Music, Sound Effects, Tech News, and More — The AudioMicro Blog

Don’t you hate it when you wander over to Facebook and discover you’re light one friend?  You have a hundred, maybe two or three or four hundred friends.  It can be hard to figure out who dumped your status-updating butt from their list if it’s not one of your best friends and if you haven’t recently participated in a screaming match with anyone on your list.  Even if it isn’t someone you speak with on a regular basis, doesn’t it gnaw at you?  Don’t you want to know who defriended you?

With Facebook, you can be alerted when your friends have birthdays, when they update their status, when they play Mafia Wars or Farmville.  You can follow the minutia of their days, but you can’t find out if they defriend you.  The iPhone app, Defriended, offered a very simple solution, yet one that had been unavailable.  The idea is very basic:  you run Defriended, and then the app tracks your friends list.  Defriended can then compare your current list with the list from the last time you used the app.  And if someone is not on the list, that is your mystery defriender.

All of this for 99 cents.  Rarely do your burning questions get answered so cheaply.  But alas, Facebook has blocked this app and Apple has removed it from their store.  A Facebook rep said, “While we cannot remove an application running on another website or platform, we will ensure that applications that access Facebook user data adhere to Facebook Platform policies.”

Apparently, Defriended’s developer, iDoodz, violated Facebook’s Platform developer agreement (section 2, if you want to get specific).  Developers “must not notify a user that someone has removed the user as a friend.”  Thus violating their privacy.  The application was released on January 15 and almost immediately disabled.  Some people even bought the app and found that they could not detect defrienders.

There are ways for people who really want to know who has defriended them (or “unfriended,” we should say, as that word has been adopted by the Oxford English Dictionary) to discover the culprit but they’re rather clunky.  And so far, Facebook hasn’t let an app slip in that will do the job.  So we’re left with either combing through our friend list manually each time we log in to Facebook or letting it go.  Who needs ‘em, right?  Instead, treat yourself to something nice from the dollar menu and poke a few of your remaining friends to cheer yourself up.

More Music Headlines From Around the Web . . .

Brian Eno: “Recorded Music Equals Whale Blubber”

Coachella 2010 Lineup Announced!

New Citay (Feat. tUnE-YaRdS) – “Mirror Kisses”

Buddyhead Presents: Slang Chickens, Mini Mansions, Hocus Pocus (members of Dios) 01.18.2010

Posted in: defriender, Facebook

This week was an interesting one in the world of copyright infringement, takedown notices, and websites that choose to “do what they want” when it comes to record label material.  Early in the week, we learned that MySpace had removed Project Playlist widgets from all MySpace profiles that contained the popular music playlist compiler.  At the time, it was presumed that Facebook might not remove the Project Playlist application from and would attempt to stand up to the record labels and defend the startup.  However, just a few days later, Facebook caved in under pressure of litigation from the labels, and removed the Project Playlist service as well.   Of particular importance to all this is to note the just one day prior to being removed from Faceboook, Project Playlist was able to secure a deal with Sony BMG which allows music from the label giant to legally be used in the service.  

Project playlist is gaining popularity and all of this bad press is undoubtedly fantastic exposure for the service.  If they are unable to close deals with WMG, EMI, and UMG, will the service be able to survive with only Sony on board?  The labels are clearly in control here, and the fate of this startup hangs in their hands.

The popularity of the service seems natural – it allows users to listen to music on demand, for free.  Advertisements are used to support the service; however, the effectiveness of music advertisements is a huge question mark, leading advertisers to demand a greatly reduced CPM.  While listening to the music, users are typically performing other activities other than starting at the ads.  Web users can have different tabs and windowns open, or altogether not be using their computer monitor whatsoever.

The music industry is undergoing a major change and it’s quite clear the the model of 2008 and 2009 is free, yet ad supported music.  Is this a perfect solution?  Will it lead to increased revenues for the labels?  Will it be enough to compensate for the decline in CD sales?  Eventually, they will get it right and the musical advertisement may be a great step in the right direction.  So long as you do not mind staring at Fruit of the Loom ads while you jam out to Queen, the ad supported model will be able to deliver your on demand music needs.  So who will win this space? MySpace Music, Project Playlist, Pandora, LastFM, or another service?

Posted in: Facebook, LastFM, MySpace, MySpace Music, Pandora, Project Playlist, Sony BMG, Sound Effects, stock music, stockmusic

Cat Flushing A Toilet Music Video

Another great example of how the music makes the videos….this video is up to 275,069 views on YouTube as of the time of this post.  A friend shared this YouTube video with AudioMicro through Facebook.  The popularity of YouTube videos that contain music when compared to those that do not is unparalelled.  The videos that contain music attact 100% more viewers than those that do not.  In the instance of this video, the artists that wrote this track has gained exponential exposure and increased sales of his work through iTunes, Amazon, and eMusic.  The artist, Parry Gripp, has had a successful career in music with his Weird Al Yankovic style parodies and his tracks, when synced to videos and placed on YouTube experience a significant amount of views, favorites, and positive exposure for the artists.  Syncing your music to creative projects, and gaining exposure through video outlets with essentially limitless numbers of users, is a great way to start promoting your tunes.  Exposing your music to as broad an audience as possible, through videos, slideshows, flash animations and other more traditional broacast media (where possible), can only help.  The idea is to get your music into the ears of as many people as possible and that the fans will follow.

Posted in: Cat Flushing a Toilet, Facebook, Perry Gripp, Weird Al Yankovic