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Mashable
Goombah Holding Starbucks Music Makers Contest Online
Aug 1, 2007
Kristen Nicole | Mashable.com
Goombah, the social music discovery site, now lets you vote for and download tracks from the 3rd annual Starbucks Music Makers Competition. The 49 semi-finalists have been announced today.
The online contest portion of the contest is powered by Goombah, and is extending voting rights to users. Listen to the music of the semi-finalists and vote for who you like best. Download the tracks that you like as well. Included in this promo is a Starbucks radio player, which has been created by Goombah. Email the player out to friends or put it on your MySpace, hi5 or Piczo profile.
The competition will take place at 7 different Starbucks locations in August and September as well, and the finalists will be chosen from both the online voting and the decision from the judges. The final performance will take place on October 11, 2007 at Hard Rock Cafe in Boston. The musicians that are participating will be able to extend their reach and hopefully jump start their career as well, given the distribution network of Starbucks and its dedication to indie artists.
YouTube is also holding a music contest, allowing submissions from users, and Babelgum has been partnering with several film festivals in a similar manner to how Goombah has teamed up with Starbucks.
Mashable
May 9, 2007
Kristen Nicole | Mashable.com
Goombah, the music recommendation and social networking community, introduces today user-controlled radio delivery of its taste-targeted music through a partnership with Napster.
With their Napsterís streaming service integration, Goombah users can now hear full-length tracks of recommendations in one stream, for free. Users can also listen to music in other membersí libraries just by queuing up hundreds of tracks at a time. While Goombah brings personalized recommendations, Napster enables Goombah to provide a radio-like stream for their music. Goombah users can view their recommendations by rank, artist, or genre and select all or part of the list to listen to. Itís a collaboration that works well for what Goombahís service provides, and allows them to provide additional value to their users without all the woes of building their own component that would do the same thing.
Combining Napsterís offerings with Goombahís own iTunes recommendation system will broaden the activities for site visitors, and could strengthen the Goombah community as well. Goombah released their Radio Free widget service last month, allowing users to download music that has been made available for free use, without DRM restrictions.
http://mashable.com/2007/05/09/goombah-napster/
Download Squad
Goombah music matching service is your friend
May 7th 2007 10:00 AM by Lisa Hoover
If you've seen one music matching service, you've seen them all, right? Think again. The Goombah music service doesn't just throw general recommendations at you that are loosely based on genres you select. This cool tool scans your iTunes library and makes realistic suggestions that are actually, you know, good. Don't use iTunes? Not to worry, other music players will be supported shortly. In the meantime, check out the Napster Play Button to stream music right to your desktop.
Goombah is a tool that's meant to be used in conjunction with other music services like Napster or iTunes. It's designed as a way to introduce music lovers to new music without relying on blind luck or random clicking at overloaded websites. Instead, your computer's music library is analyzed and compared to other members' lists with similar tastes so Goombah can make accurate recommendations. When you hear tunes you like, you're only a click way from purchasing them from Napster or iTunes.
Download Squad caught up with Goombah's CEO Diane Sammer to get a behind the scenes look at the service and find out where it's headed:
Download Squad: Tell us a little bit about the technology behind Goombah.
Sammer: Goombah is based on some pretty cutting edge technology. It is based on our patent pending distributed architecture which uses each Goombah member's desktop as part of the computing network. This gives us the ability to process each user's entire music collection rather than some subset of it and that big, broad data set gives us a lot of information to use when computing recommendations.
Download Squad: Does Goombah get smarter over time as it learns what you like and don't like?
Sammer: Goombah tracks your collection and what you are playing and adjusts recommendations accordingly. It keeps up with your tastes and what you're into at the moment.
Download Squad: Goombah's website has a free music section and Free Music Fridays. Is the downloadable music restricted in any way?
Sammer: No. All of the free music that you find on our website, inside the application or in our new Radio Free Goombah widgets is completely free and unrestricted.
Download Squad: Why did you choose to use the iTunes Music Player to analyze preferences? Do you plan on incorporating any other media players in the future? Any plans to support Linux?
Sammer: We started with iTunes because it has such a big base of users. You'll see support for other music players soon. If enough people express an interest, we will definitely support Linux -- if we have a groundswell from the Linux community we will absolutely pay attention to that. In the meantime, although the Goombah application itself is not supported for Linux, the Radio Free Goombah widget runs there.
Download Squad: Music lovers can have a ball with this service. What about music artists? Can they showcase their own music?
Sammer: Right now, we're working with labels to make music available to the Goombah community. Soon we'll have the tools available for artists of any level to submit their music for community distribution.
Download Squad: You've surveyed your members a couple of times in the last few weeks. What kind of feedback have you gotten? What aspects of the service do they like most? Where would they like to see improvements?
Sammer: Overall, our users favorite functions are as varied as the service with the top mentions being member matching,browsing other people's libraries, and of course the recommendations and free music. Some say they love the user interface and some say they would like it to change, so that's one area we are reviewing for change. We've added a lot to Goombah in the last year and a half and it doesn't flow as well as it could. Our users sometimes have to work a little too hard and we have a plan in place to change that.
Download Squad: What features do you plan to roll out in future releases?
Sammer: The next thing to go out will be the ability to play Goombah recommendations in Napster's free player so next week we'll release the Napster Play Button. It will be on the member recommendation screen and it will play recommendations and queue it on Napster. If you love Goombah now, you're going to be overwhelmed by it next week.
We are also working on putting more features to browse the community and play good music on the web. We have some cool things coming up with the Radio Free Goombah Widget as well as some cool collaborations with other great music companies. We have a busy summer planned...stay tuned.
Download Squad: Tell us a little bit about the funding behind Goombah that helped launch it. Do you plan to offer a premium service in addition to the free service?
Sammer: Goombah is free to users now and I expect that it always will be. The company is funded by the founders and a small group of friends, family and angels. The great state of Maine has also been very generous with its support.We received funding from the Maine Technology Institute last year which has helped immeasurably.
Download Squad: What's on your iPod?Sammer: I have a lot of great Goombah Free Music on my iPod. You can see for yourself by taking a look at my public proflle -- press the play buttons to play my music right from the website. All the Goombah Free Music can be downloaded from that page, too. If my music isn't to your tastes then Goombah will find the people whose music you will really like -- just download Goombah from and it will take care of the rest. Enjoy.
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/05/07/goombah-music-matching-service-is-your-friend/#comments
Digital Music News
Goombah Upstart Unveils Radio Play, IODA Partnership
11 April 2007
Alexandra Osorio
Portland, Maine-based Goombah, a recent music discovery and networking entrant, is now spinning a radio offering. The core Goombah application, which first surfaced in November of last year, allows users to pull personalized recommendations based on iTunes collections. That structure plays into a consumer sweet spot, and mirrors a strategy already in motion by London-based Last.fm and Apple itself. The service also encourages discovery and interaction between members, an approach that takes heavy cues from the social networking revolution. Now, Goombah is unveiling a radio offering that allows users to download and share content that suits their fancy. The concept, appropriately dubbed Radio Free Goombah, was first showcased early this week.
Radio Free Goombah comes prepackaged with a number of playlists, though members can create their own compilations. They can also embed the radio player within their personal profiles, into email messages, or onto any other allowable environment, a highly viral approach. The player offers another distribution platform for independent artists, who are often far more willing to allow unfettered access and sharing of their content. Fittingly, Goombah also showcased a content arrangement with San Francisco-based independent digital music distributor IODA. "Goombah is about music discovery, social networking and affinity,î" said Diane Sammer, chief executive of Goombah parent company Emergent Music "We are adding great music to our library through relationships with distributors like IODA, and launching services like Radio Free Goombah, to serve music lovers who want to find and share music and artists who want to reach their audience and new fans.î" IODA carries a roster of 3,000 labels.
http://digitalmusicnews.com/stories/041107goombah
Billboard.biz
Monsters & Critics
Goombah Launches Radio Service
April 10, 2007 - Digital and Mobile
By Antony Bruno, Denver
Music recommendation service Goombah has launched a new streaming radio service called Radio Free Goombah. The new service allows users to download and keep free music from a catalog of select tracks, generally organized into a variety of set playlists. These playlists can be downloaded and then embedded into blog posts, Web pages or emailed to others.
The company also has added to its library through a deal with IODA, adding more than 20,000 tracks from 3,000 member labels to the service. Other labels and distributing contributing to the Goombah service include The Orchard, Adrenaline Music, Iris Distribution and Indie 911.
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i908ab23ddf11fcfda0dc49177afbb987
http://music.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1290111.php/Goombah_launches_streaming_radio_service
Podcasting News
Radio Free Goombah Debuts
April 10th, 2007
Emergent Music, developer of the Goombah music recommendation and social networking community, has expanded its offerings with the launch of Radio Free Goombah. The new service allows listeners to download tracks, and to share them via email or by posting on web pages.
Users can enjoy playlists created or selected by Goombah, stock up on tracks from the Goombah Free Music collection, or share their own favorites from their Goombah profile. The company has also inked a deal with the Independent Online Distribution Alliance (IODA) to add tracks from more than 3,000 labels to its free music library, as part of its strategy to target professional free music to a broad audience.
ìGoombah is about music discovery, social networking and affinity,î said Diane Sammer, CEO, Emergent Music. ìWe are adding great music to our library through relationships with distributors like IODA, and launching services like Radio Free Goombah, to serve music lovers who want to find and share music and artists who want to reach their audience and new fans.î
Radio Free Goombah, users can develop their own radio playlists or listen to and keep music from the Goombah-created playlists. All of the radio players can be exported as a widget to post on blogs or web pages and emailed to friends. Goombah-produced playlists include Goombah Free Music Friday and Top Downloads of the Week.
http://www.podcastingnews.com/2007/04/10/radio-free-goombah-debuts/
Portland Press Herald, Frebruary 5, 2007
Do you Goombah?
http://www.mainetoday.com/iherald/070205goombah.html
...visible along the horizon are an expanse of musicians suited to you. Finally, your wall of frustration has been bulldozed and feelings of resentment left in the dust. You've even made a new e-friend named ConradA who may not get your sense of humor over the Internet, but surely takes his music collection as seriously as you do.
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CNET | Crave, January 24, 2007
Goombah helps iTunes users discover new music
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9680599-1.html?tag=head
...Goombah isn't a brand new service--the software was first available back in November 2006--but the company added a new feature this week, and the announcement reminded me I'd been wanting to bring it up. Goombah is a combination of software and service; that is, you download the software to your computer, but the service uses the Internet to access data--namely, other users' music libraries. It also makes your library data available to other users, so if you're big on privacy, this probably isn't for you. The download takes up a fair amount of space--155MB--and is available for both Windows and Mac systems.
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Wired News, January 23, 2007
Goombah Launches User Browsing
http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/01/goombah_launche.html
here are a number of music recommendation services out there, and even a decent amount that use your iTunes library as the starting point for recommending new music. But Goombah does things a little differently, due to its distributed architecture. Users install a free application (Mac or PC) that analyzes their iTunes music collections, grinds the data, and links them to the 20 Goombah users who most closely share their tastes.
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USA Today, January 4, 2007
6 online music services provide good tune hunting
http://www.usatoday
Guardian, December 21, 2006
The Guardian, UK, names Goombah as one of the top 100 most useful web sites.
Guardian's 100 Most Useful Sites
Boston Sunday Globe, December 3, 2006
Boston Globe, November 20, 2006
Digtial Music News, November 30, 2006
Goombah Mixes Discovery, Algorithms, Social Networking
The music discovery party is getting crowded, though the latest attendee is mixing an interesting cocktail. The start-up, called Goombah, offers a desktop download that analyzes an iTunes collection, applies an algorithmic sauce, and then matches the user with like-minded music fans. Then, the real discovery begins, as Goombah feeds users with recommendations from both paid and free sources. Users are also encouraged to browse the collections of other members, a feature that resembles a WiFi-based sharing feature within iTunes itself.
Goombah attempts to minimize user effort by analyzing an existing collection, a model that is also being pursued by Last.fm. That concept makes sense, especially given the prevalence of A.D.D. on the internet, even among super-dedicated music aficionados. The Goombah model actually probes into similar listener collections to create recommendations, a hands-free solution that taps into the power of community. "Music recommendations continually change as the community grows and are not only precise, but diverse and full of pleasant surprises," the company noted. Goombah was launched this week following a five month beta window.
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/#113006goom
Boston Herald, Novermber 26, 2006
Goombah can match your musical tastes
By Jesse Noyes/ Inspecting Gadgets
Boston Herald Business Reporter
Sunday, November 26, 2006
I'm a music snob.
My skepticism of other people's taste in music runs deep. And in my observation, the population of those who claim to love every genre but country has grown at an alarming rate.
So when a Maine-based company called Goombah called and asked me to try out its music-referral service I wasn't exactly bouncing excitedly in my seat.
But after a couple of nights playing with the service, I'm impressed with it.
Goombah works with iTunes by assessing your entire music library and finding others online with matching interests.
What's so special about that?
Well, Goombah's application is fairly target-specific, sorting not just according to genre but particular artists.
Example: I enjoy the slow-paced guitar of Jose Gonzalez, but iTunes classifies him as easy listening. That kind of title nearly made me think twice about downloading the album.
But when I had Goombah check out fellow Gonzalez fans to see what else they are listening to I didn't get back a litany of Magic 106.7 hits or an Amy Grant Christmas album. Instead, I found Devendra Banhart - a pretty good match.
Of course, Apple offers its own recommendation service on the iTunes music store. But Goombah is less limited because it bases its referrals on all the music in your library not just the stuff you buy on iTunes. That's a great feature since half the songs in my library were pulled off previously own CDs.
The whipped-cream topping from Goombah is that this service is free and available on its Web site, www.goombah.com.
The start-up hopes to reap a profit by offering free promotional songs by artists that match users' interest and by selling ad space. I downloaded at least 10 free songs they found for me, some I liked and others I didn't.
Using the service does evoke a certain mysteriousness, however. I kept wondering who some of these matching members were. Who is moose1226, I would think to myself. What does she or he do? And when did they discover The Notwist?
All vagueness aside, Goombah offers an intriguing service that can help broaden your musical library. It's easy to download and, since it's free, what's there to lose?
http://business.bostonherald.com/technologyNews/view.bg?articleid=169056