic by Lemon Lab (Belgium) – Twitter music application
Watzatsong (France) – crowdsourced music search engine
WhoSampled (UK) – music discovery – read our previous coverage
Marketing & Social engagement
BandApp (UK) – free instant artist app creation
Beloola by V-Cult (France) – social music service
CrowdSurfing by LiveOne Group (USA) – live content social viewing app
Flowd (Finland) – music marketing and social music service
iPluggers (Netherlands) – worldwide digital radio promotion
Oocto by GeniusMonk (France) – crowdfunding & crowdsourcing music platform
Pipe (Germany) – file transfer for social networks
RockStar Motel (USA) – fan-centric music social network
Tastebuds.fm (UK) – social events discovery – read our previous coverage
Webdoc (Switzerland) – fan engagement – read our previous coverage
Direct to consumer sales and Content Monetisation
Getonic (Israel) – direct to consumer social ecommerce
Menyou (Sweden) – online sales and distribution tool
Musicsoft Arts (USA) – interactive music discovery, playback and sales
My Bee (France) – access control and dematerialized payment
Ondango (Germany) – Facebook commerce solution
SonicAngel (Belgium) – next generation crowdfunding label
TuneRights (Sweden) – stock market for music
Tunipop (USA) – connecting merchandise with digital music
Weezevent (France) – cloud ticketing service
WildChords by Ovelin (Finland) – guitar learning game – read our previous coverage
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