The Hype Machine

Anthony will be in London this week for Musexpo. They thought it’d be fun to put together a little bowling showdown with two of our favorite music companies, Topspin Media and Songkick. Come out and say hi!

When: Tuesday, October 28th @ 8:30pm to Midnight
Where: Bloomsbury Bowling
(We’ll have a few lanes reserved, but it wouldn’t hurt to call and get one yourself just in case)

More info on Topspin’s blog

Armin Schmidt of Aupeo is our final winner of the CMJ badge giveaway! Congrats!

In other news, I just got an iPhone last weekend. I know I’m behind times but it’s pretty freakin’ cool. What are your favorite iPhone music apps and what do you like about them? We’re thinking about putting together a Hype Machine app as an early Christmas present

I’m also obsessed with Photoswap, the app that lets you exchange photos with strangers. I was swapping with people in Japan and Amsterdam last night!

Today’s Winner: Anna Kesson receives a pair of CMJ Marathon badges for her and a friend! Enter now for the last chance to win tomorrow.

So there are hundreds of music startups showing up everyday. Three of my favorites released new features this week that are worth letting you guys know about!

Amie Street launches updated site

Amie Streets a digital music store that has variable pricing. Everything starts off free, and the price slowly goes up as it gains popularity, eventually hitting 99 cents. You literally get rewarded for taking a chance on new and undiscovered music!

Hobnox Audiotool relaunches

I won’t begin to pretend like I know a thing about audio production or making music, but this in-browser tool lets you create complex setups of real-life looking synthesizers, tools, and effects to edit and record digital mixes. Did I say in-browser already? It’s insanely impressive and should be very useful for musicians. We hung out with part of the team while we were in Berlin, and are excited things are moving fast for them!

Grooveshark launches playlist sharing, and widgets

Grooveshark shut down its old beta site today (buying music through p2p sharing), to concentrate on their Grooveshark Lite product that’s been getting a lot of attention. Check out the above tour (created by my roommate Ben Westermann-Clark) or see for yourself at listen.grooveshark.com

Here’s the CMJ Marathon 2008 widget I put together:

Run into any really cool music startups lately? Let us know in the comments!

Darryl Wilkin step on down. You’re the winner on The Hype Is Right!

Enter the contest now! We’ll be giving away another pair of badges Thursday and Friday this week.

Nicole Reber is our first winner selected to receive 2 badges to next week’s CMJ Marathon! Look out for an email to claim your prize. And for the rest of you guys who’ve entered, don’t worry, you’re all eligible for the drawing each day for this entire week. It’s not too late to enter the contest either!

My side project SCHED* launched the official CMJ Marathon Schedule today where you can easily browse over 1200 events and create your own custom schedule. Check out mine here: http://cmj08.sched.org/gtmcknight

Now the really exciting part! If you have a Hype Machine or Last.FM account, you can get show recommendations based on your favorite artists here: http://cmj08.sched.org/suggest!

CMJ Music Marathon & Film Festival is taking over NYC October 21-25th. We’re teaming up with Insound to give away a set of 2 badges every day from October 14th through October 17th.

Just head over to the entry form, put in your name and email, and you’re set! We’ll annouce the winners every morning next week.

In case you haven’t been before, it’s pretty much the East Coast’s answer to SXSW. A badge will get you full access to the entire week of concerts, film premieres and even panels (if that’s your thing).

Anthony will be in London, missing all the fun, but I’ll be speaking on a panel on Thursday, Oct 23rd called Web 2.0, Music 2.0, and the Blog Factor. Feel free to come by if you are one of the lucky winners

New Feature #1: Profile Pics + Info

Finally! You can put a face to your awesome taste in music. To add a profile photo, click the Settings link on the main site, and then click the Picture tab. In the Account tab, you can add your real name, what you’re doing right now, your location and your personal website.
Note: Yes, the default user image is John McCain, so why haven’t you changed it yet?

New Feature #2: Favorite Counts

We’ve added Fav Counts all over the site, so now you can see how many people have favorited a track, and you can even browse the list. We’ve been using this for a few weeks behind the scenes, and it’s been a blast to discover new users this way. You can also browse the Popular page by most favorited (the default is still most played).

New Feature #3: Live Song Updates

On all pages, if we know there are updates in the Machine, we now push a friendly little reminder: “There are new songs. Refresh to see them,” so you won’t miss a beat.