Next week we take to Spain for a number of events vital to every mobile enthusiast’s calendar (or at least we think so). The first of which is the Mobile World Congress, which, after last year’s record-breaking turn-out with over 67, 000 attendees and nigh-on 1500 exhibitors, we hope will fuel the fire of mobile inspiration ever more.  Kick-starting on the 25th and running through to the 28th February, it remains to be seen how the new venue will be received as they have relocated from their old stomping grounds for a new site in Barcelona, a huge state-of-the-art space Fira Gran Via.

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Music technologists had all eyes on San Francisco for the first half of this week. The annual Music Hack Day SF kicked off on February 16th at the Tokbox headquarters in San Francisco. The event encourages developers and technologists to “come build the future of music” for two days using an increasingly advanced toolbox of APIs.

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Only two months into 2013 and we are thrilled to announce another great 7digital partnership. Our ethos here is, and has always been, bolstered by the notion that music is something that, above all, we must interact with and experience in the broader sense of the word. Rather pertinent to this notion, then, is a project that we are extremely excited to unveil. It is a partnership with Seattle’s music, sci-fi and pop-culture devotees at the EMP Museum: introducing “On The Wall”. Sound intriguing, right?

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Ah, l’Amour… The source of life’s greatest joys and deepest sorrows; a force of nature so mysterious it’s inspired millions of magnificent songs; an emotion so universal that card companies have dedicated an entire day of every year to celebrating it… Whatever your thoughts on the Valentine’s Day phenomenon itself, February 14th is the perfect opportunity to luxuriate in a love song or twelve.

With that in mind, we asked our team to get in the mood for love and share what music comes to mind on Valentine’s Day. You can check out their eclectic (and sometimes questionable) choices below.

Happy Valentine’s Day!
Love 7

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We’ve had many requests for wish lists in recent months and are happy to announce that they have arrived in the latest version of 7digital for Android, released today. So if you’re indecisive about the album you saw the other day, save it to your wish list to view at a later time.

Selection of multiple items to add to a playlist or wish list and the ability to queue albums to preview have also been introduced in this update.

What’s new in version 5.20:

• Save to wish list – music can be added to your wish list from the album details screen
• Select multiple tracks and albums to add to a playlist in one go
• Queue albums from the store to preview
• Various bug fixes and minor improvements

Head over to Google Play to download 7digital for Android today.

The Baltimore Ravens fought a good fight at the Superbowl last weekend but Beyonce was the big winner at 7digital:  downloads of her singles increased by over 200% during and after her performance in the Superbowl half-time programme.   The songs that she performed at the halftime show sold about 13 times more during the 24 hours post show compared to all of her other tracks (which sold about 3 times more than on an average day).   Beyonce’s most downloaded songs since the Super Bowl have been “Halo” and “Single Ladies“.

Superbowl Sunday is also the biggest day of the year for advertising and non-football fans even tune in to watch the latest batch of commercials.   With a 30 second slot costing around $3.5 – $4m it’s not surprising that these are some of the best adverts produced all year.   Normally people look at brand effectiveness as a measure of success but we looked at a different angle, which was analysing the power of music in these commercials.   Our results were very interesting!

• “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones was first released in 1968 and is featured in the Mercedes Benz commercial.  It’s had over 5.7m views since it aired on youtube on January 30^th and a 600% increase in download sales.

• Another classic tune, Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” featured in the Budweiser ‘s “The Clydesdales: ‘Brotherhood’” and has seen a 500% increase in download sales with 10.4m youtube views since being posted on January 31^st.

• “I Wish” by Skee-lo featured in Toyota’s Wish Granted commercial saw an increase of 300% in download sales.

• And finally Psy’s “Gangham Style,” while still in the Top 10, has been in decline since the 2^nd week of January but saw a 10% uplift following his debute in the Get Crackin Wonderful Pistachio commercial.

We are going to be looking more closely at the power of music in adverts and on TV this year so stay tuned for more interesting posts.

lovefrom7

We’re just back from Midem 2013, where the music industry’s finest kick the year off in style at various Cannes hotel bars and restaurants, with the occasional visit to the conference centre when it can’t be avoided.

Over the last few years we’ve seen more and more tech companies attending, and it’s encouraging seeing the focus on developers and tech grow even more in 2013.

API’s were everywhere this year!  We met with Open EMI’s Neil Tinegate, and got some insight into how that programme is working for developers and the label, and we sat in on the Midemlab competition and watched a panel of judges pull apart Apps and ideas from start-ups.  It was also rewarding to meet a whole host of developers who have started using the 7digital API and to see their apps in action.

At the other end of the spectrum, another app built on our API is the Samsung Music Hub and it was also great to hear TJ Kang (SVP Media Services, Samsung Electronics) discuss Music Hub, at length, in a panel session with Olivia Solon (Associate Editor of Wired) and Paul Mascarenas (CTO of US car giant Ford).

And to prove that we don’t only ‘talk the talk’ we got our hands dirty at the 3rd annual Midem Hack Day, which saw developers from all over the world get together for a weekend to turn ideas around music and technology into working prototypes. The outcome was impressive as usual, with applications ranging from music creation and audio manipulation, (e.g. Girl Talk in a Box, Music Collective or LeapMix), through artist support (e.g. SoundCard or Ephemeral Playback) to music consumption and just plain fun (e.g. VidSwappr or [EXPLICIT] Feedback)

Our own hack resulted in RadioMe, a radio app powered by the 7digital streaming API linked to last.fm and This Is My Jam that lets users run their own personalized radio station. Give it a try and let us know what you think! You can check out the full list of hacks created over the week-end here.

Our week culminated with the exciting BlackBerry 10 six city simultaneous launch which we attended in London and NYC.   The BlackBerry 10 devices boast fast browsers, new features, smart cameras and, unlike previous BlackBerry models, enter the market primed with a large application library… and an amazing music service powered by none other than 7digital!   We’ve been playing with the two new phone models and we love them already.

That’s our wrap for the week… now where are those Friday beers??