Hollywood and the major record labels have always enjoyed a love-hate relationship with new media, alternating between roses and lawsuits for online entrepreneurs, if you will. Lately, it was looking a little like love was going to win. Hulu, after all, had convinced its detractors that even big dinosaurs can get things right, and record labels had started to embrace services like MySpace Music and Last.fm. But like an alcoholic who just can’t resist that drink, big media looks ready to relapse.
iPhoneDevCamp 2 took place in San Francisco this past weekend; one of the great things about the conference this year and last was the number of applications written by people who met there for the first time or who had no prior iPhone development experience.
Sometimes, the cleverest ideas and applications arise from these chance encounters, despite having only two days to come up with these applications.
Here are brief descriptions and a few screenshots of some of the nearly 40 applications developed or demoed during iPhoneDevCamp 2.
Free streaming music turns people on to new music and encourages them to buy, says social-networking site Last.fm. In the music industry, this will not come as a huge revelation.
Last.fm, acquired by CBS last May, announced Wednesday that since the company launched its on-demand streaming service two months ago, CD and download sales through its partnership with Amazon.com have more than doubled.
So what does that mean?
Music discovery continues to be one of digital music’s greatest vulnerabilities. Nobody has come up with a sure or simple way to help people wade through the millions of tracks available on the Web.
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