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Soundtrckr May News

In Brief

This May soundtrckr welcomed Giuseppe Taibi as CTO, Marco Marotta as Lead Java Developer, Paul DiCristina as Designer, and Jonathan Kessler as Lead Symbian Developer. Soundtrckr 2.0 was redesigned, mocked up and built out, and is currently slated for release in late June. Finally, soundtrckr and The Echo Nest co-hosted a party at Pier 38 for the attendees of SF Music Hack Day.

 Giuseppe Taibi, CTO

 Giuseppe is a software engineer and Internet entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of Altoprofilo, one of the first Italian consulting companies exclusively focused on Internet-enabled business. After selling Altoprofilo to a private IT consulting group in 2003, Giuseppe founded SmartWorlds, a mobile software company focused on multimedia consumer applications. SmartWorlds' flagship product iShop won the "Most Innovative Use of Flash Lite" award from Macromedia (now Adobe) and was featured in the Wall Street Journal. Realizing that the real mobile internet was not yet available in the United States, Giuseppe put SmartWorlds on hold and joined QuitNet, the world’s largest smoking cessation program. During his tenure as chief technology officer, QuitNet went through 2 successful mergers; first with Axia Health Management and then with Healthways, a multi-billion dollar publicly traded company (NASDAQ: HWAY).

Realizing that the mobile Internet was finally becoming a reality with the introduction of the iPhone SDK,Giuseppe left his position at WEGO Health to resume operations at SmartWorlds, this time positioning the company as a top consulting firm for innovative mobile products. SmartWorlds has already helped one of its clients launch 7 apps in the App Store and has others in the pipeline.  Giuseppe holds a PhD in Software Engineering from the University of Palermo. His doctoral thesis is on Artificial Intelligence and Digital Signal Processing. Giuseppe was a Visiting Scholar at Boston University and has taught his own course on Applied Innovation in Mobile Computing at Harvard University Extension School.

 Marco Marotta,                

Lead Java Developer and System Administrator

 A Java specialist who has been developing software for over a decade, Marco has worked as a lead developer at major European Internet, media and telco companies including Virgilio, Jumpy, Telecom Italia, Enel and Deloitte XBS.

Jonathan Kessler,           

Lead Symbian Developer

 Jonathan has over 15 years of management experience with technology companies and general business enterprises. As VP of Technology and Business Development at DCTI, he negotiated and closed client contracts with OverStock.com and Expedia.com, and helped to create Aol’s first Video e-commerce site, Videos Now. Jonathan also served as Vice President of International Trading Systems at Smith Barney International, Asia. Jonathan is also an angel investor and advisor to startups including GetThere.com and Camino Networks. GetThere.com, a leading provider of business travel solutions to Fortune 500 companies, went public in 1999 (NASDAQ: GTHR) and was acquired in 2000 by Sabre Holdings Corporation (NYSE: TSG) for $757 million. Camino Networks, a VOIP software provider, was acquired by eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) in 2006 for $27 million, less than one year after the company was founded.

Mr. Kessler holds a BS in Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He has also received his NASD Series 7 Stock Brokers License.

Paul DiCristina, Designer

 An experienced user interface designer and graphic artist, Paul is the founder and proprietor of Paul DiCristinaDesign. Prior to establishing his studio, Paul was a design consultant at Microsoft and a software product designer at Onfolio and SilverStream Software.

 Soundtrckr 2.0

Featuring a redesigned UI, streamlined geolocation functionality, simplified social features, and an all-new look and feel, soundtrckr 2.0 is just about ready for launch.

 Music Hack Day

On May 15, soundtrckr andThe Echo Nest teamed up to co-host a party for the attendees of SF Music Hack Day, a 48-hour coding marathon held at Pier 38. After a long Saturday of demos,talks, open APIs, impromptu collaborations, and a who’s who of digital music companies,the soundtrckr/Echo Nest party was the perfect place to relax and recharge

Rules of the Bazaar .... Still so very true!

general rules

rule of the bazaar:
ladies and gentlemen, the game is outside
The customer comes first.  After that, our partner comes
first. Wins can’t occur inside the company as the game is
outside.  Internal alignment is necessary, but not a measure
of success.
The outside is also better because there is more oxygen
outside.  Lack of oxygen can seriously damage the brain.
We do not work to please our managers, we work to make
our customers happy.  Happy customers make sure we win.

rule of the bazaar:
use everything yourself
To be credible in mobile e-services you need to use as
many mobile e-services as possible yourself.  This cannot
be delegated or abstracted.

rule of the bazaar:
never spread negative internal rumours
Negative rumours are like contagious viruses.  They are
self-fullfilling prophesies.  They create unwanted realities.
Stop them.

rule of the bazaar:
in headwinds it is really important to know
exactly where you want to sail
Downwind sailing is easy, but may not take you to where
you want to be.  Competitive business is like sailing against
the wind.  You can’t just easily ride the wind and directly
arrive at your destination.  You tack. And tack. Repeatedly
back and forth.  To the inexperienced it may look like you
are lost.  Each tack may seem unprofitable, if viewed in
isolation.  The sailor knows every tack puts you in a better
position for reaching the ultimate goal.
But only if you really know where you are all the time, if you
sense the wind all the time, and if you have a very clear
destination.  Otherwise you really will be lost, and may end
up wherever the wind happens to take you.

rule of the bazaar:
you do not have to be good to be the best
Being good can be difficult.  Fortunately it can be even
more difficult for everyone else.  What a wonderful
opportunity to be the best.

rule of the bazaar:
it is not a joke
We are serious.  Some folks mistakenly assume we are
joking, but that is probably just due to their indoctrination
still being in progress.  Attitudes change slowly.

rule of the bazaar:
when in doubt, move
You may not be sure what path to take.  But you can be
sure standing still will not take you anywhere.  Use your
intuition and move.  Adjust later.

rule of the bazaar:
the rules of the garage rule!
The rules of the garage are cool!  This industry started in
the hp garage and it needs to show.  The hp way took us to
some of the best management practices in existence.
This is a good heritage to go forward from.

market rules

rule of the bazaar:
the mobile e-services market will be the
biggest market ever: 810 B$ in 2006
There are over 1 billion paying mobile customers today.
Services have more value for the customer than mere
information or content.  The mobile e-service utility
providers need to exchange more value between their
ecosystem and their customers, and will thus invest in more
services.  E-services are the most cost-effective way to
produce services on a large scale.
Face the numbers: All other markets, including the internet,
are subsets or niches compared to this.

rule of the bazaar:
everything is mobile
All people are mobile, even when they work.  They have
needs all the time, either private or professional.  They
need access to services and information all the time,
wherever they are.  People need to live their lives, not sit
behind a PC all the time.  The devices they will use to
access these services can be wired or wireless – the
people are mobile.
Mobility is a new paradigm, not a niche market.  The
internet is a subset of the mobile market.

rule of the bazaar:
enterprise is an important niche
The enterprise segment is an important subset of the total
mobile market.  Knowledge workers using PDA’s are one
niche within the enterprise market.
There’s a lot more consumers around, and over 1 B of them
already have mobile phones.  The total spend of all of them
will be a lot more than the enterprise market.  We should
not underestimate the consumer market just because our
comfort zone has been in the enterprise sector.
Besides, in mobile e-services we will reach the consumers
through mobile e-service utility providers, so it will be an
enterprise sale from our perspective.

rule of the bazaar:
content is king, services King Kong.  
customer is Godzilla.
Content is necessary and valuable, but services are content
with more value add.  The customer may pay for
information, but he will pay more for services.
What the customer pays for is the basis of the whole
ecosystem.  The customer relationship is the centerpiece of
the business model.

rule of the bazaar:
level playing field
Our objective should be to support those initiatives and
business practices that keep the mobile playing field level.  
Letting someone get into a dominant position is bad for the
whole industry.   
This is why slants, slopes and tilts are never in the design
specs of any football field.

rule of the bazaar:
who knows? we don’t
It is futile to try to be smarter than the market.  Many have
tried, and they are no longer with us.
Follow the market, lead with new initiatives, grow with the
ecosystem.  But do not assume you are wiser than the
market.

attitude rules

rule of the bazaar:
attitude is everything
Attitude of the possible.  Attitude of pathologic optimism.  
Attitude of winning.  Attitude of the company being more
important than any sub-optimization.  
Attitude of these rules.

rule of the bazaar:
don’t think, do.  think.
Careful and detailed analysis is a certain way of missing the
market in mobile.  Speed.  It is fine to think, but don’t wait
until it is perfect – do first.  Trust your intuition.  Think in
parallel.

rule of the bazaar:
sleep whenever
We actually provide sleeping bags for our partners.  
Sleeping encourages intuition.  Because of this all bazaar
facilities have been optimized for refreshing stretches of
uninterrupted sleep of up to 5 minutes at a time.
The obvious benefit of this brilliant arrangement is that
people can also work whenever.

rule of the bazaar:
do whatever it takes
When it has to get done we do it.  If it involves handling  
cardboard boxes, changing light-bulbs, operating fork-lift
trucks or moving furniture, it is fine.  Being over- or
undereducated is no problem.  You don’t really need an
agency to produce a video if time or budgets do not allow it.  
We just do it ourselves.

rule of the bazaar:
think big enough
Some things thrive with scale.  Some things can only work if
they become big enough.  But too big is bad too: it leads to
slowness and clumsiness.  Think big enough.
Most mobile players will need to be global.  The home
market just isn’t big enough, and the global opportunities
are huge.  Where you are headed is much more important
than where you come from.

rule of the bazaar:
everything’s fine at the bazaar
Naïve optimism is a sure sign of true bazaar spirit.  We
have no problem being silly by really believing we can
change the world.  Everything will turn out fine, and it will
because we believe so.  Mistakes are made, by us and by
others, but there is always a way to make it fine again – at
the bazaar.  Luck is always a factor, and we’re good at luck
here.
[this rule soon to be released as a music track by Kemopetrol]

rule of the bazaar:
boredom is not a corporate objective
Traditionally many aspects of business life have been
implemented without any great efforts to avoid boredom.  
Instead, stiffness and pompousness have been allowed to
tint the behavior of many business persons.
This will not be OK anymore.  Our customers and partners
do not only expect us to have all the traditional business
virtues and robustness, but they also expect us to be
interesting.  Fun.  Radical. Cool.  Human.

rule of the bazaar:
always look on the bright side of life
Experience shows that most mistakes, screw-ups and
downturns usually have some strangely positive aspect.  It
is wise to take full advantage of whatever ridiculously
insignificant advantage such situations offer – as the full
price of the mishap has to be paid in any case.
We might as well enjoy it just a bit.

rule of the bazaar:
we’re not here for a long time, we’re here
for a good time
Time flies at the bazaar.  Some people can spend almost
two weeks accomplishing less than bazaar camp
participants do in 60 hours flat.
Working at the bazaar can be so fun the European Union
actually has plans for classifying activities at the bazaar
under “leisure / sports / culture” as opposed to “work”.  This
may imply all bazaar salaries would become tax free.

rule of the bazaar:
arrogance sucks
We may be good and proud of it, but so are many others.  
Our success comes from partnering with customers and
bazaar participants, big or small, new or old, serious or
hilarious, from any part of the world.  We will always
assume they want and can do a good job, unless proven
otherwise.  They most often do.

rule of the bazaar:
act like you are
Being unique is a tremendous source of joy and pride.  Let
it show.  Never imitate, do your own thing.  Standard
business behavior is for the previous generation.  Act like
you are a human being interacting with other human
beings.
If you believe you are a leader you should act like one.  If
you do, other people may believe you are one, too.

rule of the bazaar:
tää on tätä
Accept the fact that many things in our environment and
organization are less than perfect.  Despite this the
fundamental nature of all things bazaar is that things just
seem to work out some how.  We do not pretend to always
fully understand how things work out, but luck is involved.   
So is attitude.  Less rational folks may want to call it magic.

rule of the bazaar:
if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the
sauna
It makes no sense to invest in a sauna in the first place if
you are not determined to go in, pour water on the stones,
and stay in.  What we do we really do.
This principle is also applicable to 500M$ investments in
software technologies.

rule of the bazaar:
…but nobody has done it before!!!
Exactly.

partnership rules

rule of the bazaar:
the more you do we do
We can do a lot for our partners and we prefer to do it for
those who ask us to.  And especially for those who like to
work with hp, and inject our technologies into their
solutions.

rule of the bazaar:
small is beautiful
Small gorillas are cute, easy to handle, friendly and eat less
than big ones.  The best way to guarantee a friendly big
gorilla is to be good to him when he is small.
In a new market there is no way of knowing early enough
which gorillas will be the big leaders, so the only alternative
is to play with all the small ones.

rule of the bazaar:
if you pay for it, it is not true love
The best things in life are free, and if you need to pay for
those it is no true partnership.  This is particularly true for
porting applications to the hp platform.

rule of the bazaar:
there is no exclusivity
We work with everyone, including your competitors.  We
have no problem with our partners working with our
competitors.  Ecosystems work on the principles of
simultaneous competition and co-operation.  In an
atmosphere of excellence exclusivity has no function.

rule of the bazaar:
the bazaar is always open
No reservations needed, the bazaar is always open for
business.  Come in for a coffee, hang around with no
particular agenda, book a meeting with us or another
partner, or arrange your customer event at the bazaar: we
are always open.  Trust people, avoid locks and stuff.
We also prefer technologies based on open standards, as
that encourages healthy competition.

rule of the bazaar:
share everything
The previous generation used to say knowledge is power.  
That seemed to make them happy as they had loads of fun
with their power games by controlling the flow of knowledge
and information.  This sub-optimization also very effectively
diminished the overall usefulness of the knowledge to their
ecosystems.
Fortunately our games are not power games anymore.  We
get our fun from success games, where the goal is overall
success for the whole ecosystem.  
In that game you share everything as quickly as possible.

leadership rules

rule of the bazaar:
act like a leader
Leadership in any market is at least 95% perception.  
Perception can be controlled by the way we act.  Being the
leader in mobile e-services means we have to act like the
leader in mobile e-services.
Leadership is attitude.  An attitude of setting the agenda.  
An attitude of defining the terminology.  An attitude of
inventing the concepts.  An attitude of winning.
You can’t lead by following (DOH!).

rule of the bazaar:
intuition beats planning
The rapid evolution of the mobile market has made 90´s
style detailed planning cycles obsolete.  While a level of
planning still is useful, winning will be based on the usage
of intuition, not detailed planning.
Intuition is the subconscious synthesis of all the wide range
of data and experience a person has accumulated, the
mass of which would be too large for conscious analysis.  
Intuition takes place in the right hemisphere of the brain.

rule of the bazaar:
we can do anything, but we can’t do
everything
Some stuff is more relevant than other stuff.  The other stuff
may also be important, but someone else may be better at it
than us.  We need to do the relevant stuff that nobody else
is better at.  In addition, we do the fun stuff.
And should we invest in a sauna we will actually use it.

rule of the bazaar:
an urge to control is futile
Control is for those who fear
and grow potted plants in their rooms
To grow an ecosystem you need chaos,
the rational chaos of a jungle or a reef
You can’t control jungles and reefs
so let go of fear, let go of control
Go with the flow, enjoy the speed,
and forget your futile urge to control
Be the nourishing stream of water,
be the light everything grows towards
P. Andler, 2002

rule of the bazaar:
question everything – especially standard
business practice
The fact that something has been done like this for 14 years
does not mean it will the best way to do it today.  The fact
that Harvard Business School said so in 1988 does not
imply it cannot be improved.  
It will be good to understand the basic reasons and full train
of logic behind any business practice before accepting it.

rule of the bazaar:
vision and action are interdependent
Vision without action is a daydream, action with no vision is
a nightmare.
Asking which one to focus on is the wrong question.  How
to have both in a balanced way is the right one.

rule of the bazaar:
we also sell chocolate bars
No deep business meaning behind this, but it seems to
make people happy.
Also see rules about doing whatever and selling peanuts in
the street.

rule of the bazaar:
finding reasons why not to do it adds no
value
Finding reasons why it cannot be done is easy.  In fact it is
so easy your company is not willing to pay for that service.  
Inventing ways how it can be done is valuable, and should
be rewarded.

rule of the bazaar:
enthusiasm is a good substitute for any
lack of skill or experience
This is true for dancing, and it sure is true for less serious
things like business.  Just do it if it needs to get done!  You
can say anything, if you believe you can walk the talk.  You
can do anything as long as it looks like you know what you
are doing.  Not having done it is what you will regret
afterwards.

rule of the bazaar:
it ain’t over until the fat lady sings
It may look like it is over.  The lyrics are gloomy, the tunes
flat, voices shrill.  Your fate decided.  Finished.
No!
Keep the faith.  Never, ever give up.  There are always tons
of shrill-voiced wannabees shouting off the top of their
lungs.  It can go on for a long time - until the fat lady finally
does sing.

rule of the bazaar:
not how, what
Doing the right thing is far more important than following the
correct process.  Doing the wrong thing exactly right is a
total waste of time and resources.  Doing the right thing in
the wrong way often still is pretty useful.

rule of the bazaar:
cluelessnes is relative
Iridium phones and Blackberries may look like the greatest
thing – if you haven’t seen anything better.  Downloadable
ringing tones are cool but not exactly the latest and greatest
in mobile services.  If one’s experience is very limited it may
appear as cluelessnes to the outside.  This should be
recognized and the decision making power of the person
needs to be in correlation with the limitations of his
experience.
From Carly’s Comdex speech in 2000:
“Here in North America we may think we are a mobile culture, but if we take a
trip to Tokyo or Helsinki it becomes apparent we are not”

rule of the bazaar:
you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to
work at the bazaar
Rocket science is overrated.  It is perfectly fine to have
doctorates in molecular biology, theoretical physics or
mathematics as well.

rule of the bazaar:
reality doesn’t occur – it is created
Reality is cool because it is so real.  We create reality
through self-fulfilling prophesies.  We become what we
want to be.  We may not really be responsible for any given
strategy X, but we sure can convince enough people to
make it real.

secret rules

secret rule of the bazaar:
we’re the ‘mob’ in mobile
A company who’s name we can’t recall may have been the
dot in .gone, but we sure ain’t gonna be the ‘less’ in
wireless.  We will be the leader of the mobile e-services
market, as Coke is in soft drinks or hp is in printers!
In case of doubt, please order your personal bazaarometer
test scale from bazaar@hp.com to test your mobile hipness
factor.

secret rule of the bazaar:
level playing field
Should a competitor be in a position to make money on
something we can’t, we should make the necessary
arrangements to stop them from making any money either.
Also known as poisoning the well.  A good example is app
servers and IBM.

secret rule of the bazaar:
any market share less than 50% is no
guarantee of leadership
As we need to focus our efforts on markets where we can
be the leader we have to make sure we work on those
where we have or can have more than 50% of the market.  
Otherwise someone else could be the leader.

secret rule of the bazaar:
when in doubt, use the bazaar
Differentiating hp from its competitors can be a challenge.  
Unless you have some really good aces up your sleeve, it
will always be a good choice to use the bazaar to
differentiate.  The bazaar rocks.

secret rule of the bazaar:
trust nobody
They will tell you it is strategic.  We will put all the wood
behind this one arrow.  We need to push this heavily to
everyone.
Next year, it will naturally be different, and a new strategy
will rule.  The partners and customers will naturally
understand it is good for them to forget the old strategy and
follow the new strategy.  We lead, and it is nice to rub it in
by leading first here, then there and finally back here again.

secret rule of the bazaar:
keep the ball in the opposite field
We absolutely must have numerous balls in the game at all
times.  The only way to cope with such a humongous
amount of moving balls is to keep them in the opposite field
all the time.

secret rule of the bazaar:
being a slave is a losing proposition
We’d rather sell peanuts in the street than be slaves to
anyone.  Our intellectual property is how we define the
agenda for our freedom.  Someone else’s intellectual
property sets our agenda for us.  And then we do what we
are told to do.
Live free or die.

secret rule of the bazaar:
don’t eat yellow snow!
The bright color may attract your attention, and you may be
tempted to believe the promises of partnership and
marketing money – but it won’t be good for your health.

secret rule of the bazaar:
No need to be wired, be weird
Unusual approaches create unusual results.  And let’s face
it: the world is pretty weird in any case.

secret rule of the bazaar:
the bazaar sucks
The bazaar has an incredible suction effect on all things
mobile.  This is clearly caused by the bazaar attitude and
approach which enables so many players to win and
succeed.  Bazaar – better than gravity.



Daniele Calabrese: The cloud is inevitable. It is the core foundation of Soundtrckr

With each passing day it becomes less of an insult to say someone's head is in the clouds, as more and more people begin to outright rely on web sites and applications like Facebook, Google Docs, Flickr, Farmville, YouTube and Hulu. Among these popular services are Slacker and Pandora, two internet radio services that have grown tremendously since becoming available as smartphone apps, and which have recently completed the three-screen trifecta by being offered on connected televisions. These services have always had plenty of online competition, including simulcast internet radio stations, streamed Sirius XM, and Rhapsody. But it appears as though the landscape of Internet music services in the US is preparing to accommodate two more game-changing newcomers from profoundly different backgrounds.

The first is a startup from Europe called Spotify, which has been winning fans across the continent in the five countries in which it is offered. Spotify's Open service represents something of a holy grail for on-demand music from the cloud: you can play any song in its catalog as often as you like for up to 20 hours per month for free, and share songs with your friends. The service gets high marks for its responsiveness. Becoming a premium Spotify member essentially turns the service into something more akin to Rhapsody, with no ads, better audio quality, and offline listening. Spotify has begun offering a private preview of its U.S. service to a lucky few, and is expected to be rolling out more broadly this year. 

The Spotify model of giving away online access to music on demand was pursued by a US company in 2007, but was abandoned because the licensing terms from the labels would have been too expensive. This startup was called Lala, a company acquired by Apple late last year. And while Lala wasn't able to offer unlimited streaming like Spotify, what it did offer was a free play of any song in its catalog along with other cloud-based niceties like a free music locker and streamed "Websongs" that one could purchase for a dime and upgrade to full-fledged MP3 files. Lala is being shuttered at the end of this month, just a week before Apple's World Wide Developer Conference. 

Perhaps iTunes hasn't been rewritten in Cocoa because it will be rewritten in HTML5.

But Apple's purchase of Lala isn't the only sign that the iPurveyor has web-based music ambitions. With the release of iTunes 9, the software's user interface became ever more web-like, and introduced web-accessible previews. Furthermore, in the aftermath of Steve Jobs' "Thoughts on Flash", it was noted by several observers that iTunes remains a Carbon app, rather than being built with the more modern Cocoa framework -- just the kind of technological lagging for which Jobs criticized Adobe. As iTunes is a cross-platform program, perhaps it hasn't been rewritten in Cocoa because it will be rewritten in HTML5. (It's a good bet that it won't be rewritten in Flash.) 

Exactly which pieces of Lala's service Apple will keep, discard or replace may not be known until WWDC (or later), but the new services plus the arrival of Spotify will certainly compete for attention and audience with Pandora and Slacker, and will likely create more options for accessing music without having to copy files around. The crowd in the cloud is about to get loud.

Ross Rubin is executive director of industry analysis for consumer technology at market research and analysis firm The NPD Group. Views expressed in Switched On are his own. Published by Engadget