Rdio has announced that it’s going to make its customized stations free for those using iOS an Android apps today. Formerly called You FM, all of its stations are going to be transferred, for free, onto its apps. Powered by The Echo Nest, the company uses an algorithm to produce music choices that users might like based on past choices, in addition to artists that they like on Facebook and follow on Twitter. Rdio has included radio stations for several years, but didn’t prominently support them. But since their introduction, total plays have increased over 50%, with the ultimate goal being the fusion of functional on-demand experience with great passive, radio-station like listening.
Tag: iOS
Yahoo! Launches Yahoo Screen
Yahoo’s ongoing revamp continued with its recent announcement of Yahoo Screen, an iOS app that compiles all of its entertainment content for streaming. The library includes an extensive Saturday Night Live archive and select Comedy Central programming including the Colbert Report and the Daily Show. More than 1,000 hours of comedy programming is currently available to stream on the service. Other content comes from ABC News, GQ, Wired, Major League Baseball, UFC, among others. The app is designed to be highly gesture based, with swipes playing a key role. With more and more companies entering the streaming space, are we about to see a leap of innovation in web based multimedia programming?
IKEA Augmented Reality Catalog Previews Products in Apartment
As part of its 2014 catalogue, IKEA will allow you to preview products in your own home using augmented reality, to ensure that the item you eventually purchase is the correct size, style, and color. It works through IKEA’s iOS and Android apps, in combination with the catalogue itself. You can scan the catalogue, and thereafter visualize the product overlaid onto the environment; the app itself measures the space and provides options based on what would fit. It cuts down on waste, returns, and ultimately, provides a fun, virtual shopping experience around IKEA’s products. For a quick look at how it works, check out the video below:
GoPro’s Camera App Gets Social Update
GoPro released an update to it’s iOS and Android companion apps, which allows GoPro owners to view, edit, and share content from their smartphone or tablet. The app connects to the camera over WiFi, giving owners a deep set of editing and sharing tools that control the camera from the phone or tablet. The update demonstrates GoPro’s dominance in an increasingly competitive camera market, and how it manages to constantly stay ahead of its competitors’ curves. Expect to see social feeds start to fill with action-packed videos in the near future.
Tinder Sparks a Match With USA Networks
Tinder, the wildly popular “hot or not” flirting app for iOS, has expanded to Android, and marketers are beginning to take notice. The service has offered 100 million matches, and is currently offering 1.5 million daily. Most matches are made between members of the crucial, and elusive, young adult demographic. USA Network recently tied the app with the season 3 premier of “Suits,” adding characters from the show as matches. If a user likes one of these profiles, they will receive access to exclusive content, and potentially some flirting with the character. Both parties insist there was no money exchanged in this partnership, but it is certain similar opportunities will be pursued when Tinder finally decides to take on revenue from marketers.
Google Maps Update Includes Discovery Feature
Today, version 7 of Google maps was launched, boasting a new discovery feature, as well as enhanced navigation. The new update is cleaner and faster, and allows you to discover nearby places to eat, drink, and shop by simply tapping the search box. Enhanced navigation shows real-time traffic congestion, incidents ahead, and suggests alternate routes. Zagat is fully integrated into search results, with curated lists and rating systems. Though it’s not a radical shift in the direction of Maps, it’s certainly a step closer to the merging of maps and search. The update is presently available for Android devices, with an iOS build coming in the near future.
Zeebox Launches TV Rooms
Zeebox has just updated their second screen app to include a host of new features including TV Rooms which are like chat rooms around particular topics from shows to actors and more. Rooms can be public or private and are aimed at increasing social chatter aside from trivia and other contextual information. Thus far, the major second screen providers hover around a million active users depending on the app and are starting to gain major interest from advertisers. In fact, Shell just signed onboard to deliver a Zeebox experience on “Meet The Press” that will provide even more content and an ad sync feature that delivers a mobile and TV Shell spot simultaneously.
Vine Comes To Android
Twitter announced today that its long-awaited Vine app for Android is now available. Though many features from the iOS version of the app are missing, such as front-facing camera support, search, mentions, and hashtags, Android users have a new feature available exclusively for them: Zoom. With 13 million current active users, many of them active brands like Rolling Stone and Wheat Thins, who have leveraged Vine’s brand-to-fan experience, the Android release has availed the video-creation service to a whole new genre of smartphone users. Expect Vine to boost its numbers rapidly, and for brands to continue to collaborate with short-film makers to take advantage of the unique medium.
OK Go Releases Word Game App
OK Go has never been a band known for living “by the book,” but their latest effort shows them crossing new boundaries as a band. Today marks the launch of “Say the Same Thing,” a word-based mobile game for iOS and Android coded by the band’s own guitarist, Andy Ross. The premise of the game is for two players to each say a random word, and then in turns work to present words that are conceptually “between” the random words until they meet in the middle by saying the same word. This isn’t an app to extend the reach of OK Go’s music per-se; instead it is an extension of OK Go’s brand and sensibility. The app is released by OK Go in partnership with the label they started, Paracadute Records, a partnership that allows the band to pursue its unique set of artistic and technological endeavors.
Facebook’s App Install Ads are Profitable
As app stores become cluttered with apps from nearly every brand, the competition to reach the top of the stack and be discovered is fierce. Facebook added a solution to this problem to their mobile service in October. “App Install Ads” display a large photo and direct link to the appropriate app store purchase page in the mobile news feed, providing fast turnover for brands and revenue for Facebook to the tune of $375 million last quarter. The removal of a typical web link from the equation makes the install process even easier on consumers, so the concept is likely to stick as part of Facebook’s efforts to make itself a natural fit into the mobile sphere long-term.
