Discovering new Music Services and Gadgets

Record labels may be going down the drain but music has never been livelier. So here are my latest discoveries (and by discoveries I don´t mean that the Indians were not there before but that they are new to me). First I rediscovered the Sansa Connect: an amazing WiFi music player designed by Zing that unfortunately failed in the marketplace but as a result can now be bought for $30 and I strongly recommend that you Google it, get it and thank me. The Sansa Connect does a lot of things that the iPod does not, simple things like erasing a song you hate without having to wait to connect to your computer. It plays Launchcast radios, it shows you Flickr pictures, and all of that for $30.

Spotify I promoted it a long time ago but it keeps getting better. It will also have Genius which surprisingly does not belong to Apple. Genius is great for making you discover what you already own. Its like a fashion advisor who helps you wear your own clothes. Or tries to sell you new ones which just doesn´t work with me.

The other day I met the co founder of Doubletwist on a London Bath train. Doubletwist is phenomenal for putting music on all that is not an iPod including your beloved Blackberry, PSP and other non Apple gadgets. It also shows pictures, and other wonders. It is still buggy but shows great progress.

Cloudplayer rocks. I discovered it today while testing Jolicloud. I don´t care if the music from Cloudplayer is from musicians I don´t know. Their hot tracks seemed to be made by my personal DJ. Love them. Share their taste in electronic music.

Limewire keeps getting better. Loved their new release. In Spain it is legal to download music and I live in Spain where I can openly use Limewire and obtain any song I want. But even though Limewire gives me free ownership of songs that I can then add to any device without DRM or any limitation I see that in music as in anything else in life, what you want is quality not quantity. And Limewire is music agnostic. It gets you the music but it doesn´t believe in anything. I like services who helped me discover music.

I also use Vuze to get music (I am a small investor in Vuze). Limewire is better to get a song, Vuze to build your music collection. But then downloading music is illegal in many countries so please don´t download if it´s illegal in your country. Of course Limewire and Vuze have tons of content that is legal to download as well.

Lastly the founders of Herzio presented to me in Spain the other day. Very smart developers. Herzio is about becoming fan of a band more than about listening to everything. Herzio is like what the record labels of the future will look like. Music is free and you pay for concerts and merchandising. Moreover music will be bottom up, meaning pushed by your friends, and not by gigantic record labels. Moreover music will be CC. Kind of like Pocoyo, that amazing character for 3 year olds that has made a killing in many countries of the world. Pocoyo is on Youtube but then kids die for the merchandising.