Monday, August 2, 2010

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Spotify Who? Rdio Launches In The US And Canada, Lands More Indie Music Deals Top
It’s been two months to the day since Rdio launched in the States – check out Erick’s review if you’re interested in learning more about the (awesome) social music service. But until today, you needed to be invited by another user to gain access to the service. Not that it was all that difficult – users were able to invite dozens at a time and we gave away thousands of invite codes for TechCrunch readers – but still, the doors are now open. That is, if you live in the United States or Canada or at least know how to pretend you are. Users in those countries can henceforth sign up for Rdio and give it a whirl free of charge and ad-less for a period of 3 days, although users get the option to extend the free trial with another 10 days after, according to the startup, which was founded and financially backed by Skype, Kazaa and Joost founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. Rdio, pronounced “ar-dee-oh”, costs $9.99 per month for unlimited Web and mobile access (including the ability to listen to music and playlists offline), and $4.99 for Web-only access. Rdio says it recently expanded its music collection through deals with independent labels and aggregators, hitting the 7 million songs milestone. Apart from the major music labels, Rdio now boasts agreements with the likes of IODA, IRIS, Finetunes, INgrooves and The Orchard. In addition, Rdio has attracted a number of music publications and other influencers (Spin Magazine, Pitchfork and Los Angeles' KCRW Radio, to name but a few) to set up profiles and connect users with their favorite tunes (which can now be played without interruption , thank God). The company has also been consistently updating its iPhone , Android and BlackBerry apps, as the mobile aspect of the offering is really key to their long-term strategy. The public launch of Rdio in the US and Canada is bad news for European music startup Spotify , which hasn’t managed to make it Stateside yet , despite all its oft-expressed homes and dreams. Spotify says negotations with the labels are moving in the right direction , however, and that they’re confident they’ll be able to launch in the U.S. before year’s end. Of course, Spotify is far from the only competition Rdio has or will have, with startups like Pandora and MOG doing very well. And let’s not forget three technology giants are plotting their own music-in-the-cloud push, too: digital music sales juggernaut Apple , Web giant Google and HP , still very much the largest information technology company in the world. Curious to see what the future will hold for Rdio. You please tell me what you think of it today, though. CrunchBase Information Rdio Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Gowalla Getting Pretty Custom Passports, Hints At Other Personalization Features Top
While rival Foursquare seems firmly focused on the business side of things, Gowalla continues to focus on building a beautiful product. The next step in that comes on Wednesday when the service will unveil a way to make customized Passports. Your Gowalla Passport is essentially your profile page, but Gowalla organizes it in a way to highlight some of the core features that help them differentiate themselves — namely: pictures, comments, stamps, and pins. Beginning on Wednesday, you’ll be able to completely customize the design of this area. Gowalla will provide you with a few themes designed by their team (a heavily design-focused team), or you can build your own. Previously, these custom passports were only available as a premium feature viven to select partners such as LIVESTRONG, CNNMoney, and USA TODAY. I’m told these will be unveiled on Wednesday (but it may take a couple of weeks for them to fully roll out the feature) alongside another announcement the service will be making — though no word on what that is. “ This is part of a series of features we’ll be rolling out in the next couple of months to allow people and brands a greater level of personalization for their passport and spot places ,” co-founder Josh Williams says. As you can see in the screenshots, there also appears to be a new area of the service called “Highlights.” Williams won’t say what that is, but says it won’t be coming Wednesday. This emphasis on beauty and customization continues Gowalla’s trend in recent months to play to its strengths in order to differentiate itself in the increasingly crowded location field. CrunchBase Information Gowalla Information provided by CrunchBase
 
OMG/JK Episode 5: Everything Is Dead. Kill. Kill. Kill. Top
Above, find the fifth installment of the show fellow writer Jason Kincaid and I do for TechCrunch TV, OMG/JK . This week, we discuss/argue Facebook Questions, the new Kindle, the Magic Trackpad, and Android’s Wallpaper of Doom. The overall theme this week seems to be the death of everything. The Kindle is dead, the mouse is dead, Quora may be dead, and Android is dead. Okay, I’m exaggerating — for at least two of those things. Jason calls me “The Undertaker” and I demand free bumpers for Wallpapergate. Good times. Here are some relevant links to what we discuss: Facebook Q&A Service 'Questions' Begins Rolling Out, Could Be Massive Amazon Reveals New Kindle: $139 For Wi-Fi Version, $189 For 3G Bezos On iPad: "You are not going to improve Hemingway by adding video snippets." Voilà! Apple's Magic Trackpad Appears. Multi-Touch On Any Mac For $69 Apple's Magic Trackpad Signals The End Of The Mouse Era The Mouse Is Dead. I Just Killed It. Now Can We Move On? Researchers: Android Wallpaper App Shows "No Evidence Of Malicious Behavior"
 
Exclusive: Titan Gaming Takes Xfire Off Viacom's Hands Top
Xfire , the social network for gamers that was acquired by Viacom for $102 million back in 2006, has a new owner. The buyer is Titan Gaming , a small company that raised a mere $1 million in angel funding to date, so we’re making an educated guess here and going to assume that it was sold for a song compared to the price Viacom paid a couple of years ago. In a message posted on the Xfire website very recently (via Kotaku ), it looks like most of the development team is not sticking around: August 2, 2010–Xfire has been purchased by another company. Most of the team that has brought you Xfire for the last 6 years is leaving, including me. We’ve enjoyed our time and I personally am sad that I was only able to do 127 releases. Good bye and game on! The message comes from someone named ‘Chris’ – most probably Chris Kirmse , Xfire founder and VP of Engineering. Krimse was once Senior Engineer of Yahoo Games – said to have built the Yahoo FIFA system – before creating Xfire back in 2003. Xfire is a free service that enables gamers to interact with each other coupled with a tool that automatically keeps track of when and where gamers are playing PC games online. It works regardless of game type, server browser, or gaming service. The service thus eliminates the need to run multiple programs like IRC, instant messengers, or in-game friends lists to keep track of when and where a gamer’s friends are playing. It combines instant messaging, a server browser, peer-to-peer file downloads, in-game messaging, screenshot and video capture and an active gaming community. The service has attracted some 16 million users to date. We’ve just confirmed with Titan Gaming CEO John Maffei that they have acquired Xfire – the deal was signed just a couple of hours ago – but have not been able to pin down the exact purchase price. Here’s a brief statement from Titan: Titan Gaming has purchased Xfire. The terms of the purchase are undisclosed. Titan will be taking on the Xfire name. The Xfire services will continue uninterrupted for its users. Xfire redefined how gamers communicate, Titan intends to build upon this tradition and utilize the Xfire platform to help gaming companies better engage and monetize their games. Maffei adds that Titan Gaming has retained several key members of the development staff, which sounds far more positive than the statement on Xfire’s website – which reads that most of the team is leaving the company – suggests. Titan Gaming last May announced that it had raised $1 million in funding from a slew of prominent angel investors. You can find the full list of investors on the startup’s CrunchBase profile, but it includes people like Clearstone Venture Partners principals William Quigley and Jim Armstrong , PriceGrabber co-founder Kamran Pourzanjani and MP3.com founder Michael Robertson . CrunchBase Information Xfire Titan Gaming Information provided by CrunchBase
 

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