Grant Manship

Joost Invites

I have several interests other than just music, one of them being technology and all the great things that seem to pop up daily on the web.  With that being said, I just got an email from Joost regarding them celebrating the launch of the new Joost beta, "Now For Friends."  This means I can invite as many of my friends as I want to try out Joost.  So who better to invite than all my loyal readers.  Even if you aren't one of my loyal readers and are just looking for an invite that's cool too but please, look around for a while and by all means come back from time to time!  I know what it was like trying to get a Gmail invite back in the day, as well as a Joost invite, so I feel like spreading the love a little.

So far I've been very impressed with the beta release of the software.  It's only going to get better too with several recent news stories revealing Joost entering into deals with several of the top content providers.  This week, for instance, will bring a host of over 40 new channels in the US including Adult Swim, five new channels from National Geographic, new channels like Spike TV from Viacom, comedy from Heavy, and classic series from Hasbro like The Transformers!

So anyway, leave a comment on this  post and I'll send you an invite to the email address you include.  If it takes a little while to send them out, based on the number of requests I get, please be patient.

Amie Street

I recently read about a new online independent music store called Amie Street.  The site and it's business model both look extremely promising. 

The basic premise is this, artists upload their songs which can be downloaded for free in the beginning but then the price of those songs fluctuates based on demand.  The maximum price a song will ever have is set at 98 cents.  Users of the site receive recommendation tokens for every dollar they put into the system and then free credits for music if the songs they recommend to other users go up in price.  Best of all, the music is completely DRM-free and can be played on any mp3 player.  In regards to the artists, they receive an astounding 70% of sales after an initial $5 is made.

Since the site's main goal is to encourage music lovers like ourselves to discover new music and then recommend that music to our friends, I say head over to the site and get busy!  I've enjoyed perusing the site so far and will report back with my recommendations as I make them.