The music industry is thriving from the consumer/listener’s side of things. The customizations a person can make to how, when and for what purpose their music plays feels almost endless. The common smartphone-related phrase, “There’s an app for that” could easily be switched to, “There’s a customization for that.” There’s a specific player to go along with mostly any listener’s needs or wants.
However, what if, just like a restaurant with a 20 page menu, there are so many choices, that your table, (or in this case, your various social media profiles,) get overloaded with too many different players?
This is where a pair of proactive thinkers from Germany come to the rescue with another outlet – ironically called “Musicplayr.” Not to worry though: founders, Stefan Vosskötter and Thorsten Lüttger have created what is essentially, like a ‘refined hub’ for all the playable/embeddable outlets that we as consumers are constantly alternating back and forth between as we share what we’re listening to, with others. Musicplayr presently supports music from: YouTube, SoundCloud, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Hypemachine, embedded mp3s on most blogs and uploaded mp3s (the latter of which is only for privatized use.)
The potential and uses of Vosskötter and Lüttger’s creation are described by Gigaom.com as a player that is able to…
“pull in content from all sorts of free music platforms, both audio and video, to create a unified playlist. The site’s player is itself embeddable, and on [July 5th,] it got a whole lot prettier: audio-only tracks now get accompanying pictures, and the player window can also now be continuously visible. [Most importantly,] the content owner stays in control.”
Technically Musicplayr isn’t hot off the presses. The player has been in constant development, since it got off the ground and ran in beta mode last year. It gained major points of public note as a finalist in the 2011 Midemlab music startup and app development competition held in Cannes, France, which is part of the MIDEM Trade Show.
What may surprise some, is the fact that Musicplayr isn’t looking to concentrate on Germany for its initial, or even future, pool of users/subscribers. Much of this decision is due to the present restriction placed on German internet users in general, (at least where YouTube is concerned,) handed down from GEMA: ”a legally authorized [royalty] collecting society [within Germany.]” (Source: GEMA’s Official Website) Musicplayr is still available in Germany but any currently banned content will remain so – at least until a resident travels over another country’s border. As Lüttger stated in Gigaom’s report…
“Technically we are a bookmark service – what we are doing is open. …[Any content availability conflict] has to be solved between GEMA and those providers; we’re just the middleman.”
What looks a bit like casting off of German music lovers is not a large concern for the two founders, since they are looking to establish Musicplayr as a global entity and know there are plenty of people in other European countries, as well as the U.S. with which to do so.
You can either connect your Facebook or Twitter accounts to give Musicplayr a try, submit an email address for an invite later, or established users can bring you on board.
You can click this link to check out my Musicplayr profile page and see how it all works.
Kira is an old school music nerd with a love for all things creative; always searching for music’s common ground. She graduated with an M.A. in Performing Arts Administration from New York University. Drop her a tweet @shadowmelody1
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