A Brooklyn, NY startup named miShare, has created a product, which could bring back the mating ritual of mixtape-swapping (but a modern version of it). The gadget allows you to swap music, photos, and anything else you can fit on your iPod.

Instead wasting a CD on a paternal love interest, you simply attach your iPods to the miShare to transfer your mix. Depending on their iPod and setup, they may or may not be able to listen or view the files right away. They may have to wait until they get home, since it swaps the files to the disk area of the iPod. The miShare works with all Mini, Nano, 3G, 4G, Video 5th Generation, and Classic 6th Generation iPod models.

The device retails for $99 and is available now.

Via: Crunchgear

(Image courtesy Design Continuum, Inc.)

By Andrew Liszewski of OhGizmo

It will be a long time before digital turntables completely overtake their analog predecessors, but you can’t argue that carrying a hard drive full of MP3s to a gig is a lot easier than hauling crates full of vinyl. And it’s that convenience aspect that the Design Continuum has taken one step further with their DJ GO concept. The system is composed of a set of MP3/CD turntables with a built-in mixer that can fold up into a convenient single package.

[ DJ GO ] VIA [ Gizmo Watch ]

Harmonix and MTV announced today the forthcoming release of Rock Band Track Pack Volume 1 for Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 2.

The 20-track booster pack features a mixture of old and new artists, including Weezer, David Bowie, Boston, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots, and All American Rejects.

All of the tracks are taken from the original master recordings. Track Pack Volume 1 will be available July 15th for $29.99.

Tracklist

30 Seconds to Mars “The Kill”
All American Rejects “Move Along”
Blink 182 “All the Small Things”
Boston “More Than a Feeling”
David Bowie “Moonage Daydream”
Faith No More “We Care A Lot”
Grateful Dead “Truckin’”
The Hives “Die, All Right!”
KISS “Calling Dr. Love”
Lynyrd Skynyrd “Gimme’ Three Steps”
Nine Inch Nails “March of the Pig”s
Oasis “Live Forever”
Paramore “Crushcrushcrush”
The Police “Synchronicity II”
Queens of the Stone Age “Little Sister”
Ramones “Teenage Lobotomy”
Smashing Pumpkins “Siva”
Stone Temple Pilots “Interstate Love Song”
Weezer “Buddy Holly”
Wolfmother “Joker & the Thief”

via: App Scout

Streamzy is simple to use: Search for music using the artist or song name, and select how many search results you’d like. The service goes out, grabs music from sites that host the music and make it available for streaming, and cleans up any bad results before you click Play. From there, you can click any of the songs in the search results to start streaming it, or drag it to the playlist window at the bottom of the page. The service starts you off with a default playlist; to add more you’ll have to sign up for a Streamzy account (free).

The service’s goal is to give you one place to search for music, stream it immediately, and save it for the future. Once you’re signed up, you can create multiple playlists and add as much music to them as you like.

Streamzy is a brainchild of Seeqpod, the same folks behind Songerize.

Part of what makes Streamzy so special is the fact that it draws upon Seeqpod’s broad database of music sources. You can find just about anything you might want to hear, and because you can save it all to playlists that you can return to, it’s almost like owning the music. In order to stay legal, the service doesn’t allow you to buy or download the music, so you can’t take your tunes offline.

Full story on Appscout

uRockHard. It’s a combination of a Facebook and YouTube world, allowing Guitar Hero playing posers to upload videos of their best jams.

You can view the works of others, from Karaoke, Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and there are even channels just for real musicians and even air guitar virtuosos.

Full post at Crunch Gear

A recent Wired article points to the fact that over 14 million units of Guitar Hero have been sold in North America since the game’s release in 2005. Will we look back 10 years from now and be able to point to the current popularity of Guitar Hero and Rock Band for all the great new guitar rock we will be listening to in 2018?

“The wildfire success of music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band is causing a subtle revolution in popular music — maybe not on the level of the British Invasion of the ’60s, but noticeable nonetheless. The games are bringing about renewed interest in the guitar, a music-making machine that’s been losing traction lately to turntables and laptops. Guitar Hero is like a gateway drug that’s getting a new wave of players hooked on guitar.”

“There’s even a videogame coming that promises to bridge the gap between game guitar and music lesson: Guitar Rising will purportedly let users play a Guitar Hero-type game using an actual guitar instead of a plastic controller.”

I can’t play a note a of music but have been to endless concerts and experienced the joys to truly love a band/artist or song so much you would do anything and travel anywhere to hear it performed live. I have felt those goose bumps and have had my eyes filled with tears when you know your in the presence of something magical happening on stage. When I was younger I pissed away my video game time on Space Invaders, Qbert, Mario Brothers and Zelda . Imagine where I’d be if I could have been rocking to Velvet Underground or crushing Metallica songs in my living room? These kids are being exposed to great music and if it leads to more guitar legends and gets kids out to concerts…..start cranking those games out monthly.

Check out the whole article over at Wired here.

Read my January post ‘Digital Jams’ here.

Will video games saves the music industry?

Rolling Stone wrote up these cool headphones today which are to be released soon by Skullcandy:

What It Is: A sweet looking pair of headphones that features an SD card slot that allows you to drag and drop music files directly onto the card for loading into the unit.

Who It’s For: People who want music on the go but would rather skip carrying around an MP3 player.

Why It’s Worthy: First of all, the headphones have a delightfully old-school look and feel, so they function as a throwback accessory as well as a music playing device. The speakers are dynamic and sharp, and the whole thing runs on a rechargeable lithium ion battery that only demands an hour of charge time.

Our Only Complaint: The unit only comes with a 512 MB SD card, which only translates to about 120 songs (and fewer if you prefer higher-quality files). Updgrade to at least a one or two gig card.

Cost/Where to Get It: $99.95; Skullcandy (Available June 1st)

Instoremarketing.org ran a story this morning about how Borders Books & Music last month unveiled a new concept store highlighted by a multitude of digital experiences. The first store to feature the prototype opened on Feb. 22 in Borders’ hometown of Ann Arbor, MI. The company plans to open 13 more in 2008, including a Las Vegas unit debuting in April and seven others in May.

The digital center has usurped a majority of the former music department, carrying a downsized inventory of product and a large amount of technological services. (Borders alluded to the change in its year-end financial release, reporting a decline in music sales and a plan to “reallocate floor space” accordingly.)

One of the neat features of the new stores is:

Borders Digital Music, which enables shoppers to burn CDs and download music to digital music players from the chain’s music library.

I think Border’s may be onto a new business model, one that Tower Records sadly did not have the foresight to develop.

Since many of us are bloggers, I thought that this information would of interest to everyone.

(Click logo for full story)

Top 10 Most Valuable Blogs

1. Gawker Media: $150 Million

2. MacRumors: $85 Million (Think this is ridiculous? Check out the traffic)

3. HuffingtonPost: $70 Million

4. PerezHilton: $48 Million

5. TechCrunch: $36 Million

6. ArsTechnica: $15 Million

7. SeekingAlpha: $15 Million

8. Drudge Report: $10 Million

9. Mashable: $10 Million

10. GigaOm: $8.4 Million

Full list & analysis here

We can all dream, strive and work ourselves onto that list somehow…

Found this over on Wired’s Listening Post blog. Muxtape is the latest service that lets users assemble mixtape-like playlists online.

It doesn’t get any easier than this. Register with your email address (no confirmation required), upload up to twelve MP3s, and that’s it. An online mixtape containing your songs will appear at the URL “username.muxtape.com”