Y Combinator Backed Bop.fm Launches Embeddable Playlists, Furthers Mission To Change Way We Discover & Experience Music Online
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) May 22, 2014 -- Already being called the “Switzerland of digital music,” Y Combinator backed bop.fm today announces the launch of Embeddable Playlists, thus empowering the rest of the web to provide service-agnostic music playback and bringing us one step closer to the goal of a universal digital music experience.
One month after launching its new Playlist Grabber feature, which allows users to import playlists from other music services and make them easily shareable for everyone, bop.fm has made those same playlists embeddable on websites and blogs. For the first time, music bloggers and website administrators from all ends of the digital music spectrum can rely on one easily embeddable music player that accommodates all visitors, regardless of their streaming service membership, country, or device. Now, bloggers and reviewers can focus on the music, and their readers can rest easy knowing that no matter who they are, or where they are, or what device they’re using, they’ll have the same smooth, universal access to listen.
With Embeddable Playlists, an individual creates a universal playlist on bop.fm, which combines several popular music services into a single, comprehensive interface. The person can then grab an embed code for that playlist and paste it on his or her website/blog. When anyone visits that site, that visitor can easily play back that full playlist using her preferred music service, without having to leave the site or sign up for an account.
At the same time, a website administrator does not need to worry about broken or stale embeds, YouTube videos not being available in some countries, or Spotify songs not being playable by non-Spotify users.
“This is the closest anyone has come to a universal experience for music,” says CEO Shehzad Daredia. “bop.fm has already changed what it’s like to consume music online. Extending the power of aggregation to the blogger community, where so many fans go to discover new music, is just the next step in what we’ve always been striving for.”
bop.fm is a music aggregator that compiles offerings from all the major music services, allowing users to stream, watch or buy any song online, regardless of their country, device, or music service. bop.fm automatically searches music services like Spotify, Rdio, SoundCloud, YouTube, Deezer, Beats Music, iTunes, Amazon and Google Play, taking user-service arrangements into account to generate a single stream and single purchase link guaranteed to work.
With the launch of Embeddable Playlists, users are able to create service-agnostic playlists (or import them from other services) and share them on their site or blog, confident that all their readers can enjoy every song, even if some of the original links have gone dead.
All of this is, says Mr. Daredia, is in keeping with bop.fm’s original purpose.
"We approach everything we do at bop.fm, first and foremost, as music fans. We look at how we like to experience music, and we think of ways to streamline it. With Embeddable Playlists, if you’re a blogger, the only thing you have to worry about is exposing your audience to new music they’re gonna love. Ultimately, that trickles down to the fans, because now when they go to their favorite site, they know they’re not going to have to scour the internet trying to find a link to the song(s) that actually works.”
Mr. Daredia explains that the fragmentation that has characterized the music industry, and digital music in particular, extends in both directions. “It’s bad for fans and frustrating for writers, but more than that, it’s hurting the artists themselves, too,” he says. “They expend so much energy into distributing their content across several channels yet they don’t have an easy way to reach all their dispersed fans.”
With that in mind, artists from Linkin Park to Keith Urban, O.A.R., Capital Cities, Depeche Mode and Christina Perri have been sharing bop.fm links in their social media campaigns and embedding bop players on their websites.
"We decided to use Bop.fm because not only is it a great social media tool for fans to engage around content, it gives the artist a deeper understanding of their audience's listening profile, especially as it relates to streaming audio services. In a very short time we have already received actionable intelligence," says Kavi Halemane, EVP & Head Of Digital at The Collective, which manages Linkin Park.
Alex Pollock of Baron Global Inc, which manages Depeche Mode, adds "We've recently used bop.fm with Depeche Mode to commemorate the releases of various albums, as well as milestone performances in the band's touring history. By creating bop.fm playlists based on the album track lists and show set lists, and sharing these on the band's online presences, we have been able to easily create rich, engaging content and give fans a way to relive these albums and shows regardless of their choice of streaming service."
"We decided to market Christina Perri's new "Human" remix EP using Bop.fm because Christina has such a large international audience that consumes music on several different platforms. By sharing Bop links on our Facebook and Twitter pages, fans were able to seamlessly and immediately hear the songs via their preferred service. In this digital age, insight and analytics allow us to gain a deeper understanding of our audience and Bop was kind enough to share a rather detailed report that tracked each of our posts," says Ryan Chisholm, Nettwerk -- Manager, Christina Perri.
Artists and managers who use bop.fm in their social campaigns and on their websites benefit from the incremental revenue, increased fan engagement, and insightful analytics that bop.fm provides. Fans, of course, appreciate the integrated music experience. Now websites and blogs can benefit as well, as part of bop.fm’s overarching goal to unify the digital music landscape.
About
bop.fm is a digital music aggregator revolutionizing the way we discover, experience and share music online. CEO Shehzad Daredia worked at Billshrink, Rho Ventures and Kayak prior to co-founding Bop with CTO Stefan Gomez, formerly a senior software developer at Science, development manager at Billshrink, and UX engineer at Foodily. Bop.fm, still in beta, currently receives more than 100,000 song plays per day, and has partnerships with Deezer, RapGenius.com and others.
Shehzad Daredia, bop.fm, http://www.bop.fm, +1 (415) 508-6061, [email protected]
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