Shazam try to shift from identification to playing

You know what you should do when you do one thing really, really well?

No, Shazam, it's not try to expand into doing things other people already do, but better:

That’s a trend that’s been underway for a while, but was emphasised yesterday with a relaunch of Shazam’s music features. They include even more focus on the app’s news feed, with music news and song recommendations based on each user’s past tagging habits, as well as exclusive live sessions and interviews.

The app’s dedicated music player also has more priority in the redesign, complete with the ability for users to sign in to Spotify to listen to tracks in full within Shazam’s iOS app, with Android to follow. This matches the existing integration with Rdio, incidentally.

What is the point of that? "Hmm, I wonder what this song I'm listening to is. Oh, it's Stiggy Bates and Never Touch Me There. Oh, and I could play it now, so I could actually listen to this song I'm already listening to, but pay for data on top of it. What a brilliant idea."

Last FM tries something else, hopes it doesn't smell desperate

Last FM hasn't exactly been thriving in the last couple of years, what with Spotify basically doing what it did, but much better. (Because, face it, if you want to hear the Dum Dum Girls, you want to hear the Dum Dum Girls, not a bunch of bands that other people who wanted to hear the Dum Dum Girls listened to when they weren't able to listen to the band they wanted to hear.)

But now, Last FM have revived their player. They've got a question to ask:

“Ever wondered what radio would be like with video?"

Well, no, because (i) that'd be MTV and (ii) that wouldn't be radio.

It's like asking 'ever wondered what a car would be like with two floors, eighty seats and a timetable which requires it stop every so often to pick up passengers', and hoping that people won't notice what used to be a car is now a bus.

So the player - or at least the beta version - is now throwing out YouTube videos instead of music streams. MusicAlly reframes the question in a more honest way:

Although from a business perspective, it’s more about wondering what a personal radio service would be like with YouTube absorbing the licensing costs.

In the UK, Last FM remains twice as popular as MySpace, but... well, that's not saying very much, is it? It's also more popular than kidney stones. But there's hope, reckons MusicAlly:

Plenty of work to do for a comeback, then, but it’s worth noting that if Last.fm was launching in its current form today, as a YouTube-scraping personal radio service with big-data features in the background, it’d be all over the tech blogs as the Next Big Digital Thing.

Yes, because if there's one thing YouTube is lacking, it's access to a massive data-crunching operation crammed with detail about people's tastes and behaviour. If you ignore it being part of Google, obviously. If you factor that in, it's not entirely clear what Last FM might have to bring that's new.

NME announces new look (assuming you never saw The Face)

Here's a sneaky peak at the new-look NME which goes on sale this week:

Oh, hang on, that's not quite it...

Yeah, that's it. Pretty much the same thing.

Aside from the obvious debt to Imperial-era Face, this is quite an interesting sounding reworking of the NME, as it goes beyond the tinkering. Music Week has looked inside:

The Radar section - which focuses on breaking bands and new music – will expand to four pages and feature contributions from columnists including Dave Sitek and Huw Stephens. The Radar section on NME.com will be playlist driven and focus on daily new music recommendations.

In association with the Official Charts Company, the relaunched NME will feature the Official Record Store Chart both in print and online.

New franchises including Soundtrack Of My Life, Anatomy Of An Album and Lost Albums will run alongside more music recommendations via an enhanced On Repeat section.

A Reviews section features analysis of records and gigs over 11 pages in the magazine, a From The Vault section delves into the archive to reprint features from NME’s 60-year history.

Listing gigs on sale that week, a Guide section will also include ‘staying in’ to highlight music radio and TV.

There's a new slogan, too - The Past, Present & Future Of Music - which suggests alongside paper and digital it might be publishing in Christmas Ghost format, too.

Telling that they're relaunching with Bowie on the cover - especially given that this week's issue had McCartney as the cover story. It's not particularly brave - it was a Dave front page that was the only issue in the last ABC period which outperformed the rest; but having the confidence to stick Macca out the back door during wash up is an interesting message.

It sounds like an attempt to restore heart to the title - and coupled with some strong writing over the last few months this could be the start of a new golden age...

We'll see on Wednesday.

Myspace: It's back. Your stuff isn't, but it is.

Hey, everyone. MySpace is out of beta. Of its second or third incarnation. Or is it fourth? One loses track.

Still, the precarious business of relaunch is upon them, and surely they'll be making sure that the few existing users who've kept faith with the site through the lean years will be given the smoothest, easiest transition to the new look. After all, you don't want to piss off your most loyal community, do you?

Hang about... can anyone smell burning?

MySpace... you didn't chuck the blogs on the fire, did you?

Oh.

Pirate_Molly
Is it possible to give us access to our old blogs so that we can save them? I used Myspace as a travel blog while living abroad and would really love to have that content before it's deleted. :(

4hits
I agree, with ELAYEEMARIE I want my page that I had for years and worked on to make it me... MY SPACE was what it meant !!! A special place for me and my friends to share. " A PLACE FOR FRIENDS" was the objective. My page was like my Cyber home, it had a unique look and feel. The videos I had added would always give me a quick pick me up when I or my friends needed them. Our messages and comments that held importants to us cannot be replaced with music promotions or other usless commercials that you seem to think is what your true users want. What in the world would make you change this ? Money ! I think having the choice to open either or was fine, but if its gone, so am I... Thanks for the memories, goodluck

_stray_
You don't warn us and then take away blogs and private messages? There were things I wanted to keep from there! I would have logged it all on my computer if I had known, but to do this with no warning?!

And on and on it goes. Adding insult to the very real injury, all these long-standing MySpace users are being given a status indicator on their names which makes them look like they've just turned up:

Blithely unaware of what the problem is, MySpace grin and explain how having a decade or so of your life wiped is a GRATE NEW FEATURE:

We're focused on building the best Myspace possible. And to us, that means helping you discover connect and share with others using the best tools available. Going forward we're concentrating on building and maintaining the features that make those experience better. That means you won't see a few products on the new site...

Blogs
Private Messages
Videos
Comments or Posts
Custom background design
Games
We know that this is upsetting to some but it gives us a chance to really concentrate on creating a new experience for discovery and expression. Feel free to hit the Me Too button if you have similar questions so we can track your needs and concerns.

Yeah, you know those very things that kept you coming back to MySpace all this time? You were like a schmuck. It'd be better if you had never done all of that, it meant your experience was bad.

Amongst the stuff that has gone, MySpace has wiped irreplaceable memories:

campbellshoney
I would like to know about this too, plus my old blogger friends, of whom two have now passed on. I came back to Myspace just to read their blogs from time to time!

There's a slogan for you, MySpace: "The place that exorcises your friends".

The idea that you can build a new service which relies on interaction by demonstrating that you can't be trusted with those interactions is a curious one.

So, what have they built on the smouldering embers of the old site? It's a bit like a poor man's Tumblr except - USP AHOY - they've gone with left-to-right scrolling instead of up-and-down. I know, innovative, right?

It feels like just another glossy, fawning pop site; the use of "my" seemingly ironic as the aim is to be a mediated layer between the-celebs-who-will-be-part-of-it-at-least-until-the-stats-are-shared and the plebs.

Seriously, though: that left-right scrolling? Did you do any user testing where that was hailed as a good idea?

MySpace have a plan

MySpace is the Rye of social networks, the thriving port whose harbour long since silted up and no longer sees the boats coming. But it has a plan; it's about to relaunch again, and to focus on music, again. And it has Justin Timberlake onboard, hoping that nobody will point out that he was buzzy before Tom was friending everyone.

Why the focus on Timberlake? Even if he was an example of the smaller band trying to build a fanbase who MySpace hope to attract, everyone knows he's sunk a wedge of cash into the project. Every time he goes "it's great", the audience thinks "you're flogging me your product" rather than "that's an independent review."

MySpace think they have something to offer in 2012, as MusicAlly reports:

“The promise of discovery and sharing new, good music was never really fulfilled by other services out there,” Tim tells The Guardian, while flagging up its streaming catalogue of 42m tracks from major, indie and unsigned artists.

Analytics to help make sense of fanbases will be a key part of Myspace’s pitch to woo back those artists (and management/labels).

“Artists are really tired of sending their fans over to one platform to listen to music, another to watch a social stream, and others watch videos, buy merchandise or purchase tickets,” says Tim. “They really are just looking for a home, and we try to be that for artists.”

Are artists really tired of that? And even if they were, couldn't they embed videos and purchase boxes into Facebook?

Isn't the fundamental problem here that MySpace are saying 'artists are tired to maintaining several sites, so we're going to help by introducing another site they have to maintain'?

And while wonderful analytics are a great thing to offer, they're bugger all use if there's no audience on the site to analyse.

Ah! But MySpace have a plan:

The new Myspace will be opening up in beta to more users, who’ll then be able to invite some friends (aka The Gmail Launch Strategy). Journalists are in already.

The trouble with trying to sell MySpace like Gmail is that when Google launched its mail service, it was brand new, and shiny. Everyone was excited and desperate to be let in.

Who is desperate to see what the new MySpace looks like?

Are there any 'opinion formers' who would really want to risk ridicule by sliding over to their friends offering secret passes to MySpace?

More to the point, what drives social platforms is numbers. Why would anyone spend time crafting a new MySpace site if it can only be accessed by a chosen few? And if people don't build sites, what will be there when the doors are opened to all?

More importantly, building a secret MySpace behind a big wall and only letting in a few journalists isn't really cherishing those few MySpace users who have kept faith with the site while the rest of the world has gone elsewhere. Not only are you telling them that they've been wasting their time on a wrong site; not only are you destroying their neighbourhood; but you're leaving them entirely locked out of the process.

In design terms, the rollout plan is as garish as any of those flashing colour-clashed pages that marked out MySpace back when it was famous.

We7 decides the kids are where it's at, relaunches

Decent-but-underloved digital music service We7 is relaunching with a new logo, and a belief that "younger" people is where it's at.

That's the old logo... and this:

This would be the new one.

The meat, though, is in focusing on people who want a free service, seeing the gap Spotify has left by scaling back its free operation; and simplifying the way things work:

Steve Purdham, chief executive of We7, said that the new-look site should be thought of as a 'personal DJ', likening it to the Pandora service in the US.

'Some people love the idea of going through the catalogue to create a playlist, but the vast majority of us who love music do not want to make that investment in time and just want to be entertained,' he added.

Not entirely sure "just wanting to be entertained" is the same thing as "loving music" - there's a difference between a zipless fuck and a romantic entanglement - but that's probably the least of We7's challenges.

In Spotify, it's taking on a service which has established itself as an almost generic name for streaming online services - and trying to get people to use We7 when they're thinking they're Spotifying is going to be tricky.

Muxtape 2.0

After it was shut down by the major labels for the crime of letting people have fun with music, Muxtape did say it'd be back in a new form.

And now it is. If you can call it back:

Welcome to a preview of the new Muxtape, a minimalist platform for bands to promote their music and listeners to create mixes. We’ve invited 12 of our favorite artists to help test, and in the coming weeks we'll begin allowing bands to sign up themselves for free. Learn more.

So what was a fabulous resource becomes another unsigned band platform.

Napster: Still going, apparently

As Pete Doherty is finding out, the worst thing about being a reformed reprobate is that nobody finds you half as interesting. Napster could tell him a thing or two about that, of course.

They've just launched version 4 which we were going to have a look at - except, if you follow the 'napster US' link on the UK homepage, it takes you to the .com site, which registers you've got a UK-based IP address, and so bounces you straight back to the .co.uk site.

Apparently, then, the big change this time is that the new Napster works through a web-browser and requires no download, opening the service up to be ignored by Mac and Linux users now, as well as the current non-user base of PC owners. (Global subscriptions are a little over 750,000).

It's not all bad - the inclusion of historic Billboard chart data makes the thing a little like an interactive, US version of Guinness Hit Singles, for example, but that feels more like a feature that is going to please the converted rather than drive take-up (and we wonder if the cost of purchasing that data will recoup in anything other than the very, very long run).

But the clunks are louder than the applause. Most notably, the new Napster offers music videos. Only... erm, you can't take them with you on your mobile device.