‘We’ve got two of them this week, pizza nights’
StartHub
Last week Twones got a visit from StartHub.nl, the website that portrays Dutch technology start-ups. StartHub got an exclusive look behind the scenes and grabbed the atmosphere in our office very well. ‘It’s deadly serious, but it’s also serious fun’.
Check out the video below (in Dutch) to get an impression of who we are, how our office looks like (sometimes) and to get a sneak preview of our next release. Rock, rock on!
After previous events in London, Berlin and Amsterdam, last weekend Boston was hosting the Music Hackday. From all over the world musicians, companies and hackers came together to hack with APIs and to have talks with each other in the limited (in a good way) panels.
Twones was there too and had lots of fun talking with all the developers, speakers and attendees. Curious what it was like and which applications were developed? Follow the links below and get an impression of what we did and who we spoke to.
Thanks to Jon Pierce (@jonpierce), Paul Lamere (@plamere), Elissa Barrett (@elissab), Dave Haynes (@haynes_dave), Brian Whitman (@bwhitman), Echonest (@echonest) and Boston for a great time.
Reviews:
Music Hackday Boston (Brian Whitman)
Music Hackday: ‘a Dungeons & Dragons conference for music geeks’ (Public Spaces Lab)
Music Hackday Boston wrap up (Hypemachine)
Overview of the developed applications (Music Hackday Boston)
Last night, Twones got a major update! While we decided to keep this update a bit more quiet than the last one, we still would like to show you what has kept us busy the last weeks. Next to some improvements in the interface of the website we introduced some new features that definitely get us excited. How about you?
Interface
First of all we improved the design of the website. We made it the website look slicker, meaner and above all improved the usability of it. Several buttons have been (re)moved to make the site look cleaner. One of the most significant changes is the introduction of the new headers. These headers let you navigate more easy through your own library and show you what’s popular at this moment. Next to this it will give you a better view on where you are on the site. Getting lost within Twones now is a thing from the past.
Better integration with other networks
We have worked hard to let Twones integrate better with other platforms. We decided to improve the communication with other networks on several levels which gives you a lot of benefits:
Tracker update
In the past we have had some problems with our Twones Tracker not behaving like it should. That is why we have a Tracker update ready for you that will solve all of your previous tracking issues. Finally, we made several major back-end improvements. These may not be clearly visible for all users but will definitely make your Twones experiences a more stable, faster and better one. We have put a lot of effort in this release and we hope you will love just as much as we do.
As always, we like to hear what you think of the improvements so leave your feedback in the comments or on our GetSatisfaction page.
In April 2009 the first Music and Bits event was organized in Amsterdam. Because of the success, the event will see its second edition on Wednesday the 21st of October. Twones is one of the partners and is proud to welcome among others The Hype Machine, SoundCloud and Last.fm as the speakers.
Music and Bits
Music and Bits is an event dedicated to continue the dialog between music and technology. Bringing together developers, designers, decision makers, technology entrepreneurs and start-ups from the European and American Internet and music scene, the event will cover a broad number of topics concerning todays music and technology discussions.
Next to this, Music and Bits will cooperate with the Music Hack Day this day. The Music Hack Day gives participants the opportunity to rapidly build and prototype new projects. They have got only this day to work on their projects and will present them in the late afternoon after several API-presentations and hardware demos.
Speakers
The organization has confirmed that Brain Whitman of The Echo Nest, Anthony Volodkin of The Hype Machine, Eric Wahlforss of SoundCloud, Matthew Ogle of Last.fm, Justin Ouellette of Muxtape and people from RjDj will speak at the event. Last but not least we from Twones will be there too to support the event.
Where
Music and Bits and the Music Hack Day will take place in the Felix Meritis Centre in Amsterdam. The soft- and hardware hacking will start at 09:30 and keynotes will be held from 13:00 to 17:30. Since the entrance is free and only a limited amount of attendees is possible a great part of the tickets is already reserved. To claim your free entrance ticket make sure to register soon on musicandbits.com.
Twones has always been about tracking the streaming web and untill now we have been concentrating our activities on tracking more than twenty big services. But the streaming web has more to offer. There is a huge amounth of music made available on blogs and starting from today, Twones will open up this music to the rest of the world.
The Twones Widget
Untill now, we’ve had no means to track all these small music blogs. But now we do! We have developed a Twones Widget that allows individual blog owners and their visitors to see what is being played on their blogs in real-time. As a Twoner, you can follow any individual blog that has the Twones Widget installed, and all your plays will be aggregated to your Twones account.
But what is in it for the blog owners? All you blog owners out there can use the Twones Widget to add a social component to your site. It gives your readers the possibility to become more engaged with your site and you can become more involved with your readers too! Also, because the music on your blog is being tracked to Twones-profiles, your music can generate additional traffic to your blog. This way, the Twones gadget is not only a way to discover music, but also to discover blogs.
Release
We will officially release the Twones Widget late fall 2009 but untill then we have installed it here so we can test it and show you how it works. To start with, we selected some tracks that helped us through the development:
Since our latest major update halfway September, Twones got a lot of attention from the international techpress. Excited about the new beta, several sources even compared us with other successful platforms like Last.fm, Del.ici.ous and Twitter. A quick overview.
Wired
It all started with a feature in Wired’s September issue. We found ourselves mentioned in the article ‘5 Apps Tap the Internet’s Infinite Playlist’. Wired described how you can stream almost any song on the Internet nowadays. In an overview of five sites that ‘tap the music into the cloud’, Wired mentioned Twones together with among others Spotify.
Lifehacker
Lifehacker was one of the first to report about the September-release and mentioned that Twones keeps track of all the music you listen to, comparing us with Last.fm. We were very proud to be compared with this giant player in the online music industry while still in private beta!
Mashable
“Music has always been a communal process” says Christina Warren from Mashable “and sharing what we’re listening to and songs that we like is becoming increasingly popular”. In the article she pointed at the ease of recommending songs to others made possible in Twones.
Read Write Web
The Read Write Web Start Channel which profiles startups, wrote “If you’re the kind of music lover with playlists strewn across multiple web services, then Twones is the tool for you.” To describe the platform they compared us with Del.icio.us or a Friendfeed for streaming music.
Asia
After the American attention, the Asian techpress followed last week. The Japanese version of Lifehacker posted an article and many others are still following. After all this attention, we are already busy improving the platform for our next major release planned halfway October. Keep track of our latest developments by checking our Twitterpage regularly and let us know what you think of Twones in the comments!
Tip: We gave some extra invitecodes away to some of the above mentioned websites. Too late to grab one on the first run? Try searching these sites or Twitter and you might find yourself lucky!
We at Twones are all really excited about the official launch of a new and improved private Beta for all you Twoners out there! We’re also thrilled to announce that we are bringing even more music lovers into our service by offering exclusive invites to some of the top tastemakers on the web. So what did we do?
The problem
The idea of media ‘ownership’ is a thing of the past. All over the web music is being played and shared constantly by people just like you. People listen to music on Last.fm, Grooveshark, imeem, HypeM, MySpace, or any of the many streaming music services out there. But when you are listening to music all over the web, where do you store and organize all this music? If you’re a Twoner, this problem is solved now.
The solution: Twones
The magic of our new site begins with the Twones Tracker that tracks music you that you play on the web and your computer and ties them all to your Twones account. As long as you have your browser active, all of your plays end up in your Twones page, ready to be organized, shared, or accessed by you from where ever you are. But this is only the start. When you hit the play button in your Twones library, you are immediately connected to a world of information about that track and artist. From Wikipedia info to similar artists and from YouTube videos to Flickr pictures - Twones ties it all together. We even give you up-to-the-minute tour schedules and allow you to track the artist’s buzz on Twitter!
Share your music
Finally, discovering new music is a social thing, so we’ve built sharing features into every area of our platform. If you want to discover music in Twones, just go to the ‘on air’ section and listen to what your friends or other Twoners play in real-time! And if you want to share a song or a playlist you made in Twones just hit the ‘Tweet’ button and share it with the rest of the world!
If you’re already a Twoner, discover and enjoy the new website! If not, try to get an invite somewhere on the web and join the community! We put a ton of work into it and we hope you’ll love it as much as we do. We can’t wait to hear what you love, what you’re spinning, and share our love of music with you!
Rock, Rock On!
The Twones team
Lately we have been busy preparing our official private beta launch. We set the date to September 17th with our public launch scheduled the month after.
It’s all coming together in our new private beta: We added some new essential functions and we cleaned up the interface. Watch this space for more information.
Also we are honored to be featured in this months WIRED magazine and in Rad on the web’s Top 5 streaming sites. Check out the video below.
Watch live video from Rad on the Web on Justin.tv
What have we been doing at the Twones office the last weeks?
Well, we have been listening to your feedback and are working on a new and improved Twones in which a lot of your feedback will be incorporated . It’s still a bit confidential but we can tell you the new design will be cleaner, simpler and has some new and improved functionalities. Furthermore we are working on a ‘Twones Gadget’ that is mainly designed for blogs. More news will follow so keep an eye on this space!
As you know by now, The fourth Next Web Conference will be held on April 15-17 in Amsterdam. To complement the main days (16th & 17th of April) of keynotes and booth, the first day there will be three smaller events- Mobile DevCamp, Music & Bits and The Current Web.
The 15th of April, Music & Bits will collaborate with Mobile Dev Camp to talk about the future of music and mobile. While there are two different ‘tracks of interest’ in the same venue (Spaces), we will have different programs. We’ll start at 11:00h and end at 17:30h. If you have a NextWeb ticket you’ll only need to sign up here. If not, you can request an invite here and we just might invite you to our event (free of cost).
Music & Bits: What’s buzzing in the online music game lately?
Just the day before you’ll submerge yourself in the future of the web we want to offer you a glance of what’s happening in the world of music & technology. Technology is changing fast. It’s changing the way we consume media, the way we consume music. It’s forcing us to think differently. We need to re-think how we manage copyright, how to publish our music and how to reach new audiences. At April 15th, we’ll be holding a conference called ‘Music & Bits’, exploring the opportunities of music & technology. We’ll have (among others) Steve Jang (former imeem), Lucas Gonze (founder of WebJay and former Yahoo! Music) and Alex Ljung from Soundcloud.
There will be some food and drinks for you to grab during the day. Be sure to sign up fast because we can only welcome a limited amount of attendees. NextWeb attendees will get a priority invite. Contact Peter Robinett (Mobile Dev Camp) or Edial Dekker (Music & Bits) for more info. See you on April 15th!
http://musicandbits.com
http://2009.thenextweb.com/
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