tunesBag

Job opening: Mobile Developer (iOS, Android) / Vienna / Fulltime

2011-07-07T08:34:00.004+01:00

Do you have a passion for coding and music (and maybe coffee)?

We're hiring - and looking for a Mobile Developer (iOS & Android), see all the details here.

Responsibilities

We expand our team in Vienna and are looking for a mobile developer.

You should be ambitious and have a passion for music and new technologies.
Your job will be challenging and rich in variety, ranging from cross platform mobile development to web development and release management/roadmap discussions.
We expect you to work in an independent and careful manner.
Travelling to partners in Europe and the US might be required.

Experience

Mobile app development experience (iOS, Android)
Java Web Development (SQL, REST, MVC)
Javascript (jQuery, JSON, Ajax)
Staging & testing experience (e.g. unit testing)
Version Control (SVN, git)
Completed bachelor’s degree & industry work experience
Fluent German and English (written and oral)

Compensation

Salary & equity is negotiable based on experience.

Sounds like the perfect fit? Please send your CV and references to jobs@tunesBag.com!

Image is licenced from Demion under the CC licence - source

Introducing the new BlackBerry Playbook client

2011-05-23T23:37:00.007+01:00

tunesBag for the BlackBerry Playbook is now available in the App World!

The PlayBook is a strong sign of life of Research in Motion - the device is no more than an entertainment killer engine with a high res screen, outstanding performance and an easy to handle operating system.

By introducing the all-new tunesBag client, you're able to connect your PlayBook to your cloud library (including your Dropbox tracks) in a minute and stream all playlists to your new shiny device!

Silicon Valley: Work, ADD & beer!

2011-05-22T02:24:00.003+01:00

So how is everyday life in the Silicon Valley for an Austrian company?

Blogger/Journalist Stefan Mey has visited us and written a story (in German) for the business paper "Wirtschaftsblatt" - check it out!

Image is licenced under CC By 2.0 (Shashi Bellamkonda)

Help improving the tunesBag experience!

2011-04-18T06:53:00.003+01:00

We're currently working with an user experience expert who helps us reworking the user interface.

If you're interested in an (personal or skype) interview showing how you think the perfect music experience should look like, please fill out this form!

Every participant will be rewarded, get your 20 GB space for free now!

tunesBag adding Dropbox support

2011-03-28T11:19:00.006+01:00

Stream your music stored in Dropbox to your browser, iPhone or Squeezebox.
tunesBag is now supporting Dropbox as source of your media files. There's no need to upload your music again, just connect your Dropbox to tunesBag and your library will be populated automatically!

Key features

Use tunesBag as your Dropbox Media Player
Stream your entire music stored on Dropbox to your browser, iPhone, Squeezebox or other devices
Stay in sync
Tracks added to Dropbox will show up in tunesBag automatically.
Optimized for mobile & Wifi Radios
Best-effort streaming bitrates for our iPhone or Squeezebox clients
Supporting mp3 and m4a tracks
Including smart meta tags optimization
Available for all users
This feature is in beta and part of every service plan. This might change in the future.

Important hints
Please check out our FAQ and provide us with feedback in case of any questions or problems.

Connect Dropbox to tunesBag now
Click here to establish the connection

tunesBag goes Silicon Valley (April - June)!

2011-03-28T10:09:00.010+01:00

Some great news - tunesBag has been selected by a jury of VCs and industry experts to join a three-months program in the Silicon Valley!

Co-Founder and Director Hansjörg will be based in Sunnyvale, the center of the Silicon Valley from April to June with the mission to introduce tunesBag to partners, pitch our project to investors and build a network in the Valley.

Let's grab a coffee!
We're based in the Plug and Play Tech Center, so if you're interested in doing business with us or just saying hello to a music startup from Austria, swing by! Please follow our twitter and Plancast account in order to stay in touch.

About the program
This trip is supported by the "Go Silicon Valley" initiative of the Austrian Foreign Trade Promotion Organisation.

Image Source: Google

Concerts database now integrated in tunesBag (powered by Songkick)

2011-03-07T15:35:00.005Z

Listening to a playlist using tunesBag is cool - but the same track during a live gig can be something you'll remember for years! (Think of the 360° U2 tour or the special atmosphere of a singer/songwriter gig)

But when is an artist on town and are there still tickets available?

To provide you with that information we've teamed up with Songkick, a startup based in London, UK. Every time you listen to a track we'll show you if this artist is on tour and the next locations. Just click on one of them in order to get all the details and prices for tickets.

Enjoy and cu at a concert soon ;-)

Short planned downtime Feb 23 9am CET

2011-02-22T16:29:00.001Z

We're performing a short software update on 02/23 at 09am CET which will result in a downtime of up to 20 minutes. Thank you for your understanding.

iPhone app now available for free download

2010-12-16T08:14:00.002Z

Our iPhone application is now available for free download!

Key features

- Stream your entire tunes collection and playlists to your iPhone without bothering about your iPhone's storage limit.
- Sort by artists, album or tracks
- Listen to your friend's playlists (only available in certain countries)
- Optimized bitrates for 3G/Wifi and EDGE
- Rate your tracks, recommend them to friends and write comments
- View the newsfeed of your friends
- Reasonabely priced premium plans available (More space)
- Do not worry about loosing your music, enjoy our safe backup!

How to start

1) Download the app
2) Sign up for a free account inside the App or at www.tunesBag.com
3) Sync your home music library and iTunes playlists with your tunesBag.com account
4) Login and enjoy!

The digital age music survey

2010-12-03T09:10:00.010Z

How many tracks do you have in your digital audio collection? Which players and devices are you using? Where do you buy your music? Are you happy with the naming/tag quality of your collection?

Please take part in our short survey in order to help us improving our service for you:

Launch the survey

Feel free to spread the word and share this link (http://bit.ly/dRnvJc) with friends and colleagues!

tunesBag moving to new servers

2010-11-13T11:06:00.005Z

We're moving our service to a new provider and therefore the IP address of the service will change today. Depending on your provider, it might take up to 2 hrs until you'll be connected to the new servers instead of the old ones.

Attention: Expect some performance improvements ;-)

Fix your MP3 tags with Magic MP3 Tagger before uploading

2010-10-19T12:15:00.004+01:00

We recommend you to clean up your library before synchronizing with tunesBag, but most of us own at least some tracks titled just "Track01" or with incorrectly tagged tracks.

There are quite a few programs out there for fixing these issues but our tests have shown that Magic MP3 Tagger is clearly the best solution for this task.

About Magic MP3 Tagger
This program will clean up your tags, identify your MP3 files automatically, supports online databases for up-to-date information and is easy to use! Interested?

Download the latest version now.

Highlights

Automatically fix tags
Edit and rename
Organize into folders
Internal music database
Powerful search
Look up album infos
Easy to use
Unlimited trial version
Supporting Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7

Malware idenfitied in ads / Ad Server update

2010-09-16T14:28:00.005+01:00

We're running on open source OpenX for ad serving and unfortunately there has been a security issue in the last release (OpenX blog). tunesBag and other pages like Tucows are hit by this issue and our website mighe be reported as "unsecure" when you browse to our page.

The bug has already been fixed by the OpenX team and we've updated our ad serving engine to the latest version. The ad server is running in it's own space and database, so no userdata has been affected. We hope that all users can enjoy tunesBag soon again and apologize for any inconvenience.

Update: Everything is running fine again!

Join the tunesBag Android Beta now

2010-09-07T10:16:00.005+01:00

tunesBag is coming soon to your Android phone!

You will be able to browse your playlists and library and listen to your tracks in an amazing audio quality even at a low data rate.

Before the app is available officially in the Android market, we invite you to join our closed beta. If you're not fine with an app still being in development, please wait for the final version - otherwise feel free to join us on this exciting trip ;-)

Click here to sign up for the beta

tunesBag streaming to Logitech® Squeezebox™ Players

2010-08-16T19:58:00.010+01:00

You can now access your entire music collection and playlists stored on tunesBag.com using your Logitech Squeezebox (e.g. Boom)!

Squeezebox owner? Click here for the setup instructions!

Multiple views
We've implemented various views and provide you with the following features:

Playlists (Your order & randomized)
Artists A-Z
Albums A-Z
Genre Radios (Play tracks by genre)
Recently played (Playlists)
Random tracks

You can control everything using your remote control, the interface and structure is kept very simple and works even for models without a Touch display or huge screen.

Why tunesBag on the Squeezebox?
Imagine coming home, just switching the Squeezebox on and listening to your favorite music without the need of turning on a computer or storage engine. Or using your favorite song for an alert in the morning. All you need is a working internet connection and carrying out some simple setup instructions in order to connect your Squeezebox device and your tunesBag account.

Your favorite music is always at your fingertips without a running computer or notebook, enjoy the power of cloud computing/storage!

I'm in! Where can I start?
Click here to read the setup instructions

That sounds very cool - where can I buy a Squeezebox?
You don't own a Squeezebox yet? Click here to buy one at amazon.com

tunesBag secures funding and support from INiTS

2010-06-01T23:09:00.004+01:00

We are proud to announce that our company is now a member of the INiTS incubator and will receive funding and further support!

As ReadWrite explained recently, the market for music is gaining traction with investors again (investments nearly doubled since the last two years) and indeed tunesBag is now part of this favorable trend - we have closed a deal with INiTS, the incubator powered by the university and city of Vienna!

INiTS offers funding, coaching and networking and aims at young professionals who want to start up their own company in the fields of technology, biotech and lifescience. Numerous companies powered by INiTS have been able to secure remarkable fundings or close deals with large companies.

An important milestone for our company!

Enjoy amazing artist images while listening to a track

2010-05-25T23:25:00.005+01:00

We've just launched a new feature - while listening to a track we'll automatically provide you with a compilation of artist images; the background of your player will be automatically adopted! On the right you can see an example for Radiohead.

We're using Flickr as main source for the images and only CC - licenced images will be used (with the proper licence).

You can disable this feature in the preferences (Section "Design").

Image Sources: 1 2

New "Minimal" - Skin: Very simple skin for your tunesBag player!

2010-05-25T21:41:00.008+01:00

Some of you asked for skins and today we've released the first one - it's called "minimal" and will reduce the number of elements shown on the page and use 100% of your available screen width. A picture is worth a thousand words, so here we've got two screenshots:

The library view
The playlist view

How to switch to the new skin?
It's very easy - simply log in, switch to the preferences in the user menu and change the Skin to "Minimal", Save the changes and reload - that's all you've got to do!

Tell your friends on Facebook which artists you like with a simple click

2010-05-20T15:40:00.006+01:00

It's now easier than ever to tell your friends on Facebook which artists you like! Below the player you'll now find the famous "Like" - Button and a list of friends and other users who also like the artist of the track you're currently listening to.

If you click on this button, a short item in your newsfeed on Facebook will be created (see the screenshot on the right) - a great way to tell your friends which artists you like and show your support for this artist! The list of your favourite artists in your Facebook profile will be updated as well.

Facebook Like = Fan on tunesBag as well
When you click on the "Like" - button you'll become a fan of this artist on tunesBag as well - there's no need to click several buttons, just use the "Like" - Button and you're done!

You can also perform this action on the artist information pages, just have a look for the "Like" - Button in the right column, check out our page on Goldfrapp as an example.

Drag and drop tracks to playlists

2010-05-13T22:50:00.007+01:00

It's now easier than ever to add tracks to a playlist - just drag the small grip next to the title and drop it on the desired playlist - the track will be added immediately to the given playlist!

Just login and try it out, this new feature really saves a lot of time and managing playlists on the web finally becomes very smooth! Don't have an account? Click here to sign up!

Edit meta info for multiple tracks simultaneously

2010-05-13T22:25:00.001+01:00

It's now possible to edit the meta information for several items simultaneously. Just select the desired items and click on "Edit".
In the edit dialog you can select which fields you want to update for all selected items.

Using this feature, it's possible to fix album names, the genre or the release year at once.

Network neutrality - why you should care

2010-04-23T09:45:00.004+01:00

I published a short column on Network neutrality in the current issue of e-media, an Austrian consumer IT magazine.

You should care about this issue as well as huge network providers are thinking about some sort of toll for services to use their networks with the best possible performance.

The concept of "net neutrality'' holds that companies providing Internet service should treat all sources of data equally. As a result the provider should offer always the best possible performance as it is your decision which service you want to use.

A real world example: You should be able to access tunesBag with the best performance possible no matter if the access provider is offering a competing music service as well. Data should be treated equally and the fact that tunesBag has no contract with your access provider should not lead to a worse connectivity to our service.

If you're interested in this topic, I recommend you to start reading the article in wikipedia or a summary at NYTimes.

33 startups from Germany/Austria/Switzerland to keep an eye on

2010-04-15T17:05:00.005+01:00

The leading german tech blog Netzwertig has published a list of 33 startups to keep an eye on - and it's cool to see that the Austrian music projects play.fm and tunesBag.com are among them!

"Oft genug dominieren US-Unternehmen die Schlagzeilen der digitalen Welt. Doch auch Startups aus Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz (D-A-CH) leisten hervorragende Arbeit.
Es folgt eine Liste mit 33 Internetdiensten aus D-A-CH, die uns bei netzwertig.com positiv aufgefallen sind und die man für die Zukunft im Blick behalten sollte."
Read more (in German)

Photo Source / Licenced under the CC

How Much Do Music Artists Earn Online?

2010-04-14T14:27:00.002+01:00

"Recently, the UK government passed The Digital Economy Act which included many, perhaps draconian, measures to combat online music piracy (including withdrawing broadband access for persistent pirates).

Much was proclaimed about how these new laws would protect musicians and artists revenue and livelihoods."

But how much money do musicians really get paid in this new digital marketplace?
Read some interesting numbers right here!

Pimp your tunesBag with a TuneBug!

2010-04-11T12:10:00.003+01:00

TuneBug is a ultra-portable sound generator, that turns many surfaces into a flat panel speaker - according to the vendor it should work with any MP3 player or Computer. Please let us know if you've pimped your tunesBag with this geeky device ;-)

tunesBag featured in the current issue of FORMAT

2010-03-12T14:33:00.003Z

FORMAT, an Austrian business magazin runs a story on startups in Austria in the current issue featuring the famous example of Jajah, founded by Austrian fellows who made a fortune with their idea. Together with a few other companies based in Vienna, tunesBag is featured as a project with an outstanding idea and business concept. Hooray!

Q: How can I upload my tracks and playlists?

2010-02-04T09:13:00.002Z

How can I upload my tracks and playlists?

We provide you with several ways to do that:

- Browser-based uploader
You can select multiple files to upload to your
account using just your browser without the
need of installing any software

- Desktop - Uploader for Mac & Windows
You can download our free applications for
Mac OS X and Windows in order to upload
your library. We recommend you to use this one
when you're planning to upload more than just
a few tracks.

You can find both products at http://www.tunesBag.com/ (Library > Upload)

Ask me anything

Uploader for Mac OS X released - Download now

2010-01-20T22:15:00.005Z

With the support of Christopher (@catlan) we've just released the first version of our native uploader for Mac OS X! Using this tool you can drag from iTunes and the Finder to the list of tracks to upload. The upload can run in the background without any interaction.

You can find the software by browsing to Library / Upload. Please let us know your feedback or bug reports at feedback.tunesBag.com

Playlist Artwork: Millions of free images at your service

2010-01-19T09:15:00.010Z

We don't just listen to music, we're open to visual impressions as well at the same time and I guess everyone knows the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words". Therefore we've enhanced the feature of adding images to playlists - you're (still) able to upload your own pictures and search for free images in the Flickr catalog!
Flickr is one of the largest photo sites on the net and a lot of people publish their images under the Creative Commons licence (which makes this feature possible).

How to search for a playlist image in the catalog
Click on the edit button (wrench) of the playlist to edit - in this case the name of the playlist is "Good Morning" and I would like to add a picture of some coffee beans or a cup of coffee.

Now click on "Browse/Search free images"

Enter a term, location, city name ... we'll search the Flickr catalog for you! If you like an image, just click on it to set it as new playlist artwork!

In our case, we've a playlist called Good Morning and as I said before, an image of a cup of coffee or something like that might fit! So we enter "Coffee" and receive quite a few results ...

I choose coffee love as artwork image and now the playlist looks way better than with the default image!

We're excited which photos you'll choose!

Meeting Ferry Corsten & Betsie Larkin in Ljubljana (Dec 09)

2010-01-18T10:50:00.008Z

During the Christmas holidays and after the launch of tunesBag I spent a night in Ljubljana where a gig of Ferry Corsten and NYC-based Betsie Larkin took place. I guess some of you might know the phenomenal DJ from the Netherlands and we really had a great time!

Don't forget to listen to the tunes we've added to your library - we're featuring some cool tracks of Ferry, Betsie and other artists there for you!

Hansjoerg (tunesBag.com), Ferry & Betsie

Remove prefilled items from your library with a single click

2010-01-11T12:47:00.002Z

Several users have requested a simple way to remove the pre-added tracks of your personal library - we just added a hint and link in the library view which enables you to do that (see the screenshot below). Of course, this action will not clean tracks you've uploaded yourself from the library.

Special offer for users who have signed up as far back as for the closed beta

2010-01-08T18:54:00.010Z

We now have a special offer for all of you who have already joined us during the closed beta - your feedback and support was key for our success!

Therefore we want to say thank you and offer you all plans for 1 EUR for the first year instead of the regular price! Just click on the "Upgrade" button and select the plan that fits for your needs!

You will pay EUR 1 for the whole first year no matter which plan you choose! Sounds fair, right?

The regular price applies after the first year (either the monthly or the yearly plan, you decide). Offer is only valid if you don't cancel the contract until the first payment of the regular plan, otherwise your featureset will be reset to the Basic package.

If you have any questions on this deal, please contact as (office (at) tunesBag.com)

Upload bug fixed - Security ruleset was too restrictive

2009-12-29T10:54:00.002Z

We've just fixed an uploader bug (browser / Desktop application) - certain audio files (depending on filesize / naming) have been ignored, a security rule to protect our engines has been set too restrictive. So if you've uploaded some files and not all of them appear in your library, please try now again. We apologise for any inconvenience.

tunesBag officially launched!

2009-12-23T14:23:00.012Z

It's the day before Christmas and it's a big day for our team - tunesBag has just launched (featured on TechCrunch, Lifehacker, makeuseof) and is now out of the closed beta. That means no more waiting lists and invitation codes - everyone's welcome to sign up and enjoy our service!

Some highlights of the new version:

Brand new interface
Clean and simple and a lot faster than the previous one
Premium services
A lot of users asked for more space and features - so here we go!
Explore playlists and artists
Just enter the name of your favourite artist. Please note that this service might not be available in your country due to licencing restrictions.
Easy signup & find your friends more easily
Sign up using your Facebook, twitter or MySpace account (or link to your existing account)

tunesBag teams up with young artist Betsie Larkin

2009-12-21T22:55:00.007Z

tunesBag has teamed up with the young artist Betsie Larkin out of NYC. Every new account is now prefilled with some tracks of her upcoming album!

About Betsie Larkin
Betsie Larkin is a vocalist, songwriter and guest writer/vocalist out of New York City. Her collaboration with Ferry Corsten on "Made of Love" and "Feel You" appeared on Ferry's album "Twice in A Blue Moon." "Made of Love" received overwhelming support from fans and the electronic dance music community.

Scheduled downtime this weekend

2009-12-14T21:49:00.001Z

We'll perform a major upgrade this weekend, so our service will enter a downtime on Friday (December 18) afternoon (GMT) and will be available again on Monday.

Help needed: Translate tunesBag into your native language!

2009-09-22T17:08:00.007+01:00

At tunesBag, we try to serve our customers with the best user experience possible and in the upcoming version we've improved the interface and usability a lot. An important aspect for most folks is the language of the interface - most of you are using products available only in English on a daily basis without any problems but in the end it often feels just more comfortable to use a product in one's native language.

As a consequence, we're adding new languages to tunesBag with the upcoming version and we've already found some brave users who helped us to update/add a Spanish and a French version to tunesBag. We now already have people for English, German, French, Spanish and Simplified Chinese!

So if you're interested in translating tunesBag to your language using a comfortable online tool (no messing around with word files etc), just contact us at office@tunesBag.com!

Screenshot of the translation tool

The Tower of Babel (photosource, licenced under the CC)

Updated Spanish translation now online

2009-09-03T16:35:00.005+01:00

Thanks to the help of a tunesBag poweruser, the spanish translation of our service has been updated.

In order to switch to the Spanish Version, click on "Preferences" and change the language.

Currently we're supporting English, German, Spanish and Simplified Chinese.

tunesBag Founder is in NYC Sept-Oct

2009-08-31T20:37:00.002+01:00

I'm in NYC for the whole of September/October and going to meet some people and attend several business related events (Open Coffee etc).

Beside that, it's a private fun trip as well, you might be interested in the blog I set up - Master the US.

-- Hansjoerg / Co-Founder tunesBag.com

Unexpected downtime tonight due to server center upgrade

2009-07-29T12:43:00.003+01:00

Our provider has upgraded the server center and our servers will be moved (again) to a new space - tunesBag will be down tonight from 09:30pm onwards for about one or two hours. Sorry for the inconveniences but due to a misunderstanding we've not been informed earlier.

The good news: The IP addresses will stay the same.

tunesBag on Digital Music Trends podcast

2009-07-28T11:03:00.002+01:00

I've talked to Digital Music Trends this week, listen to the interview now and subscribe to their podcast.

Music Hack Day London - Impressions & tunesBag API presentation

2009-07-15T09:04:00.003+01:00

Music Hack Day in London has been a cool event and people have been playing around with various APIs from last.fm, guardian, bbc, soundcloud etc. My personal favourite has been echonest - they provide track analysis services and a remix API.

Click here to take a look at the stuff & projects created at the event. There are quite a few photos on flickr, check them out.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37996583811@N01/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

tunesBag API presentation @ musichackday

View more presentations from funkymusic.

tunesBag is a little big star - Werbeplanung.at Panel 07/17/2009

2009-07-03T12:22:00.004+01:00

The Werbeplanung.at Summit 09 is the most important event for online advertisment in Austria this year. On friday (07/17/09) there's a panel called "Little Big Stars" moderated by Helge Fahrnberger where Startups from Vienna present their product, vision and possibilities for online advertisment.
Together with Clemens (tuplao), Christopher (soup.io), Thomas (popurls), Sebastian (tripwolf), Georg (play.fm) and Martin (Kununu) I'm looking forward to show that Austria/Vienna really has a prospering startup scene!

RIP Michael Jackson - Watch the Thriller video

2009-06-26T08:28:00.006+01:00

One of my favourite artists, Michael Jackson, passed away last night. Despite of all the controversies he's definitly the king of pop and I'll always keep in mind his great work as an outstanding artist. Below you can find one of my favourite tracks, Thriller (full version). Enjoy!

tunesBag @ Music Hack Day in London (July 11-12)

2009-06-21T14:31:00.002+01:00

I'll be in London at the Music Hack Day taking place in July - I think tunesBag with our full featured API is an exciting project in this context! I'm sure we'll have a great time!

European music sites are revolutionising the music industry, not least with their eagerness to open up their data with APIs.

We will be running a Hack Day independent from, but working with the companies at the forefront of this movement. We hope you'll be able to join us.

tunesBag provider switch done without any problems

2009-05-16T19:24:00.008+01:00

This friday we've moved our servers to a new server center in Vienna and tunesBag is now served from the ORF Medienhaus (home of Ö3, ORF Online & ORF Teletext) in Vienna. In this building Silver server is operating one of their datacenters and we're using the facilities of their partner nessus.at.

So far there are no problems with the new setup as it seems - in case you've found something not working properly, please let us know at offie(a/t)tunesBag.com!

Below you can find two impressions of our work on Friday ... the trunk full with server equipment and the transport of the hardware with a high-tech vehicle ;-)

Downtime on Friday - moving servers to a new housing center

2009-05-13T09:16:00.002+01:00

We're migrating our servers to a new server center this Friday and downtime will begin at about 10am and last for approximately 5 - 6 hours.

Our new housing center is operated by nessus and we're using the same facility as sms.at, Allianz Versicherung or Renault Austria.

Add tracks to playlists on the fly

2009-04-28T16:00:00.002+01:00

It's now easier than ever to add tracks to your playlists - just click on the "Add" button when you've opened a playlist and type in the first characters of an artist. tunesBag will provide you with a list of tunes performed by this artist stored in your library. To add the track to the playlist just click on the desired item and it will appear at the bottom of your playlist!

Now supporting playlist artworks

2009-04-28T15:43:00.005+01:00

A playlist needs some sort of individual artwork - it's now possible to add an image to a playlist! The image will be shown when playing the playlist and we'll add support to our iPhone and Desktop application as well!

In order to add an image to an existing playlist, just click on the edit icon and upload the desired image from your harddisk. We're supporting JPEG images with a max. size of 3MB.

tunesBag now supports custom artwork images embedded in audio files

2009-04-25T10:37:00.003+01:00

tunesBag now supports custom artwork images - images embedded in your audio files will be displayed when available. Note: This feature is only available for audio files uploaded from this day onwards.

Below you can find a screenshot of a podcast audio file with a custom artwork image.

Updated upload management - Tracks appear now much faster in your library

2009-04-13T19:17:00.003+01:00

We're proving you with several ways to upload your tunes collection to tunesBag.com - a native uploader for iTunes, by email, web upload etc. Several users complained last week that the processing of the uploaded items took quite a long time - this was caused by our precence on TechCrunch (Digital Music Streaming Startup tunesBag Releases Desktop Application) and a lot of people uploading a lot of tracks at the very same time.

Our service (including streaming to the iPhone & Desktop app) was online the whole time but this traffic hit was a good reason to adopt our logic of handling the uploaded files. We modified the system slightly and now the first tracks uploaded by you will appear much faster, usually within one or two minutes in your online library!

tunesBag launches Desktop Radio Application (for Win, Mac & Linux)

2009-04-09T10:20:00.009+01:00

Today we've released the first version of our brand new Desktop Radio Application. This application provides access to your own playlists and other public playlists without using a browser - it's a native player application available for Windows, Mac & Linux!

Below you can see some screenshots:

Player interface
Play/Pause, Skip, Browse the current playlist
Search
Just like in the web interface, enter a name of an artist (e.g. Coldplay), name of a playlist (e.g. Relaxed) or genre (e.g. Pop) - we'll provide you with a list of matching playlists!
Mini - Mode
A small window that stays on top and gives you control over the current playlist items

How to install the application

Install the Adobe AIR runtime (it's free and available for Windows, Mac & Linux): http://get.adobe.com/air/
Download and install our Desktop Radio application: http://tunesbag.com/res/download/software/desktopradio/tunesBagDesktopRadio.air

Have fun and let me know any feedback on this new feature!

Get recommendations for the currently played track based on your listening behaviour

2009-03-25T13:05:00.003Z

tunesBag is now providing you with listening recommendations calculated in real-time based on your listening behaviour and actions on tunesBag!

The recommendations are based on your actions like rating items, adding them to playlists, listening to playlists etc. Together with our partner Strands Inc we're collecting those anonymized meta data and in the right sidebar we'll provide you with recommended tracks you might be interested in.

Note that the recommendations are based on your own actions PLUS the actions of the whole tunesBag user crowd! This means we'll provide you with cool recommendations from day one of your tunesBag membership!

In case the recommended track is not part of your library, you're able to buy it with via iTunes / amazon mp3; of course you're able to listen to the track for free.

User interface updates & improvements

2009-03-25T11:03:00.002Z

We've updated our user interface again - we're now using the available screen space much better. In case you've added your own background image you will see that the sidebars on the left and on the right are semi-transparent!

What has been updated in detail?

100% width of the whole window (with auto-resizing)
Album artwork has been moved to the left bottom corner
Currently active playlist will be highlighted
Search history moved to the bottom in the left sidebar
New search box in the search tab
Sidebar on the right clean up - now with recommendations!
Rating / Add to playlist actions for every track now in the bottom bar
New popup menus will automatically fade out

Check out the updates!

Smart tag optimizer helps you to fix meta tags like artist, album, track number etc

2009-03-06T23:44:00.005Z

Correct meta tags (artist, album, name etc) are desperately needed in order to get the most out of your tunes collection. The range of benefits reaches from correct artwork to accurate last.fm - submissions and better search results. We've added a smart analysis component which inspects every uploaded track - this way even tunes with a track naming like "track 01.mp3" and no further information can be identified correctly!

In a two-tier process we try to fix the tags automatically first and will only call for your assistance in a second step. How to fix the tags of your items Click on the user menu and select "Fix meta tags" - this will launch the assistant querying you for a decision.

A short example what you can expect - on the left you can see the currently stored data, on the right our proposal (can be more than one).
How to launch the optimizer - open the user menu and select "Fix meta tags"

@wired: Show Us Your Favorite Album Artwork

2009-03-02T09:10:00.003Z

Wired.com is doing a ranking of the best album artworks ... submit your favourite album artwork or vote for one now!

The current top list:

Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon
Nirvana - Nevermind
London Calling by The Clash

Stream tunesBag to your HDTV set by using boxee

2009-02-27T12:27:00.005Z

We've added support for boxee to tunesBag! Now you're able to stream your tunes and playlists to your HDTV set and you're able to browse by using your remote control!

You can find the setup instructions here: tunesBag.com/boxee. Of course you'll need to install boxee first; download the software for free at boxee.tv.

Here you can see a short video demonstration:

tunesBag.com adds support for boxee from tunesBag.com on Vimeo.

Artists on twitter - a linklist!

2009-02-23T16:43:00.002Z

As said in the title, this post contains the link to a list of artists and bands active on twitter:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=phtgMLGe8aahYaH0pRs7VHg

(via @mugel / twitter)
PS: I'm on twitter as well - twitter.com/tunesBag

Repeat a track again and again and again ...

2009-02-23T15:37:00.002Z

We've added a new button in the bottom bar - you're now able to repeat the currently playing track as long as you would like, just hit the repeat button and you'll be able to listen to your favourite track again and again and again ...

DE: Die simpleshow erklärt das Musikbusiness

2009-02-21T10:49:00.001Z

Die simpleshow erklärt das Musikbusiness from simpleshow on Vimeo.

tunesBag loves twitter! See what twitter-users are posting about artists.

2009-02-15T16:21:00.006Z

We're now rotating comments from local users and tweets on the currently selected artist - this way you'll be able to get some interesting insights on the toughts of other people on this artist! People are posting a lot of stuff concerning artists - they're complaining about the latest album, giving recommendations or just describing situations where they're listening to this artist.

I've made a short screencast for this new feature, check it out.

By the way, you can follow me at twitter.com/tunesBag!

Artist biographies available

2009-02-15T16:16:00.006Z

We've added a huge number of artist biographies - just switch to the artist information page (click on the arrow next to the artist name in the library view) and we'll provide a summary and long version! Isn't it sometimes interesting to find out when a band was formed and some details about their history?

For a demo, watch my first screencast!

Software update caused problems - FIXED

2009-02-15T11:32:00.001Z

We run into some troubles with a recent upgrade to the tunesBag service and quite a few people might have received error messages on every second click or so. The reason was a bug in the caching engine of our application server but we've been able to fix it. Thanks for your patience!

Survey on Usability & Featureset - your feedback is welcome!

2009-02-06T15:01:00.001Z

Please take part in our latest survey on Usability and Featureset of tunesBag.com - click here to show the form. Thank you for your help!

10 Provocations on music business / copyright / futurists

2009-01-30T10:32:00.002Z

Andrew Dubber (New Music Strategies) has created a list of ten Provocations on the music business / copyright issues / futurists which are really worth thinking about.

Here we go:

01. Music is not a business
02. Copyright is redundant

03. Futurists are liars

04. The Record Industry is dead

05. Music has no value

06. Piracy is morally right
Read the rest ...

Think about these points, read the comments and try to find your own critical opinion on these issues!

tunesBag - problems with power outage at night

2009-01-28T11:06:00.004Z

This night we had a problem in our housing center, a power outage took down two servers. Since half an hour, everything is up again and all systems are running fine.

tunesBag Release 0109 - it's all about sharing & playlists (and bugfixes ;-))

2009-01-20T14:50:00.007Z

2009 will be an exciting and crucial year for the online media hub tunesBag - we'll leave the closed beta, enter the market and keep on improving the service. Currently we're offering our service to the participants of the closed beta and the feedback is just gorgeus - people love to have access to their tunes anywhere and anytime; especially in the office (This can be seen clearly because of traffic spikes during business days). A few days ago, we've release our new iPhone application to several testers and it' cool to see mobile streaming actually work.

The first highlight in this year is the new 01/09 release - we're already covering some of the exciting new features in this blog; in this post you can find a compiled best-of:

Listen to any public playlist
Looking for a playlist with the artist Jamiroquai or with some rock music? Just search for it, zap through the tracks with our pre-listen feature and link it to your library if you like it. Searching for new cool playlists has never been easier!

Search for artists, tracks, playlists or users in a new way
It's now easier than ever to find a playlist or user on tunesBag - just enter the desired term in the new search box and we'll crawl the whole service for data.

Share playlists, tracks or artists with other users and by mail, Facebook or myspace
Recommend cool tracks or playlists to friends with a single click, no matter if they're tunesBag members or not. We support e-mail, Facebook, myspace, twitter and some more services.

Overhauled user interface with new player bar
Take a look at it yourself - our aim was it to create a simple but cool interface for daily usage.

We hope you like the new version - please let us know any feedback at feedback.tunesBag.com!

Listen to any public playlist on tunesBag

2009-01-20T12:46:00.006Z

This is a major step forward - if you're part of the closed beta community of tunesBag.com, you're now able to listen to any public playlist on the system!

Together with our new search and the new privacy features we've introduced a cool new feature offering you to explore interesting playlists and even link them to your account. Just enter any search term (artist, track, playlist name/description/tags) in the search box on top and we'll show you corresponding playlists - see the example blow:

Prelisten to any playlist
If you're interested in a playlist, just click on the name and we'll provide you with a short snippet of each track - this way you can see which tracks this playlist offers. You can skip a track at any time and stop the prelistening mode. In order to make the listening experience as smooth as possible, we've even added a fading-in / fading-out filter so that prelistening really makes fun!

I like a playlist - how can I play it?
Simply click on "Play this playlist now" - this way you can play it. It's also possible to create a short bookmark for this playlist - just click on "Bookmark" in order to create a bookmark for this playlist in the left navigation.
Here you can see what a bookmark looks like - you can remove a linked playlist at any time by using the delete icon.

We hope you enjoy this new feature - please let us know any feedback @ feedback.tunesBag.com!

Ups, I've forgotten to mention one important enhancement - drag & drop support for reordering playlist items has been added and improved - check it out by yourself. Just create a new playlist, add some items and click on "Edit item / reorder".

Search for artists, users, playlists, tracks in a much easier way

2009-01-20T12:30:00.008Z

I have to admit - the old search function offered on tunesBag sucked and it wasn't clear at all that you've to change the selection to artists / album / user etc in order to search for a certain data type.

Now it's much easier - with a single search you can explore artists, users, playlists and of course search through your own library!

Just enter a term in the search box on the top - the name of an artist, playlist, user, track, tag or description - you're free to enter what you want and tunesBag will search through it's artist database, user list, public playlists and your own library. No more hassles with several search operations or such stuff.

Let's have a look at the output ...
You can see the list of artists (btw, if you enter White Stripes, we'll automatically find "The White Stripes" for you etc) - just click on an item to see more information about this artist. You can find a list of matching usernames - click on their name, check out their music preferences and maybe offer them friendship status on tunesBag.

As you can see the last five search terms will be stored - this way you can re-run the search with a single click at a later time.
We think that this new search is a major step forward in exploring new music and finding cool playlists - so check out this feature soon!

New privacy options - set general and item-based preferences

2009-01-20T11:51:00.003Z

Privacy is very important and although most people use playlists in order to express their preferences or music knowlege we've all playlists we would like to hide form the public or even from friends. Just image the president of an Aimee Mann fanclub listening to heavy metal all the time ;-) Or who admits having a perfectly adjusted 80's playlist with Rick Astley and friends? ;-)

To overcome these issues, we've introduced a bunch of new privacy preferences with our latest 01/09 release - in the Preferences dialog (you can find the link in the upper right corner) you're now able to define the general privacy settings for your account in more detail. This way, you can allow all users or just your friends to play your playlists.

Of course, the access to your library still will only be possible for your friends.

Privacy settings for an individual playlist
You can mark any playlist as private - this way even your friends will not be able to play your playlist or search for it. Just uncheck the "Public" property when creating a new playlist (or edit it).

Share tunes/playlists/artists with friends (on tunesBag, Facebook, twitter, myspace etc)

2009-01-19T18:02:00.008Z

People love to share recommendations with friends - especially when it comes to music. Image you're listening to a new cool tune and you would like to recommend it to a friend. Or a certain playlist is just gorgeus and all your friends on Facebook should know about it - in this case the new sharing feature comes in handy!

Where can I find this new feature?
You can find the new sharing button next to several data types including tracks, playlists or artists. See two examples below - the "Now playing" sidebar and the track listing:

How does it work?
When you click on on of the buttons, a dialog in the upper right corner will appear. Here you can select friends, enter email addresses (they will be saved for later re-use) and post your items to several services including Facebook, twitter or myspace. Additionally, you can find a direct link to use in Skype etc.
How does it look like in Facebook etc?
Here we've an example how a posted items looks like in Facebook - you can see the cover art, a short description of the track, your comment and the link for your friends.
What is shared exactly?
To stay legal, your original track will not be shared with the public, instead of that people will be guided to a general site with information about the track and further information about the artist / playlist. If available from public sources, people can play the track. See an example here: Feist - 1234.

Within tunesBag it stays the same as before - you can listen to the recommendations of your friends by opening the playlist "Recommendations".

Overhauled user interface: Cleaner, more simple and easier to navigate

2009-01-19T17:41:00.003Z

Our 01/09 release includes an overhauled user interface. We've optimized the structure and added several new elements.

The first one is the new header - here you can find now a search field (one input box for all data types, more to come soon). No more nasty selection, simply enter the search term and hit enter! Our new search feature will automatically search for users, artists, playlists and tracks. In the upper right corner you can find the most important administration links, a popup menu with further features plus the Sign Out link.
Please take a look at the brand new footer as well - the buttons for next, previous and play/pause are now much bigger and the slider will automatically adopt to the available width.

Upload client now preserves iTunes ratings and provides further benefits

2009-01-19T16:37:00.005Z

A new version of our uploader for Windows is part of the brand new 0109 release.

What's new in this version?

Rating information from iTunes are preserved
The tunesBag uploader preserves your iTunes ratings now. This way the Top Rated playlist etc will automatically be available on tunesBag.com!

Add manually uploaded files automatically to a playlist
Simply drag & drop files on the uploader and select the playlist to which you would like to add the tracks. Of course you can enter the name of a new playlist as well.

To update to this latest release, simply download the latest version and install it. You can find the software after the login when you click on "Upload".

Older flash versions might crash your browser

2009-01-14T16:32:00.002Z

I just tried to play around with tunesBag on a fresh windows setup and the browser kept crashing from time to time (using tunesBag and other websites). After some testing I found out that the default version of flash delivered with Windows XP is rather old and I had to update it (although the user interface is pure html/css, we need flash for media delivery).

In case of stability problems, you should do the same; just visit www.adobe.com and check out if you've installed the latest version of flash!

Netbooks / tunesBag - my learnings

2009-01-09T10:01:00.003Z

I'm a proud owner of a so called Netbook - in my case it's an Acer Aspire One. This device is really handy when it comes to checking mail, surfing around, watching videos or listening to music.

With the limited power/storage/screen resolution you can really see which sites have been optimized for the usage with these devices and which not. Facebook, for example, has got some real troubles - the page flow / layout is sometimes completley out of control.

At tunesBag.com, we're not planning a special version for these devices, but we'll take care of some things in order to make using tunesBag on Netbooks even more fun. In the end, all our users will benefit from these enhancements, so watch out for the upcoming releases!

Techstuff: My learnings about the Netbook and how to optimize services for them are:

Clean up the site structure, remove complex table structures etc
Reduce number of images
Use JSON instead of Ajax when possible (no visible updates)
Clean up your CSS
Optimize caching

Image Source: Flickr / mgminthu

All the best for 2009!

2008-12-31T13:54:00.001Z

We're just some hours away from 2009 and the whole team of tunesBag.com wishes you the best for the future!

Watch the status of your items in the upload queue

2008-12-22T15:05:00.002Z

In case you've uploaded a lot of tracks you might be interested in the processing status of your items - with the latest update you'll see the number of items in the queue and with one click you can show their processing status.

iPhone owner? Use the tunesBag app to stream your tunes to your phone!

2008-12-19T19:49:00.006Z

We're working on an iPhone application - with this cool piece of software you can stream your entire tunes collection to your iPhone / iPod touch. In order to join our efforts, click here for instructions on how to add the app to your phone.

Take a look at the screenshots below in order to get some impressions about the power of this app.

Planning the last update for this year: iPhone / Beta invitations / Bug fixes

2008-12-19T19:28:00.005Z

We'll release a new version of tunesBag in 2008 (some days to go ;-)) - this update will include some bugfixes plus exciting new features.

With the release of this version, we'll also send out the setup instructions for the iPhone application plus the next wave of invitations for the closed beta.

Remaining / played time display improved

2008-12-14T15:06:00.003Z

We've updated the display of the remaining / already played time - these values will now always be displayed in the format of 00:00 so that the interface stays the same and does not flicker (before it used to be e.g. 0:9 for nine seconds played, now it shows 00:09). No big deal but much nicer.

ORF futurezone covering tunesBag.com

2008-11-30T12:15:00.001Z

Just a short hint - tunesBag has been "futurezoned": http://futurezone.orf.at/stories/1500381/

ORF = #1National Austrian Broadcaster

Album artwork instead of artist photos in the playlists / Select multiple items at once

2008-11-27T16:43:00.003Z

A lot of people have voted for the display of album artworks rather than artist images in the playlist view - so here we go: The next update will display the album artwork if available.

What's new as well? A cool feature is back - you're now able to add multiple items to a playlist at once! Just tick the desired tracks and click on "Add to playlist".

Drag & Drop is coming to tunesBag (Add to playlists / resort playlists)

2008-11-27T15:55:00.005Z

With the next major system upgrade, Drag & Drop operations are supported by tunesBag - this way you can add tunes to a playlist by simply dragging tracks to the playlist shown in the left column.

Drag & Drop is also supported for re-arranging tracks in a playlist - just grab a track and move it to the position you like.

We're doing final tests at the moment and hope to release the new version tomorrow.

System upgrades this afternoon

2008-11-27T13:14:00.001Z

We're implementing a few updates and system upgrades this afternoon and evening, so there might be some problems or error screens. I will post some information about the new features later in this blog.

Bug fixed: Album listing is now working properly

2008-11-17T21:00:00.002Z

We've just fixed a nasty small bug - you're now able to filter your library by albums.
A second minor bug that has been fixed is the main slider - the length of the track is now handled correctly.

Track numbers are now correctly extracted from wma, m4a and ogg

2008-11-17T15:31:00.002Z

We've received some bug reports that the track number was missing when uploading m4a/wma/ogg audio files. This has now been fixed and the track number of recently uploaded tracks is displayed correctly in the liste view.

Interview with tunesBag - CTO at yeebase

2008-11-16T20:37:00.003Z

I've recently been interviewed by the "german crunchbase" named yeebase, a website dealing with startups, their technology and upcoming events in the scene. Read the interview to get some insights on technology we're using at tunesBag and if we've using Mac or Windows for development stuff ;-)

Updated user interface

2008-11-12T11:56:00.005Z

We've updated the user interface and rewritten parts of our display routines - log in now to enjoy the new features.

A short list of the most important news:

The player and controls are now located on top
Play/Pause now works correctly
The content window automatically sizes to the optimal width - this way bigger screens are used much better
You're now able to select tracks by genre/artist/album like you're used to by other programs
All playlists (including the ones of your friends) are now in an own tab
Simple arrow - links in the track list - a single click takes you to the artist page
Direct links to iTunes Store / Amazon MP3 when listening to tracks of friends
Standard view = library
New Dashboard contains the Followstream and important links
Dialogs received a much nicer layout and close button
Plus a lot of changes under the hood (updates JavaScript/Flash libraries etc)

Please let us know your feedback - just click on the "feedback" - button on the left!

Add an Idea for new features today and vote for it

2008-11-12T11:37:00.009Z

We've now implemented a simple feedback and voting system - just click on the feedback button located on the left and a dialog will allow you to enter a bug report or vote for new features. Let us know your ideas and what you think of ideas of other users!

Image below: The form to enter a bug report or submit an Idea.

This cool feature is provided by uservoice.

Next wave of beta invites coming soon

2008-11-12T11:30:00.001Z

Just a short notification - the next wave of invites for our closed beta will be sent out these days!

Chinese Democracy - will it really happen on November 23?

2008-11-07T09:45:00.005Z

If various sources are true, the album "Chinese Democracy" of the American rock band Guns N' Roses will be released in about two weeks - nothing special if this album would not have been already announced back in 1994! If there was an vaporware award in the music industry, this one would have made it ;-)

Picture Source: Flickr / hoodrat
Licenced under CC

50 websites you'll wonder how you lived without - tunesBag is one of them ;-)

2008-11-02T18:50:00.002Z

Do you know what Zoho, SlideShare, Blist, PhotoShop Express and tunesBag have in common? They are all part of the comprehensive list of 50 websites you'll wonder how you lived without created by US/UK techblog techradar.
Check out this list today and maybe you'll find some new interesting and userful services!

e-media: Music & more mit tunesBag.com

2008-10-31T21:55:00.003Z

In the latest issue of the popular Austrian IT magazine e-media I'm commenting on the future of the music business and how artists will make money in the future. Other comments in this article are coming from Hannes Eder / Universal and Martin Stiksel / last.fm.

I belive in a three - way model:

Online business - Ad-supported Streaming, Download-Shops etc
Live gigs / Merchandising
Physical sound carriers like CDs in premium versions, with Bonus material etc

Artists should definitly focus on the first two revenue streams, the third one will only be valid if you've a loyal fan base.
Extract (c) 2008 by e-media.

tunesBag & AirPort Express? It works, just use Airfoil!

2008-10-28T22:43:00.005Z

If you want to stream your tunes to your speakers connected to your Airport Express router, you should take a look at Airfoil - this tool allows you to stream any audio content to your speakers! A trial version is available for free, so check it out!

Fixed: Adding tunes by email

2008-10-27T21:20:00.003Z

We've just found out that several emails in the incoming queue (just send your audio mp3/m4a/wma/ogg files to YOURUSERNAME@incoming.tunesBag.com) have not been processed - the tunes you've added by using this feature should appear in your library within the next few minutes! Thanks to Nikolaus for his support & assistance!

OGG support fixed

2008-10-27T19:37:00.002Z

We've just fixed some bugs with adding OGG (Vorbis) files to your library - the tag parser has been updated and now everything with this file type should be working fine again. Thanks to Mauro for reporting this issue and his assistance!

tunesBag API information @ ProgrammableWeb

2008-10-24T09:02:00.002+01:00

Attention, developers - we've relased the first version of our full featured API - access, play, add tunes & playlists to playlists from your application or website - check out the details here: http://www.programmableweb.com/api/tunesbag, see the documentation at Google Code.

What you can do with our API:

List libraries and playlists
Play items (Streaming)
Add new items (e.g. upload tracks, create playlists)
Rate items, add comments
Send recommendations etc

Interested? Click here to request an API key.

(German) Russkaja, Guadalajara, Mauracher, Harri Stojka,78plus und Hörspielcrew - Benefizfestival zugunsten der Tschernobyl-Kinder

2008-10-23T22:34:00.004+01:00

A friend of mine, Martin Aschauer asked me for support for the GLOBAL 2000 festival taking place at December 17 in Vienna - read all the details below (German only).

Russkaja, Guadalajara, Mauracher, Harri Stojka,78plus und Hörspielcrew werden am 17.12 im WUK den unschuldigen, vergessenen Opfern der größten Atomkatastrophe ihre Stimme leihen. Es gilt sofort und effizient zu helfen. Die Lage ist dramatisch. 400.000 Kinder in der Ukraine brauchen jetzt unsere Hilfe. Wir bitten euch mitzuhelfen. Es arbeiten auch Topfotografen etc. die an diesem Projekt mitarbeiten und Kunstwerke versteigern. Bitte die Info weiterleiten. Danke!

Im Namen der Kinder von Tschernobyl bitten wir um eure Unterstützung!

*Guadalajara*

Guadalajara ist wohl die bekannteste und einzigartigste, im Punkrock verwurzelte Band aus Österreich, die durch ihre Mischung aus Ska, Rock, Swing, Punk, Reggae und Popmusik ihre Fans erobert hat. „Guadalajara“ ist ein Phänomen in Österreich. Mehr als 200 Auftritte im In- und Ausland überzeugten Tausende von Fans. Guadalajara steht für musikalische Vielfalt, jede Menge gute Laune und vor allem jede Menge Tanz. Nicht nur zu Weihnachten gilt es einen Schritt zurück zu machen und darüber zu reflektieren, was wichtig ist. Es kann nicht sein, dass 20 Jahre nach einer Katastrophe die Opfer im Stich gelassen werden. Natürlich kann man als Band nicht jeden Tag ein Benefizkonzert spielen. Wir wollen all den unschuldigen Opfern dieser Welt solidarisch unsere Stimme verleihen, Kindern, über die keiner spricht: Den Tschernobyl-Kindern. Darum haben wir gemeinsam mit Russkaja und GLOBAL 2000 dieses Benefizkonzert ins Leben gerufen.

*Russkaja*

Innerhalb der vergangenen 18 Monate schaffte es die außergewöhnliche Russian-Balkan-Ska Formation Russkaja vom angesagten Wiener Geheimtipp zur Crossover Kulttruppe aufzusteigen. Gemäß ihrer Selbstdarstellung steht /Rus//Ska/ für den Musikstil und das /Ja/ dafür, dass sie /dafür/ sind. Doch Russkaja will nicht die unschuldigen Opfer des Tschernobyl-Unfalls alleine lassen. Russkaja sagt dazu klar „njet“.

*Mauracher*

Das Album Loving Custodians von Mauracher zählt zu den Top-Alben des Jahres 2008. Als Weltverbesserer sieht sich Hubert Mauracher eher nicht. „Doch nach dem ich von diesem Projekt gehört habe, war klar: Ich will meinen Beitrag leisten. Es gehört auch einmal was gesagt, ein Zeichen gesetzt“, so Hubert Mauracher. Elektronische Musik ist wunderschön, kreativ, kraftvoll und energiegeladen. Da kann das Tanzbein schwingen, ganz ohne Atom.

*Harri Stojka*

Gitarrist, Komponist, Arrangeur, Bandleader, Sänger und durch seine Musik einer der bekanntesten Roma Österreichs. Harri Stojka ist einer der meistbeachtesten Jazzmusiker Österreichs. Den ehrlichen, ungefilterten Ausdruck und den unüberhörbaren Schrei nach Freiheit und Menschenwürde verbinden viele von uns mit Harri Stojka. Harri Stojka wird an diesem Tag seine Stimme den unschuldigen Tschernobyl-Kinder-Opfern schenken.

**78plus* *

für russisch, 78plus stehen für die bisher wohl stimmigste Synthese aus den historischen Klängen von damals und der digitalen Realität von heute. Der behutsam digitalisierte Sound vergangener Zeiten wird dabei nach Herzenlust zerschnitten, geschliffen und verbogen, durch den Sequencer gejagt und mit Sampler, Stimme und Synthesizer zu tanzbaren Popsongs geformt. 78plus, in Anlehnung an die Abspielgeschwindigkeit 78rpm der Vorläufer der 45er-Singles und 33er-LPs benannt, spiegeln in ihrer Musik ihre respektvolle und doch forsche Herangehensweise an diese Zeugnisse der Popgeschichte wider, die wohl dosiert und geschickt ausgewählt in einen Kontext aus Songwriting, Elektronik und Jazzeinflüssen eingebunden werden. So wie 78plus auf Technologien setzen, stehen sie doch für einen reflektierten Umgang mit ihnen. Deshalb lehnen sie Atomkraft ab und spielen lieber mit Ökostrom. Es geht auch anders. Tschernobyl hätte nicht passieren müssen. Heute heißt es, die Opfer zu unterstützen.

*Hörspielcrew*

Rap, Hip-Hop und Reggae pur mit dem Schuss Leichtfüßigkeit machen den Hörspielcrew-Sound zu einem musikalischem Multikulturellem-Gesamtkunstwerk. Hörspielcrew gehört zu einem fixen Bestandteil der österreichischen Musikkultur, wie nicht nur ihre Auftritte beim Nuke, im Flex oder auf dem Frequency belegen. In Ihrer Musik vereinen die sympathischen Burgenländer Sprache, Kunst und Lebenskultur auf neue, innovative, aber definitiv tanzbare Weise. Hip-Hop reflektiert die Gesellschaft. Die Gesellschaft sollte öfter sich selbst reflektieren. Heute ist so ein Tag. Wir können nicht wegschauen. Die Tschernobyl-Kinder brauchen unsere Hilfe.

**GLOBAL 2000* *

Die lösungsorientierte österreichische Umweltschutzorganisation GLOBAL 2000 feiert heuer ihren 26. Geburtstag. Seit 1982 arbeitet GLOBAL 2000 leidenschaftlich, hartnäckig und kompetent zu brisanten gesellschaftlichen Umweltthemen. Wir sind verantwortlich dafür, dass Österreich gentechnikfrei bleiben konnte. Unser Gentechnik-Volksbegehren gehörte zu den erfolgreichsten und nachhaltigsten in Österreich. Ob Temelin, Mochove oder Krsko, GLOBAL 2000 hat Stellung bezogen und aktiv für eine andere Energiepolitik gekämpft - nicht nur mit Presseaussendungen sondern durch aktives Handeln, Lobbying und wenn nötig durch Proteste. GLOBAL 2000 deckte den Pestizidskandal auf und konnte über das von uns entwickelte PestizidReduktionsProgramm erreichen, dass mehrere Lebensmittelketten ihre Pestizide in Lebensmitteln wesentlich senken konnten. GLOBAL 2000 arbeitet kompetent, kritisch, lösungsorientiert und selbstbewusst für gesellschaftspolitischen Umweltschutz. Eine gerechte, ökologische und sozial verantwortungsvolle und somit zukunftsfähige Gesellschaft ist möglich! Umwelt braucht Schutz. GLOBAL 2000 schützt sie in der täglichen Arbeit. Wir schauen dabei nicht weg. Wegschauen kostet nicht nur Geld, wie wir das aktuell beim Klimaschutz beobachten können. Ein Nichthandeln gefährdet nachhaltig unsere Gesellschaft. Oftmals bleiben dabei die Schwächsten auf der Strecke. Abseits von Medienberichterstattung setzt sich GLOBAL 2000 für sie ein. Eines unserer Projekte abseits der allgemeinen öffentlichen Aufmerksamkeit ist das Projekt Tschernobyl-Kinder, das im Rahmen unseres Geburtstagskonzertes heuer unterstützt werden soll. Es geht um Menschenleben.

Für GLOBAL 2000 war klar, die kleinen Opfer der Katastrophe von Tschernobyl nicht im Stich zu lassen. Seit 1995 organisiert GLOBAL 2000 deshalb verschiedene Projekte in der Ukraine. Sie reichen von humanitären Hilfstransporten, Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe über Erholungsaktionen in Österreich bis zur "Einzelfallhilfe". GLOBAL 2000 hat seit 1996 insgesamt 65 Hilfstransoporte und zahlreiche Einkäufe vor Ort im Gesamtwert von 2.820.000 Euro durchgeführt.

It's save to update to Flash Player 10 (tunesBag uploads)

2008-10-22T11:37:00.003+01:00

tunesBag is using flash for various tasks including the web based uploader which allows you to select multiple files at once. In the last few days Adobe started pushing out the update to version 10 and users of some popular services like Wordpress or Flickr reported that the uploader of these platforms is not working any more due to changes in the security model.
I've just tested the new flash player and all flashed-based features on tunesBag.com are working correctly - so if you don't need to use the upload features of the products mentioned above, we can just recommend you to update to the newest flash player soon - just visit www.adobe.com.

tunesBag goes Facebook - listen to your tunes while logged on at Facebook

2008-10-15T15:38:00.007+01:00

We're proud to announce our brand new Facebook application - you're now able to listen to your tunes on the most popular social network in the platform. By adding the first version of our tunesBag FB application you gain access to your playlists while being logged in at Facebook.

See an example screen here:

This is the playlist view - you can skip through the various tracks, pause the current track and change the volumne. We provide a popup player as well so that you can keep on surfing while listening to your tunes.

So be quick and add the application today - just click here . Please let us know any feedback in our Google Group or by using our feedback form.