Pumping up Yahoo! Audio Search

It’s pretty understandable if you didn’t know that Yahoo! launched the Audio Search product a few months ago. This week, we decided to give it a little more prominence by giving it a tab on the Yahoo! Front Page. You can use it to find music from Yahoo! Music Unlimited as well as other, lesser-known services like Rhapsody, eMusic and that Apple product I keep hearing so much about. My good friend Ethan Fassett from Yahoo! Search gives the lowdown here.

It’s pretty cool, so check it out and tell us what you think.

Michael Spiegelman
Yahoo! Music

Introducing Yahoo! Music Italy and Yahoo! Music Espanol

Yahoo! La musica vorrebbe introdurla ai più nuovi membri della nostra famiglia internazionale – Yahoo! Musica Italia e Yahoo! Musica Espanol. (That’s Italian for Yahoo! Music would like to introduce you to the newest members of our international family – Yahoo! Music Italy and Yahoo! Music Espanol).

These sites are children numbers 7 and 8 in a rapidly growing family of free music videos for the people and very cool customised radio for all. Yahoo! Music already has a presence in Australia/NZ, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, and UK/Ireland.

With the launch of these sites no longer will you lie awake wondering, “Where in the world can I watch Gemelli Diversi’s cool new clip for ‘A Chiara Piace Vivere’?” ’cause now you know can see it here – http://it.music.yahoo.com/

No more will you feel like an ignorant fool when all your friends talk about the hot new reggaeton stars Daddy Yankee, Don Omar and Tego Calderon because you can listen to them all here – http://espanol.music.yahoo.com/

Goda. Goce. Enjoy.

Brian Boys
Yahoo! Music

Stein on Stern

[Editor's note: You might find it funny that someone named Howard Stein ran Yahoo!'s production team for our recent "Howard Stern Walks" event (I know I do), but it's true. I asked Mr. Stein to do a brief writeup for the ymusicblog.com about his experience pulling this thing off at the last minute and he was kind enough to do so. Enjoy. -ian]

I’m not sure exactly the details of how the Howard Nation webcast came to Yahoo! but when it did, it came fast and came hard. I was told two things: one, Howard knows your name; and two, get ready to be busy. All I had to start with was a basic idea — Howard was planning a rally outside the KROC building the morning of his final day on terrestrial radio, and Sirius was throwing a welcome/indoctrination party for him at the Hard Rock Café in Times Square. That’s it! The challenge was how do I work with Howard, Sirius, the Hard Rock Café, and the city—AND how do I fill over 5 hours of programming. I landed in New York the morning of Monday December 5th (5am to be exact) and it was non stop from the moment I woke three hours later at 8am. My first words to Howard were, “We want to break the Internet.” His response, “Go ahead I’m listening.” Needless to say it was an experience of a lifetime. In short, it went something like this…

Day 1: Plane delay, three hours sleep, King Kong, talent booker, bus wrap, webcast booth, Howard’s agent, eating, drinking, Starbucks, faxing, emailing, walking, taxis, dinner, sleep.

Day 2: Starbucks, snow, Bababooey, lying, cheating, subway, Howard, Stern show creative meeting, pitching Howard, Ronnie the Limo Driver, Benjy, the Green Room, Tom Chiusano, walking, eating, club soda, Starbucks, sleep.

Day 3: Host short list, Colin Quinn, Tom Green, John Stamos, Johnny Knoxville, Joe Rogan, Ben Affleck, offers, mayors office, film commission, permitting, transit strike, Sirius team, getting ambushed, FanGirl, Flickr, camera phones, printing, email, helicopters, cable cam, budgeting, eating, walking, cold weather, Starbucks, Jack Daniels, room service, sleep.

Day 4: Post production, testimonials, John Stamos, Colin Quinn, Howard’s agent, Beattlejuice, High Pitch Eric, Sheryl Crow, The Eagles, Ronnie the Limo Driver, Train, Joe Walsh, Velvet Revolver, Eddie Van Halen, Starbucks, eating, walking, weather, Jack Daniels, sushi, sleep.

Day 5: Location scout, tech scout, budget, map, hotel laundry, new gloves, Hummer, Robin, Fred, Artie, Yahoo! 360, Yahoo! Maps, permitting, Chief Smoker, transit strike, bad weather, walking, Tom Green, 56th and 6th, 57th and 5th, 7th, Broadway, Hard Rock Café, steak dinner, beer, sleep.

Day 6: Lloyd Braun, walking, cold weather, conventions, elevators, Buzz marketing, Bubba Gump’s, insurance, purchase requests, post production, podcasts, graphics, credentials, crew, lighting, cameras, transportation, transit strike, weather, permitting, budgets, check requests, eating, cold pizza, walking, cabs, elevators, Rob Schneider, Mayor Koch, Debbie Gibson, Drea DeMatteo, Dennis Rodman OnDemand, eating, sleep.

Day 7: Hard Rock, security, Infinity, permitting, weather, transit strike, plan b, plan c, plan d, no host, Howard100 News, JJ Ramberg, CNN, transit strike, bad weather, taxi’s, skirt steak sandwich, police, NASDAQ, Reuters, camera positions, helicopter, Ring Dings, walking, eating sleep.

Day 8: Research, printing, location scout, permitting, police, transit strike, Sheryl Crow, Hard Rock Café, Bababooey, Howard, FanGirl, maps, Yahoo! 360, hotel laundry, run of show, Whackpack, Bababooey, audibles, video ID’s, celebrity call in number, podcasts, sound design, mic flags, opening graphics, Pam Anderson, standards and practices, Dido, playlists, lobster and chicken pot pie, sleep.

Day 9: PR, celebrity guest list, meeting room, the W, the Westin, the Double Tree, permitting, Infinity, obscene gestures, the seven dirty words, rain, staging, mult box, simultaneous streams, cold open, legal, Bababooey, Howard’s agent, SAT feed, walking, below zero, taxies, room service, sleep.

Day 10: Howard, camera phones, credentials, Sirius, run of show, test run, profiles, Stern staff, Ronnie the Limo Driver, backline, Train, Martha Stewart, monitors, licensing, legal, contracts, Starbucks, Dido, music videos, post production, lower thirds, graphics, Chyron, no socks, monitors, crew, printing, email, credentials, permitting secured, transit strike, run of show, plan a, plan b, plan c, approvals, petty cash, transit strike, pretzels, sleep.

Day 11: Transit strike, Bababooey, Howard, Robin, Fred, Artie, press, credentials, transit strike, run of show, final production meeting, load in, camera, crew, transit strike, rain, walking, limo, dead cell, dead Treo, 12 voicemails, Dido, assets, sleep—TV on, transit strike looms. Day 12 (Showtime): 4am call time, NO TRANSIT STRIKE, rain, 56th and 6th, press credentials, com system, KROCK event, Hair, Make-Up, in-ears, security, 7000 fans, credentials, press riser, double decker bus, Howard’s agent, Mel Karmizin, Crackhead Bob, Gary the Retard, Access Hollywood, bus ride, audio drop, towncar, balloon drop, sound check, Yahoo! Music banner, Little Steven, Steven Baldwin, Randy from the Village People, Omarosa, Ralph, Scores girls, 10 minute bus ride, two and half hours of fill, press, wet Treo, Dido, Whackpack cam, VIP’s, red carpet, bugers, sun, Howard, Bababooey, Robin, Artie, Fred, Martha Stewart, Wendy the Retard, John the Stutterer, LAV mic, Sheryl Crow, Stephanie Cabral, photo opp., autographs, BIG SMILE, drink, drank, drunk, SLEEP.

What a wild ride! Never in my professional career have I experienced such a team effort– not only within Yahoo! side, but with Sirius and the Howard camp as well. For all three entities to play in the sandbox so well, all with one common goal was an amazing feat. I was truly lucky to have had this opportunity– and as Lloyd Braun said to me over a soda the day before, “This is a once in a lifetime experience, you’ll tell your grandkids about this one!” He was right!

Howard Stein
Yahoo! Music

YMusicBlog: Product Blog or PR Shenanigans?

I’ve been outed.

I wasn’t planning on opening the door to this site for a while yet. I was just trying to build a few stories up here so we’d have some back catalog (so to speak) when it all went live. That’s why no one but me has posted here, and it’s mostly a bunch of old posts from my personal blog. I’ve tried to get Lauren to post about the Shakira event and Michael to post about Message Boards 3.0 and Robyn to post about The Grammys and Howard Stein to post about Howard Stern (yes, Howard Stein on Howard Stern — funny, right?). But they’re all too busy doing real work to have turned in their assignments yet and I didn’t think anyone was going to be looking at the site so I told them to take their time.

But I guess we got some crossed wires with PR because they linked to the page and now Mr. Smarty Boots blogged about it and fifty people sent me his article inside of ten minutes.

That’s cool. Lets get this party started. Lauren, Michael, Robyn, Howard: turn in your assignments, please. It’s on.

What’s irritating is that Rubel (if you’re gonna call me Roger, I can call you Rubel) is questioning if this is a product blog or just clever PR. I’ll lay out the facts and let you decide:

1. It runs on a $40 Y! Hosting account just like anyone can set up at hosting.yahoo.com and I spent my own $9 with Yahoo! Domains to register the domain.
2. My boss did not ask me to set this site up.
3. The “initial post” he points to in his blog was posted on Nov 27th, 2005. That’s the Sunday of Thanksgiving break, which reeks of a “spare time” sort of project IMHO (as does this midnight work-related post…hrm).
4. The word “jackass” appears on this site, much to the chagrin of Ashley in legal (who is very very sweet and I mean no disrespect).
5. I am thus far the only person who has posted to this site and (the last time I checked) I don’t work in the PR department.

Of course I’m being sarcastic because I’m embarrassed at having been caught off guard. Steve has every right to question the intent of this site. Honestly, it’s just a way for the people who make the products to have a direct dialog with the people who use the products, in an effort to make better products. No more, no less.

Thanks for finding it news-worthy.

ian c rogers
Yahoo! Music

Yahoo! Music Presents The GRAMMYs

Hi everyone,

The world’s biggest music destination is now home to the world’s biggest music event. I am extremely proud to announce the launch of the Yahoo! Music GRAMMY site as the official online destination of the GRAMMY Awards. Not only are we serving up as much nominated music, downloads, and music videos as we can get our hands on, but we’re also bringing you exclusive goodies such as a these bios on new artists like John Legend, Fall Out Boy, and Ciara.

Plus, we’ve made Yahoo! Music Unlimited available to the 13,000 Recording Academy voting members to listen to entire songs in 29 complete categories before casting their votes. We hope this will make for the most informed voting population in the history of the GRAMMY Awards!

What are you waiting for? Fire up Yahoo! Music Unlimited and check out this year’s nominees!

Robyn VanTol
Yahoo! Music

Yahoo! Music Unlimited Wins Best Downloadable or Subscription Music Service

Wow. Thanks to the Digital Entertainment and Media Expo crew for awarding us the “Best Downloadable or Subscription Music Service” award, beating iTunes, Rhapsody, and Napster!

We’re flattered that you chose us, a 1.0 product, over these other great products. We’re working so hard every day on improving the product and there are so many things we’d like to improve, it’s a great boost for us to win an award like this. It shows that the spirit of what we’re doing is coming through!

Thanks again. Can’t wait to show you all the next version.

ian c rogers
Yahoo! Music