It’s like “Facebook and Twitter meet iTunes,” Jobs says. “But it’s not Facebook, it’s not Twitter,” Jobs is quick to note — “it’s a social network all about music.” And guess what? It has 160 million users in 23 countries built in right away (Apple will presumably be opening it up to other iTunes users later). And it’s available on your iPhone and iPod touch — right in the iTunes Store.

Jobs notes that this feature is all about discovery. You can follow both artists and your friends. And you can be followed. With it, you get custom song and album charts to discover new music. And you can post your thoughts and opinions about your favorite music. Plus, there are 17,000 concert listing in the network.

Last.fm, MySpace Music, etc. — look out. Oh, and another Apple competitor has been doing something similar for a while — Microsoft with Zune. But again, 160 million users out of the box.

Ping is available as a part of iTunes 10 — which is available today.

Source: TechCrunch

Like Siamese twins, the iPod and iTunes go hand-in-hand. This week’s iPod update, then brought a whole new version of iTunes, v10, with a new logo and a few new features.

The new icon abandons the old CD imagery and replaces it with a bulbous double-clef note in a blue circle. The features include music clean-up – select five or so songs from the same album and it automatically finds art and titles – and there is a new discovery feature with social aspects called Ping.

Ping allows you to share with your friends what you’re listening to and even share information on concerts and events. It includes a custom “Top 10″ list and artists and listeners each have “profiles” that consist of interesting news and selections from that user’s library. It is true social music discovery.

Profiles can be public or private and you can limit access to a certain “circle of friends.” Ping is available now to all iTunes users and allows for multiple forms of sharing including image and link posting.

Source: TechCrunch

In addition, the company said it will deliver a “way for millions of iTunes users to purchase concert tickets at Livenation.com and Ticketmaster.com“.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Steve Jobs left that part out of his keynote, although the official press release does mention Live Nation briefly, indicating only that the company will be providing tour info for Concert pages.

Says Michael Rapino, President and CEO of Live Nation Entertainment:

“Our partnership with Apple is a key part of our strategy to empower fans with the greatest access to live entertainment.”

So there you have it. It’s not just a new logo and a feature-poor social network, folks.

For what it’s worth: Live Nation Entertainment is a logical partner if only because of its sheer size (for better or worse). In 2009, the company said it sold a grand total of 140 million tickets, promoted 21,000 concerts, partnered with 850 sponsors and averaged 25 million unique monthly users of its e-commerce sites.

Ticketmaster, obviously, is one of the largest e-commerce and ticketing sites on the Web, with operations in 18 markets worldwide.

Source: TechCrunch

The festival will be on September 23th, 24th, 25th, 30th and October 1st, 2nd.

The “Parque Olímpico Cidade do Rock” is an area that the Prefecture of Rio de Janeiro is yielding to the event and anticipating the works of what will be the park for athletes in Olympics 2016.

Rock In Rio: Official Website | Facebook | Twitter | Flickr | Youtube

You can paint your own musical instrument and play it, play with your voice, experiment with sounds, or create whatever else you can imagine.

Singing Fingers comes with help screens to get you started, examples to inspire you, and the ability to save and load your creations.

The festival will be held at Chácara do Jockey in October.

See the official line-up and the ticket prices:

Saturday (16/10)
– Marcelo Jeneci
– Cidadão Instigado
– Karina Buhr
– Vanessa da Mata
– Céu
– Air
– Bajofondo
– Snow Patrol
– Móveis Coloniais de Acaju
– Jamiroquai

- Tickets: R$ 190,00
- Premium sector: R$ 500,00
Domingo (17/10)
– Pequeno Cidadão
– Palavra Cantada
– Pato Fu
– Adriana Partimpim

Tickets: R$ 60,00

On saturday the shows will be divided into two stages and at alternate times.

More info at: http://www.naturamusical.com.br/festivalnaturanos/

Arcade Fire

The idea was conceived by Vincent Morisset, director of Arcade Fire’s Miroir Noir live DVD, together with designer Caroline Roberts. “Most of us now buy, share and listen to music through computer and portable devices,” he said on his blog. While the artwork for most digital releases consists of a jpeg image of the cover, “I wanted to find a way to get closer to [the physical experience]“, Morisset explained. “I thought about the relation we have with the vinyl cardboard cover or the paper booklet while listening to the songs. Flipping through the lyrics, looking at a band picture or a cool drawing related to a song while listening to it. With the MP3 player, we [lose] that.”

The solution, Morisset proposed, is “synchronised artwork”. Using the M4A format, artists can tag images to particular moments in an audio track, making them appear in iTunes or on an iPod screen. Traditionally, this is used for podcasts, to distinguish different topics of conversation. Morisset’s idea was not just to use images to distinguish each album track, but to synchronise graphics and hand-drawn lyrics with each musical moment. These images are drawn from the printed artwork designed by Roberts, and particularly Gabriel Jones’s photographs of the Houston, Texas suburbs.

Besides images, Morisset was also able to synchronise hyperlinks at particular points in the songs. “This gives the possibility for the band to add, at any moment, all kinds of references,” he said. “They plan to change and update those links occasionally.” The result is an album of fascinating connections: on the song Deep Blue, Arcade Fire point to Neil Young’s Harvest Moon and the cyberpunk fiction of William Gibson; on Empty Room, they reference an experimental classic by Alvin Lucier; plus veggie burritos, Woody Allen and lots of Ramones lyrics.

Although Apple invented the M4A format, the supercharged version of Arcade Fire’s album is not available in the iTunes Music Store. For access to the synchronised artwork, fans must download The Suburbs from Arcade Fire‘s site.

Guardian.co.uk

They just release the new album called “Rise Up” (EMI) early this year and now probably you can see them in Brazil playing in SWU…and guess what…in the same day from Rage Against The Machine (October, 9th)!

Deftones

Deftones won’t play in SWU Festival as we had previously mentioned.

The band is touring in United States and until july 7 there were dates available for SWU, but they decided to continue the north america tour.
More info at: http://www.deftones.com/tour

This week, Torrent Freak drew attention to two cease-and-desist notices, dated September 2009 and January 2010. In these letters to Google, owner of the Blogspot blogging service, the RIAA and IFPI cited hundreds of blogs sharing material by U2, the Doors, Aretha Franklin, Radiohead and many more. “These recordings are owned by one of our member companies and have not been authorised for this kind of use,” claimed the RIAA, which represents major US labels. The IFPI, an international recording industry lobby group, asked for “immediate assistance in stopping this unauthorised activity”. Most of the blogs named in these letters have since been removed by Google.

There’s nothing new here: the RIAA has been chasing filesharers for years. But would Radiohead really pursue bloggers who post songs from an album the band once gave away? And, more importantly, do the RIAA and IFPI have any right to represent a band who quit their major label, EMI, to go it alone?

The answer to both of these questions is: probably. Although often described as a “free” release, In Rainbows wasn’t. Radiohead sold 100,000 £40 “disc boxes”, 1.75m CDs, and the band even made money from the digital version, when they asked fans to pay what they could. What’s more, the “pay what you want” offer was only available from October to December 2007. In Rainbows is now available on iTunes for £7.99.

As for their RIAA or IFPI, while Radiohead have left EMI, they continue to work with some of the industry’s biggest players. For the US release of In Rainbows, the band teamed up with RIAA member ATO Records, a Sony Music affiliate. For publishing, film and digital rights on both sides of the Atlantic, Radiohead signed a deal with industry behemoth Warner/Chappell.

Even if they have the right to, should the RIAA and IFPI pursue filesharers on Radiohead’s behalf? These organisations ostensibly represent their members, and Radiohead’s position on downloads is, at the very least, ambivalent.

Source: guardinan.co.uk

Thanks to enormous support from Brazilian fans, Avenged Sevenfold have announced that they will be playing at the SWU Music & Arts Festival in São Paulo, Brazil. They will be playing on October 11, the third day of the festival, alongside Linkin Park, Queens of the Stone Age, Incubus and many others. Prior to the SWU festival, Avenged Sevenfold will be co-headlining the first annual Rockstar Energy Drink UPROAR Festival with Disturbed beginning August 17.